The fact that new ship-building, with the additional vessels wrung from the slippery Hun, has not only. restored Britain's maritime supremacy but has actually placed her five per cent. ahead of what she was before the war, is as welcome as it is surprising, in view of the tremendous effort made by America to gain the lead. Altogether the telegrams to-day contain some rather startling news, the profits of Lancashire cotton companies, aggregating something like 40 per cent. on share capital; the lowness of unemployment and the enormous revenue returns, over £237 millions, for the last quarter of 1919. In contrast with the forebodings of the prophets of evil, for ever threatening Bolshevism and bankrupted, these records are bewildering. Of course a ulement's reflexion tells us that Labour unrest is a normal symptom of big business orders, Because the employers are doing well, the employees mean to share in their prosperity; and it merely remains to hope that. the unfortunate middle-classes will not, in the usual way, be ground between the upper and the nether millstones. But one wonders a little what other nations must think, comparing the gloomy tone of Press and politicians, the lamentations over strikes, idleness and orders driven abroad. and these comfortable showings for the past year. "While they behold your chaste conversations coupled
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.