* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, July 30th._--The _obiter dicta_ dropped by Mr. BONAR LAW in
the course of debate are gradually furnishing the House with an almost
complete autobiography. To-day it learned that while, unlike Mr.
BALFOUR, he reads a great many newspapers he does not include among
them a certain financial organ which makes a speciality of spy-hunting
in high places.

[Illustration: RAMSAY MACDONALD IN PARIS. "ARC DE TRIOMPHE! THE WORD
HAS A SINISTER SOUND."]

When the National Insurance Scheme was set on foot there were great
complaints because some Friendly Societies were not allowed to share
in its administration. Possibly the officials thought them a little
too friendly in their ways. One of them, we learned to-day, employed
an auditor who signed the return with a mark, like _Bill Stumps_;
while another auditor had a habit of signing it in blank and leaving
the secretary to fill in the figures.

Mr. ASQUITH used to allow his colleagues so much freedom of action
that his Administration was nick-named "the Go-as-you-please
Government"; and eventually it went as he did not please. But I cannot
recall under his gentle rule anything quite so free-and-easy as Mr.
HENDERSON'S visit to Paris. That a member of the War Cabinet should
attend a Conference of French and Russian Socialists at all is in
itself a sufficiently remarkable departure from Ministerial etiquette,