_Tuesday, April 17th._--The re-opening of the House of Commons found Lord FISHER in his accustomed place over the clock. What is the lure that brings him so often to the Peers' Gallery? I think it must be his strong sense of duty. As Chairman of the Inventions Board he feels he ought to lose no opportunity of adding to his stock. Quite the most striking feature of the afternoon was the pink shirt worn by a well-known Scottish Member, whose name I refrain from mentioning to spare him any additional blushes. It was of such an inflammatory hue that his brother-legislators at first took it for a well-developed case of measles (probably German) and sheered off accordingly. Nobody knows what caused him to indulge in the rash act, but it is hoped in the interests of coherent debate that he will not do it again. Mr. DILLON was so much disturbed by the apparition that, having started out to demand an immediate General Election unless the Government at once granted Home Rule to the whole of Ireland, he finished by declaring that he would be satisfied if they would promise to reform the franchise on the lines proposed by the SPEAKER'S Conference. Incidentally he drew a fancy picture of himself and his colleagues striving consistently for thirty-five years to convert their brother-Irishmen to constitutional methods; from which I infer that Mr. DILLON, very wisely, does not make a study of his own old speeches. [Illustration: PAPER SHORTAGE AT A GENERAL ELECTION. [The Political Slate (with Sponge) has its obvious compensations.]] As the engineer of two successive extensions of the life of Parliament Mr. ASQUITH offered whole-souled support to the proposal to give a third renewal to its lease. Apart from anything else, how could a General Election be satisfactorily conducted when there was a shortage of paper and posters were prohibited? "What's the matter with slates?" whispered a Member from Wales. If every Candidate paraded his constituency sandwiched between a couple of slates showing the details of his political programme, it would certainly add to the gaiety of the nation, besides providing an easy method of expunging such items as in the course of the contest might prove unpopular. A good many silly things have been said in the last month or two about HINDENBURG and his imaginary "line," but the silliest of all perhaps was the remark of _The Nation_ that the German retreat on the Somme "has found our soldiers wanting." This article naturally gave great comfort to the enemy, who possibly overestimates the importance of Mr. MASSINGHAM and the significance of the title of his paper. It also found its way to the British trenches, and caused so great an increase in the habit traditionally ascribed to the British Army when in Flanders that Sir DOUGLAS HAIG is understood to have suggested that an embargo should be placed upon the further export of such literature.