[Illustration:  HIS LATEST!

THE KAISER:  “This is sorry work for a Hohenzollern; still, necessity knows no traditions.”]

A Garden Glorified

Mr. Bonar Law has brought in a Budget, moved a vote of credit for 500 millions, and apologised for estimating the war expenditure at 5 1/2 millions a day when it turned out to be 7 1/2.  The trivial lapse has been handsomely condoned by his predecessor, Mr. McKenna.  The Budget debate was held with open doors, but produced a number of speeches much more suitable for the Secret Session which followed, and at which it appears from the Speaker’s Report that nothing sensational was revealed.

The House of Commons, unchanged externally, has deteriorated spiritually, to judge by the temper of most of those who have remained behind.  It is otherwise with other Institutions, some of which have been ennobled by disfigurement.

  A PLACE OF ARMS

  I knew a garden green and fair,
    Flanking our London river’s tide,
  And you would think, to breathe its air
    And roam its virgin lawns beside,
  All shimmering in their velvet fleece,
  “Nothing can hurt this haunt of Peace.”

  No trespass marred that close retreat;
    Privileged were the few that went
  Pacing its walks with measured beat
    On legal contemplation bent;
  And Inner Templars used to say: 
  “How well our garden looks to-day!”

  But That which changes all has changed
    This guarded pleasaunce, green and fair,
  And soldier-ranks therein have ranged
    And trod its beauties hard and bare,
  Have tramped and tramped its fretted floor,
  Learning the discipline of War.

  And many a moon of Peace shall climb
    Above that mimic field of Mars,
  Before the healing touch of Time
    With springing green shall hide its scars;
  But Inner Templars smile and say: 
  “Our barrack-square looks well to-day!”

  Good was that garden in their eyes,
    Lovely its spell of long-ago;
  Now waste and mired its glory lies,
    And yet they hold it dearer so,
  Who see beneath the wounds it bears
  A grace no other garden wears.

  For still the memory, never sere,
    But fresh as after fallen rain,
  Of those who learned their lesson here
    And may not ever come again,
  Gives to this garden, bruised and browned,
  A greenness as of hallowed ground.

News comes from Athens that King Constantine is realising his position and contemplates abdication in favour of the Crown Prince George.  It is not yet known in whose favour the Crown Prince George will abdicate.  In this context the Koelnische Zeitung is worth quoting.  “The German people,” it says, “will not soon forget what they owe to their future Emperor.”  This spasm of candour is not confined to the Rhineland.  The keenest minds in Germany, says a Berlin correspondent, are now seeking to discover the secret of the Fatherland’s world-wide unpopularity.  It is this absurd sensitiveness on the part of our cultured opponent that is causing some of her best friends in this country to lose hope.