MINISTER OF TRANSPORT (_speaking together_). "That's a rummy get-up. But
perhaps he couldn't afford anything better."]

Constant cross-examination on the Amritsar affair, involving the necessity
of framing polite replies to thinly-veiled suggestions that MONTAGU rhymes
with O'DWYER, is making the SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA a little restive.
The tone in which he expressed his hope that the promised debate would not
be much longer delayed distinctly suggested that his critics would then be
"for it."

Two days ago the MINISTER OF TRANSPORT expounded in a White Paper his
elaborate plan for redistributing and co-ordinating the activities of the
railway companies--the North Eastern excepted--and directing them all from
an office in Whitehall. By the Ministry of Mines Bill it is proposed to
treat the mines in much the same way. Sir ERIC GEDDES' scheme has yet to
run the gauntlet of Parliamentary criticism. Sir ROBERT HORNE'S had its
baptism of fire this afternoon, and a pretty hot fire it was. Miners like
Mr. BRACE cursed it because it did not go all the way to Nationalisation;
coal-owners like Sir CLIFFORD CORY, because it went too far in that
direction. The voice of the mere consumer, who only wants coal cheap and
plentiful, was hardly heard. The second reading was carried, but by a
majority substantially less than the normal.

_Thursday, July 1st._--Unfortunately the House of Lords does not contain a
representative of Sinn Fein and therefore had no opportunity of learning
the opinion of the dominant party in Ireland regarding Lord MONTEAGLE'S
Dominion of Ireland Bill. Other Irish opinion, as expressed by Lords
DUNRAVEN and KILLANIN, was that it would probably cause the seething pot to
boil over. Lord ASHBOURNE made sundry observations in Erse, one of which
was understood to be that "Ireland could afford to wait." The Peers