The House of Commons affords a splendid field—no better in the whole wide world—for the vain and ambitious who yearn for applause or crave for power. Any Member can easily emerge from the obscurity of the back benches into the full glare of the limelight. Let him but flagrantly break one of the rules of order, and his name will appear as a headline in a thousand newspapers. Then there are the material rewards. The young and ambitious are offered the dazzling prospect of office. The possession of any post in the Administration, even the humblest, carries with it a seat on the Treasury Bench, side by side with eminent statesmen whose names are household words. It carries also the right, when addressing the House, to stand at the Table before the famous despatch box, to lean elbow on it, and even to thump it, as an added emphasis in the very passion of argument, as was done by all the renowned parliamentarians of the past. It is true that keen and fierce is the competition for the higher offices in the Administration. The House of Commons, with all its constitutional supremacy as an institution, is composed of human beings. That being so, it is not free from the unamiable characteristics of intrigue and envy; and the qualities of resolute will and tenacity of purpose are, indeed, necessary in the ambitious young Member if he is to escape from being pushed aside or being trampled upon in the race for office. Once on the Treasury Bench, however, he has won half the battle for a post in the very hierarchy of the Government—the exclusive ring of Cabinet Ministers. Yet the number of men in the House of Commons without social or political ambition is remarkably large; men, too, who are absolutely unknown outside their constituencies. They are in Parliament literally for their health. During the day they are engaged in the direction of great industrial and commercial undertakings, and in the evening they go down to Westminster for that rest and recuperation which comes with change of scene and occupation. They find the duties of an M.P. very agreeable, on the whole. The responsibilities of the position sit lightly upon them. They find a joy in all the details of parliamentary life.