The total output of conferences in this country during one year has never been computed yet, but it is supposed to exceed that of any country in the world, except Red India. If there were to be a strike of conferents or conferees, whatever they are called, in England, it is impossible to say what would happen. But it might be possible to lay down a datum line--a shilling extra for the first million words above two hundred and fifty million per shift, and two shillings more for every million words above that. Fortunately this will never be necessary, for people who confer are so fond of conferences that they will never down chairs. And no wonder. Only a very strong man can hew coal, and only a very reckless one can make a speech, but almost anyone can confer if he has a large enough ash-tray; and there seems no reason why more people shouldn't confer. Everybody is interested in conferences, whatever they are about, and the British public ought to be admitted to this kind of thing. One is always reading in the paper that the sound commonsense or the traditional sense of fair play of the great British public will support the miners in any just claim; but this claim is not just or just isn't, or something of that sort. But how do they know what the great British public will feel about it? They aren't there, are they? There ought to be representatives of the G.B.P. on all these conferences. They ought to be chosen from a rota, like jurymen. Very likely one of them would have found out what a datum line is, anyway. There's a man who comes up in the train with me in the morning who thinks he knows, but unfortunately he gets out at Croydon so we haven't found out yet. By having a lot more conferences and having a lot of representatives from the public on them all, and paying them well for it, one could practically settle the unemployment problem for the winter. If the Government can only be brought to see that this is the only statesmanlike course, and the sole course consistent with the Anglo-Saxon sense of justice, and capable of leading to a satisfactory Exploration of Avenues, Finding of Bridges and Discovery of Ways Out, we may all achieve our life's ambition some day and open the morning paper to find that we are being read at last from left to right. "Mr. ROBERT WILLIAMS, Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, Mr. J. H. THOMAS, Lord RIDDELL," and so on and so on, till you come at last to "J. Smith, Esq., R.B.P.," smiling the widest of all. R.B.P.'s, I think, should wear a distinguishing mark--a single spat perhaps. EVOE. * * * * * MORE SECRET HISTORY.