The point of view of the ordinary member of the public undoubtedly is that excess profits on the making of munitions simply ought not to exist. If engineering firms are permitted to maintain their old standard of profit and dividend (with fair arrangements, of course, for new capital and depreciation), they ought to be more than satisfied. Great heat was developed on the debate by the representatives of various capitalist interests, notably Sir Arthur Markham, Mr. J. M. Henderson, Sir Croydon Marks, and Sir Alfred Mond; and some of them were not even ashamed to hint that if their demands were not agreed to there might be a diminution of output. At a moment when tens of thousands of men are giving up their whole incomes as well as their savings, in order to fight for their country, it is impossible to imagine any spectacle more unedifying for the wage-earning class than that of these malcontent capitalist legislators angrily fighting for their extra war-profits. When one remembers that it was these same gentlemen who were so enthusiastic for compelling younger and poorer men to sacrifice everything they possess, it is hard to find words to say what ought to be said of them. We hope, at all events, that the names of those who voted against the Government on the division will not be allowed to be forgotten in the constituencies. 16. _Pall Mall Gazette_, January 31, 1916: _From Our Own Correspondent._ PARIS, _Saturday_. The trouble that has been brewing for months past at the Central Markets has now come to a head. A well-known dealer was suspended by the Prefect of Police; the Home Office thought this insufficient and revoked his licence; and there is now talk of a prosecution. The Central Markets are not a place which the habitual Parisian cares to venture into. Apart from its own peculiar and particularly pungent odours, the markets are peopled with a class of stallkeeper who do not exactly keep their tongue in their pocket, as the French say. They have, in fact, a flow of language, and it requires a brave man to make a stand against it--and all the brave men are at the front just now. But the Central Markets not only have a language of their own; they have ways and methods of dealing that require long years of acquaintance to fathom, so only experts venture to make head or tail of them. All this means that between the Central Markets, at the depository, and most of all that Paris wants to eat, and the actual consumer as represented by the ordinary housewife starting out on her daily round of shopping, there move and live a host of intermediaries. Large as their number is, they cannot compare with the middlemen who squeeze in between the Central Markets and the actual grower, breeder, or producer.