"]
Parliament has reassembled, and Mr. Punch has been moved to ask Why?
Various reasons would no doubt be returned by various members. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to obtain a further Vote of Credit. The
new National Party wish to justify their existence; and those incarnate
notes of interrogation--Messrs. King, Hogge and Pemberton Billing--would
like Parliament to be in permanent session in order that the world might
have the daily benefit of their searching investigations. There has been a
certain liveliness on the Hibernian front, but we hope that Mr. Asquith was
justified in assuming that the Sinn Fein excesses were only an expression
of the "rhetorical and contingent belligerency" always present in Ireland,
and that in spite of them the Convention would make all things right.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Feiners have refused to take part in it. And not a
single Nationalist member has denounced them for their dereliction; indeed,
Mr. T.M. Healy has even given them his blessing, for what it is worth. Of
more immediate importance has been Mr. Bonar Law's announcement of the
Government's intention to set up a new Air Ministry, and "to employ our
machines over German towns so far as military needs render us free to take
such action."
[Illustration: A PLACE IN THE MOON
HANS: "How beautiful a moon, my love, for showing up England to our gallant
airmen!"
GRETCHEN: "Yes, dearest, but may it not show up the Fatherland to the
brutal enemy one of these nights?"]
In the earlier stages of the War we looked on the moon as our friend.
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