We have dealt very fully elsewhere with what we imagine
Is likely to be the course of events both as regards the Budget and the attack upon the House of Lords, and will only say here that though we recognise the many difficulties of the situa- tion, we do not think there is any reason to look upon matters in too gloomy a light, or to imagine that the crisis is likely to , provoke a temper which can reasonably be called envenomed. No doubt-party feeling is at the moment running very high, but it must also not be forgotten that there are many calming influences at work. Things will settle down a great deal in the course of the next fortnight, and the wild charges made during the Election will be very largely forgotten. Next, it must be remembered that Ministers when they meet together in the Cabinet, and when they are faced with the grave duties of their position, are much more responsible persons than when they are standing on party platforms, anxious not only to win their own seats, but also to win seats for their sup- porters, and to create what they believe—often quite wrongly— to be popular enthusiasm. Wild projects for presenting ultimatums to the King declaring that the Government must resign unless he will instantly sign a paper promising to create four hundred Peers and the like wither away when they are talked out across a table where there is no "loud applause." Ministers who have not behind them a compact majority of two or three hundred, but must rely upon the precarious support of allies who on many points, such, for example, as the Fiscal question and the question of religious education, are strongly opposed to them, are not in a position to present ultimatums.
