NEWS OF THE WEEK.
BY far the most important event of the week has been the announcement made on Wednesday unofficially, but, we take it, on ample warrant, that the Cabinet have come to the conclusion that the number of unmarried men who failed to offer themselves under the Derby scheme cannot be regarded as a negligible quantity, and that therefore the Prime Minister's pledge to the married men must become operative and recourse must be had to compulsion. We have dealt with the situation as a whole elsewhere, but will express here also our expecta- tion that the Government, while enacting compulsion, will leave the door of volunteering still open, and so allow those who have just missed the train to catch it at the junction. No doubt, following the analogy of the American Civil War, there will be some somnolent slackers who will not even take the opportunity thus afforded them to " save face," but they will not be very numerous. It remains to say here also that the extent and intensity of the alleged Cabinet crisis have been grossly exaggerated in the Press. It is a case of " the vast majority of mankind—at least five per cent."
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