When Parliament met after the tsuntide recess the Government were once assailed with questions the subject of the report of Sir Willian Butler's Committee on the South Arican Army Store Scandals, the Prime Minister had not prepared himself for the attack, It is true that the report had been issued y three or four days, and during those ahmet Ministers had been scattered the country, holiday-making, we that it would have been difficult to call a Cabinet Council, But the contents of the report must have been known to Ministers some time before it was published. That some further inquiry into whole matter must be made was obvious; indeed Mr. Arnold Foster had in his preface to the report deprecated comment on the individual charges contained in the report. on the ground that they wore sub judice. Technically they were not sub judice, for no proceedings have been inslitnted against anybody; indeed the Public Prosecutor advises that there is no ground for prosecuting anybody. They were only auh judice in the sense that an inguiry of a more or less judicial character was inevitable. Mr. Balfour seems, however, to have quite failed to realise the profound impression that the report would make upon Parliament and on the public. He first proposed an inquiry by a Select Committee of the House of Commons. This was strongly opposed by the Liberals and met with much disfavour from his own side, Than —after a Cabinet Council, at which, it is presumed, he was over-ruled by his colleagues—be consented to the appointment of a Royal Commission and finally ho agreed to make this Statutory Commission—that is to say, a Royal Commission on which full judicial powers have been conferred by a special Act of Parliament, the Opposition agreeing to facilitate the of the Kill. All's well that ande well. The public are now satisfied that the enquiry will be as complete and searching as possible. But it would have been better for Mr. Balfour's prestige if he had proposed this at first
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.