_The Tocsin_ did not refer to the matter at all. Mr Strummery opened _The Scythe_, and was rather surprised to see, beneath five lines of heavy heading on the leader page, a full account of Sir John Hampden's sudden move. Instinctively his eye turned to the leader columns. As he had half expected there was a leader on the subject, not very long but wholly benedictory. In rather less measured phrases than the premier organ usually adopted and with other signs of haste, readers were urged to enter whole-heartedly into this development of bloodless civil war of which the impending Personal Property Act had been the first unmasked blow. He glanced on, not troubling about the views advanced until a casual statement drew a smothered exclamation from his lips. "An argument which will be used in a practical form by the five million adult members now on the books of the League--" ran the carelessly-dropped information. "It is a lie--a deliberately misleading lie," muttered the Premier angrily; but it was the truth. He read on. The article concluded: "In this connection the strong action taken by M. Gavard, as indicated in the telegrams from Paris which we print elsewhere, may be purely a coincidence, but it is curiously akin to those 'mathematical coincidences' that fall into their places in a well-planned campaign." Mr Strummery had no difficulty in finding the telegrams alluded to. Rushed through in frantic haste, the type had stood a hair's breadth higher than it should, and in the resulting blackness the words of the headlines leapt to meet his eye. THE INDUSTRIAL WAR IN FRANCE PROHIBITIVE TAX ON COAL _From Our Special Correspondent_ PARIS _Wednesday Night._ "It is authoritatively stated that the industrial crisis which has been existing in the north, and to some extent in the Lyonnais districts, for the past six months is on the eve of a settlement. Yesterday M. Gavard returned from S. Etienne, and after seeing several of his colleagues and some leading members of the Chamber of Commerce, left at once for Lens. Early this morning he was met at the Maison du Peuple by deputations from the Syndicate of Miners, the 'Broutchouteux,' the Association of Mine Owners, the Valenciennes iron masters, and representatives of some other industries.