Something is at last to be done to reduce the growing plague of Questions.  Hitherto each Member has been entitled to put down eight Questions for oral reply on any one day.  But in future no one is to be permitted to “star” more than four Questions per diem.  Even that is regarded by some Members as an extravagant allowance.  Major HENNESSY, I understand, thinks “three stars” enough for any man.

“The Government is not a trustee for one class, but for all,” was the leading theme of the PRIME MINISTER’S firm and tactful speech in introducing the Coal Industry Commission Bill.  He was studiously conciliatory to the miners, but made it plain that they could not be allowed to put a pistol at the head of the general community.

The miners appear, however, to be in the mood of the little girl who said, “I don’t want to go to bed; I want to be in bed.”  The gist of eloquent speeches delivered on their behalf by Mr. HARTSHORN and Mr. RICHARDS was that the Government already possessed all the relevant facts, and should give the desired relief at once.  But they mustered only 43 in the Division Lobby against 257 for the Second Reading.

Tuesday, February 25th.—­Their Lordships resumed their debate on Industrial Unrest.  Lord RUSSELL attributed it mainly to ignorance—­on the part of the capitalists and the newspapers, who, with few exceptions, never gave fair play to Labour.  He was supported to some extent by His Grace of YORK, who declared that, after a perusal of the Labour Press and the non-Labour Press, he could hardly believe they were dealing with the same subject.

[Illustration:  PERSUASIVE PURRING.  MR. BRACE.]

Up to almost the eleventh hour the Committee stage of the Coal Commission Bill in the Commons was not encouraging.  The Labour representatives moved amendment after amendment, designed either to wreck the measure or to make the Commission a mere registration-office to approve their own cut-and-dried plans.

Mr. RICHARDS moved to omit wages and hours from its purview, but the House, brought up in the belief that Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark is but a poor play, voted him down by 270 to 40.

[Illustration:  MR. JOYNSON HICKS’S FAIR WARNING TO SIR ERIC GEDDES.]

Then came another question-begging amendment from Mr. ADAMSON, suggesting that the Commission’s inquiries into the possibilities of reorganising the mines should be limited to the single question of “nationalization”—­the “blessed word” of Labour just now.  This was supported in a capital maiden speech by Mr. SPOOR, an ex-pitman, whose father and son are both in the mines, and by Mr. CLYNES, who rather unreasonably complained that the HOME SECRETARY made SHORTT speeches; but it shared the same fate.