When the chief obstacle to laws is not the callousness of public opinion, but a mere block on the lines of procedure, some drastic change is due, a new departure wanted. Before the war many measures of reform hung in the wind year after year, not because there was no public feeling behind them, not even because there were the usual political cleavages concerning them, but simply because time could not be found in which to pass them. Of such were: Measures for the feeding and education of children; the control of drink; rural housing; improvement of slum areas; furtherance of the minimum wage; reform of the Poor Law; of the Divorce Law; of the disability that attends the needy in their access to civil justice; of the imprisonment of poor persons for debt; of the procedure in regard to pauper lunatics; of the prison system; of provision for the blind; measures for the better treatment of animals. All these and others hung in the wind; are they to go on hanging those when the war is over? Wanted before, they will be wanted still more badly then, because the general conditions of life will for some years, perhaps many years, be harder; and economic pressure fosters rough and unjust treatment. Is it too early for a united effort, to think out, in readiness for peace, a scheme of parliamentary procedure which shall afford time for the serious and uninterrupted consideration of non-party measures, and the furtherance of needed reforms? Party no longer exists, but they who think it has gone for good dwell in a fools’ paradise. As sure as fate it will spring up again, because it is rooted in temperamental difference. But must it come back with all its old cat-and-dog propensities, and waste of national time? It will, unless some method be devised that will remove some of party’s unhandsome opportunities and save it from itself. Politicians alone know the difficulties, many and great, in the way of a better procedure. Surely, while faction is in abeyance, Parliament will set its wits to overcoming those difficulties, so that when the war ends we may not witness again the tedious and distressful blocking of so many needed measures that prevailed aforetime. Party was made for the Country, not the Country for Party; and what was tolerated with Job-like patience before this vast upheaval is not by any means likely to be tolerated after. Needs will be more insistent; the sense of reality much greater; the aspiration towards National Health a live thing, because it will be so desperately necessary. Reform of parliamentary procedure is obviously the prime precedent for national reform. Shall not then the question be even now given all the attention that can be spared to it? What better moment—when men of all parties are filled with the one great thought—Our Country! V—A LAST WORD