Parliament has been seen at its best and worst.  When the Prime Minister rose in the House on the afternoon of the 11th to announce the terms of the Armistice signed at 5 A.M. that morning, members from nearly all parts of the House rose to acclaim him.  Even “the ranks of Tuscany” on the front Opposition bench joined in the general cheering.  Only Mr. Dillon and his half-dozen supporters remained moody and silent, and when Mr. Speaker, in his gold-embroidered joy-robes, headed a great procession to St. Margaret’s Church, and the ex-Premier and his successor—­the man who drew the sword of Britain in the war for freedom and the man whose good fortune it has been to replace it in the sheath—­fell in side by side, behind them walked the representatives of every party save one.  Mr. Dillon and his associates had more urgent business in one of the side lobbies—­to consider, perhaps, why Lord Grey of Falloden, in his eve-of-war speech, had referred to Ireland as “the one bright spot.”  This Irish aloofness is wondrously illustrated by the Sunday Independent of Dublin, which, in its issue of November 10, spoke of a racing event as the only redeeming feature of “an unutterably dull week.”  We have to thank Mr. Dillon, however, for unintentionally enlivening the dulness of the discussion on the relations of Lord Northcliffe to the Ministry of Information and his forecast of the peace terms.  Mr. Baldwin, for the Government, while endeavouring to allay the curiosity of members, said that “Napoleons will be Napoleons.”  Mr. Dillon seemed to desire the appointment of a “Northcliffe Controller,” but that is impracticable.  All our bravest men are too busy to take on the job.  Better still was the pointed query of Lord Henry Bentinck, “Is it not possible to take Lord Northcliffe a little too seriously?” But there are other problems to which the House has been addressing itself with a justifiable seriousness—­and demobilisation, the shortage of food and coal, and the question how at the same time we are to provide for the outlay of coals of fire and feed the Huns and not the guns.

And how has England taken the news?  In the main soberly and in a spirit of infinite thankfulness, though in too many thousands of homes the loss of our splendid, noble and gallant sons—­alas! so often only sons—­who made victory possible by the gift of their lives, has made rejoicing impossible for those who are left to mourn them.  Yet there is consolation in the knowledge that if they had lived to extreme old age they could never have made a nobler thing of their lives.  Shakespeare, who “has always been there before,” wrote the epitaph of those who fell in France when he spoke of one who gave

  His body to that pleasant country’s earth,
  And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
  Under whose colours he had fought so long.

[Illustration:  ARMISTICE DAY

SMALL CHILD (excitedly):  “Oh, Mother, what do you think?  They’ve given us a whole holiday to-day in aid of the war.”]