A word may be said as to the possibility of
the Government tactics, even if successful, staving off a Dissolution. People sometimes talk as if a Ministry could resign at any moment, and 'as if office were a kind of incubus which responsible Ministers could abandon in the street at a moment's notice and for a whim. Holding office is much more like carrying a baby in a public place. You cannot leave it unless you can get somebody else to hold it. But at present there is nobody willing to perform that function, and the financial deadlock which the Government are preparing increases instead of diminishing this unwillingness. Meantime it is always possible that an accidental vote, such as very nearly occurred on Monday, will put the Government in a minority, and so bring about, first the tender of their resignation to the King, and then the Dissolution which must take place if the Ministry declare it is impossible for them to go on, and if the Opposition declare that it is impossible for them to •go in. The Government are said to be making very far-reaching and elaborate calculations as to what is going to happen, but very Possibly public opinion' is in error in this respect. We should not be surprised if the Cabinet's action were really in conformity with the schoolboy's definition of the policy of laissez faire : "The policy of laissez faire is to bring matters to as great a 'crisis as possible and then allow them to take their own course."
