A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ACURIOUS item of lobby-gossip reaches me from Westminster, and I quote it simply as a record of what some M.P.'s are saying—making no claim for it be- yond that. The latest " possible Prime Minister" is Cap- tain Tryon, the Minister of Pensions—on the ground that most of the objections that apply to anyone else do not apply to him. He is popular in all quarters, as able as a Prime Minister needs to be (as Campbell-Bannerman, for instance), has done his job as Minister of Pensions well, and is more aloof than most Ministers from internal party controversies. There I leave it—being personally of the opinion that Mr. Baldwin will be the next Prime Minister, and before very long. But how long, by the way, is the Ministry of Pensions to continue ? Its work. must be shrinking fairly rapidly year by year, through the ordinary process of human . mortality, and most of the administration must have been by this time reduced pretty much to routine. Sooner or later the surviving pensioners will no doubt be transferred to the War Office or some other department. Surely an economy which need not be long deferred.
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