the Nationalist attitude towards military service Mr. BALFOUR might have
retorted that only belligerents would be represented at the Peace
Conference, but he contented himself with a simple negative.

There is an erroneous impression that Mr. LLOYD GEORGE sits in his private
room scheming out new Departments and murmuring like the gentleman in the
advertisement of the elastic bookcase, "How beautifully it grows!" Up to
the present, however, there are only thirty-three actual Ministers of the
Crown, not counting such small fry as Under-Secretaries, and their salaries
merely amount to the trifle of £133,500. It is pleasant to learn that a
branch of the Shipping Controller's department is appropriately housed in
the Lake Dwellings in St. James's Park; and, in view of Mr. KING'S
objection that the members of the Secret Service with whom he has come into
contact make no sort of secret about their business (one pictures them
confiding in this gentleman), it is expected that the Board of Works will
shortly commandeer a strip of Tube Railway to conceal them in.

_Tuesday, February 20th_.--In one respect the two representatives of the
War Office in the House of Commons are singularly alike. When answering
their daily catechism both wear spectacles--Mr. FORSTER an ordinary
gold-rimmed pair, Mr. MACPHERSON the fearsome tortoise-shell variety which
gives an air of antiquity to the most youthful countenance; and each, when
he has to answer an awkward "supplementary," begins by carefully taking off
his glasses and so giving himself an extra moment or two to frame a telling
reply.

This afternoon Mr. MACPHERSON'S spectacles were on and off half-a-dozen
times as he withstood an assault directed from various quarters against the
refusal of the War Office to admit the profession of "manipulative surgery"
to the Army Medical Service. In vain he was informed of wonderful cures