increase of rent on business premises by forty per cent. Lord SALISBURY
wanted seventy-five per cent. and haughtily refused Lord ASTOR'S sporting
offer of fifty, but on a division he was beaten by 25 to 23.

In the Commons Sir FREDERICK HALL complained that slate and slack were
still being supplied to London consumers under the guise and at the price
of coal. What was the Government going to do about it? Mr. BRIDGEMAN
replied that control having been removed the Government could do nothing,
and consumers must find their own remedy--a reply which drove Sir FREDERICK
into such paroxysms of indignation that the SPEAKER was obliged to
intervene.

Mr. KILEY'S gloomy vaticinations as to the disastrous effect of the Plumage
Bill on British commerce met with no encouragement from Sir ROBERT HORNE.
In his opinion, I gather, our foreign trade is quite safe, and the Bill
will not knock a feather out of it.

To Viscount CURZON'S inquiry whether the Allies were going to proceed with
the trial of the EX-KAISER the PRIME MINISTER at first replied that he had
"nothing to add." On being twitted with his election-pledge he added a good
deal. When he gave that pledge, it seems, he did not contemplate the
possibility that Holland would refuse to surrender her guest, and he had no
intention of using force to compel her. WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN, he
considered, was not worth any more bloodshed. In that case the Government
would save a good deal of Parliamentary time if they were definitely to
write him off with their other bad debts.

Among other methods of brightening village life the Ministry of Agriculture
has lately circulated "rules for the mutual insurance of pigs and cows."
The intellectual development of our domestic animals evidently proceeds