A remarkable phenomenon of the time is the continuation of the grand traffic in public honours which reached such dimensions during the war. It cannot be thought that the party funds of the politicians in power are so low that they have to be supplemented two or three times a year. Yet on June 4th, for instance, behold once more new Barons, Baronets, Knights, Orders of the Bath, and Privy Councillors in columns of names. Over and above the heads of the ordinary English people a new aristocracy, if one can call it so, is being built up from the ranks of business men. The ordinary British citizen begins to feel in a vague way that there are now many thousands of new titled people up above. One wonders what it means for the future. Is England going to develop a new caste system which the commonalty will have to fight? There are now six barons of the Press, and "The Times" and "Daily Mail," the "Daily Telegraph," the "Sunday Herald," the "Express," the "News of the World," the "Daily Chronicle," and "Pall Mall Gazette," are, as it were, feudal castles and feudal organizations in our new England. It is enough to start a new War of the Roses. Lord Northcliffe has much in common with the king-maker if prime ministers are uncrowned kings. These Press barons in their way are remarkable men, but as the gates were opened to let them in a whole host of other people slipped through. It is a human weakness to desire decorations. It ought to be the function of a strong, wise Government to save us from ourselves. In the sixteenth century Spaniards gave coloured beads to Indians in exchange for gold. In the twentieth century something similar obtains in England where successful gentlemen part with large sums in exchange for tiny decorations. Perhaps the matter is not so important as it might seem to the theorist. Japanese students of our life make many strange deductions from such phenomena as the extensive manufacture of new titles of nobility. But whether they are right or wrong in their far-drawn conclusions it must be admitted that so much honour bestowed in such unremarkable days has made us flabby as a nation.