Page:Mr. Punch's history of the Great War, Graves, 1919.djvu/259

 varied but invariably evasive replies. The Government has now frankly admitted that the policy of running Home Rule and Conscription in double harness has been abandoned, and expects better things from the new pair: Firm Government and Voluntary Recruiting. But sceptics are unconvinced that the Government will abandon the leniency prompted by "the insane view of creating an atmosphere in which something incomprehensible is to occur."

The lavish and, in many cases, inexplicable distribution of

the Order of the British Empire bids fair to add a peculiar lustre to the undecorated. The War has produced no stranger paradox than the case of the gentleman who within the space of seven days was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for a breach of the Defence of the Realm regulations and recommended for the O.B.E. on account of good services to the country. The fact that the recommendation was withdrawn hardly justified the assumption of a Pacificist Member that a sentence under the Defence of the Realm Act was regarded as the higher honour of the two.