The Chairman, having first read a number of letters apologising for absence, one of which was, of course, from Lord Southbluff, who specialises in this epistolary form, proceeded to pour scorn on the Board of Trade's decision. How can the Board of Trade, he asked pointedly, know its business as well as we do? If it hopes, by curtailing the supplies of ink that come to England, to make room for the more important necessaries of life, it is mistaken. There is nothing more important than ink. (Cheers.) Without ink what are we? (A voice: "Not much.") Without ink, how can advertisements be written? (Cries of "Shame!") Among all forms of human endeavour none was nobler than putting one word after another. (Applause.) That is what SHAKSPEARE did. (Hear, hear.) Always with the assistance of ink. (Cheers.) And what would England be like without SHAKSPEARE? (Renewed cheers.) Had Mr. RUNCIMAN thought of that? He (the speaker) would venture to say he had not. In any case ink must be saved. (Loud applause.) Mr. Harry Austinson, Editor of _The English Revue_, rose to protest against the Board of Trade action. To put an embargo upon ink was, he held, nothing less than an outrage. Ink was the life-blood of British liberty, and he for one would never hesitate to spill the last drop, either in his own select periodical or in a Sunday paper for the masses. The mere fact that the feeling against ink was inaugurated by a Member of the Government automatically proved it wrong. No good could come from such a corrupt agglomeration of salary-seekers as the Coalition Ministry. Speaking as one who knew Germany from within, he would say that to put any obstacle in the way of the public expression of opinion in England was to help the foe. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Bernold Pennit said that the Government's action paralysed him. For years he had been in the habit of writing his ten thousand words a day. It did not much matter what they were about; the point was that they were written. Otherwise he could not keep in good health. Where another man might do Swedish exercises, ride, walk, eat or play golf, he, Mr. Pennit, wrote. (Hear, hear.) It might be an attack on British stupidity; it might be a eulogy of Mr. ASQUITH; it might be a description of the arrival of a ton of coal at an auctioneer's private residence in Handley and its transference to the cellar and the discovery that there was one hundredweight one stone short. Whatever the theme, there were ten thousand words in any case, and unless he could write them daily he was lost. The tragic thing was that he could write only in ink and with his own hand. (Sensation.) Before meddling with ink there were all sorts of things for the Government to forbid. Golf balls, for one. He wished to express his complete dissatisfaction with Mr. RUNCIMAN's insane proposal. (Cheers.)