There is an erroneous impression that Mr. LLOYD GEORGE sits in his private room scheming out new Departments and murmuring like the gentleman in the advertisement of the elastic bookcase, “How beautifully it grows!” Up to the present, however, there are only thirty-three actual Ministers of the Crown, not counting such small fry as Under-Secretaries, and their salaries merely amount to the trifle of L133,500.  It is pleasant to learn that a branch of the Shipping Controller’s department is appropriately housed in the Lake Dwellings in St. James’s Park; and, in view of Mr. KING’S objection that the members of the Secret Service with whom he has come into contact make no sort of secret about their business (one pictures them confiding in this gentleman), it is expected that the Board of Works will shortly commandeer a strip of Tube Railway to conceal them in.

Tuesday, February 20th.—­In one respect the two representatives of the War Office in the House of Commons are singularly alike.  When answering their daily catechism both wear spectacles—­Mr. FORSTER an ordinary gold-rimmed pair, Mr. MACPHERSON the fearsome tortoise-shell variety which gives an air of antiquity to the most youthful countenance; and each, when he has to answer an awkward “supplementary,” begins by carefully taking off his glasses and so giving himself an extra moment or two to frame a telling reply.

This afternoon Mr. MACPHERSON’S spectacles were on and off half-a-dozen times as he withstood an assault directed from various quarters against the refusal of the War Office to admit the profession of “manipulative surgery” to the Army Medical Service.  In vain he was informed of wonderful cures effected by this means on generals and admirals, and even members of the Government; in vain Mr. LYNCH sought from him an admission that the life of one private soldier was more valuable than that of the two Front Benches put together.  All these attempts at manipulative surgery quite failed to reduce Mr. MACPHERSON’S obstinate stiff neck; and at last the SPEAKER had to intervene to stop the treatment.

The persistence with which a little knot of Members below the Gangway advances the proposition that all Germany is longing to make an honourable peace, and that it is only the insatiate ambition of the Allies which stands in the way, would be pathetic if it were not mischievous.  Mr. PONSONBY, Mr. TREVELYAN, and Mr. SNOWDEN once more argued this hopeless case with a good deal of varied ability.  A small house listened politely, but was more impressed by a masterly expose of the facts by Mr. RONALD M’NEILL, and an Imperialist slogan by Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD; while later in the debate Mr. BONAR LAW restated the national aims in the War with a cogency that drew from Mr. SAMUEL a generous pledge “on behalf of those who sit opposite the Government” to give Ministers their whole-hearted support.

Wednesday, February 21st.—­The House learned with satisfaction that crews of our river gun-boats in Mesopotamia are to get their hard-lying money; and when the authors of the Turkish communiques hear of it they are expected to put in a similar claim.