NEWS OF THE WEEK
ALL the lessons of the week in connexion with the coal dispute show the dangers which were bound to attend any departure from the Report of the Royal Commission. Nobody pretends that the Report is perfect, but it is a wonderfully able piece of work, and the fact that the Government, the owners and the miners all found some- thing. to dislike in it was probably a proof of its general justice.. Accepted as a whole it would have brought a settlement weeks ago, but the failure to accept it as a whole and the subsequent policy of picking and choosing parts of it have brought us to the present situation in which there are excursions and alarms but no clear trail to follow. The Prime Minister's instincts are so generous and his judgment generally is so sound that when he speaks what is in his mind without qualification and without an over-anxious heed to the opinions of some of his colleagues he always makes the outlook brighter.
