In the House of Commons on Wednesday, upon the Report
of Civil Service, Mr. Burns, dealing with the administra- tion of the Motor-cars Act, agreed substantially with an argument of Mr. Long that drivers should be prosecuted more for "driving to the public danger" than for exceeding a hard-and-fast speed-limit. Public opinion was hardening against reckless drivers, and if they did' not take the hint and behave themselves he would see to it that they were kept in order. Turning to unemployment, he remarked that he had to be firm in certain cases. "You cannot govern an Empire with a Cabinet of Sunny Jima." It was impossible to satisfy sentimentalists, who would give the money to their own district and to the wrong people. " I intend," he said, " to approach the winter with a golden heart, but without a head of quicksilver I claim my salary because I have done my duty, and because I have earned it." We quite agree, and would add that a good President of the Local Government Board deserves the £5,000 to which it is proposed to increase the salary. It is a scandal that this most important office should for so long have been paid on "the lower scale."
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