On Friday last Parliament met for the last time in
the session. The Commons returned to their discussion upon the Ministry of Pensions, whose new schemes of " stabilization " we recorded last week. They have given general satisfaction and little heed was given to the suggestion that as the Ministry was obviously not a permanent one, it would be well to begin to think of dis- banding it and to let the Post Office do its routine work. There was something more than decency in the general feeling of thankfulness that on the eve of the fourteenth anniversary of the Declaration of War, although memories to-day surprise us by their shortness in some directions, the country shows no sign of forgetting its debt of gratitude to the War pensioners. The Royal Assent was then given in the House of Lords to more than a hundred Acts, a rich harvest in quantity and on the whole of satisfactory quality. The Prorogation followed and the King's Speech was read. We have quoted the reference to the Peace Pact. The Speech also recorded the satis- factory results of diplomacy over the Tangier Statute and the Treaty with Persia. In Imperial matters it referred to the approval so far shown of the Wireless and Cables Conference's Report, to the Constitutional changes adopted or proposed in British Guiana and Ceylon, and to the Report of the Commissioners on Agriculture and Rural Economy in British India. In home affairs the anxiety caused by unemployment and the state of basic industries was not minimized. Henceforward until November silence will reign in the Palace of Westminster.
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