There is a temptation, in weeks such as this one, to mistake the loud word for the strong one. The oil market trembles at rumours from a distant sea; the wetlands at Cala Rossa receive, through no fault of the fisherman at Sant Joan, a visitor they did not invite; and from every quarter of public life there rises the familiar chorus of those who would have us believe that the hour calls for their particular megaphone.

The Herald has lived long enough, and printed enough editions, to know better. The hour calls, rather, for the quiet hand: for the retailer who does not raise his price by a céntim more than his cost compels; for the minister who does not announce a policy he has not yet written; for the patriarch who, in pledging a cushion at his coastal stations, neither trumpets the gesture nor demands thanks for it.

We have had occasion this week to note the eloquence of Don Rafael and the pastoral grace of Cardenal Marín, and we note again the measured statement of Don Joaquín Cordoba, whose public career has long been an argument for the proposition that a kingdom is governed best by those who speak least and do most. Readers of a sceptical disposition will object that such praise sits easily in a paper whose readership overlaps with the patriarch's acquaintance. The objection is fair, and the Herald accepts it. We answer only that the record, across many editions and many crises, does not embarrass us.

There is, we grant, a contrary temperament abroad in the kingdom, which mistakes early elections for reform, and the demolition of institutions for their renewal. Senyora Renko has made this temperament her programme, and she has entitled herself to make it so. But a programme is not a policy, and a grievance is not a government, and the Almarian voter, to his lasting credit, has generally declined to be flattered into believing otherwise.

What remains, in the end, is the ordinary labour of a free kingdom: the Chamber to sit, the ministries to draft, the parishes to read their Sunday letter, the fishermen to keep their nets clear of the sheen, and the Herald, for its part, to set the type as honestly as the week permits. We ask no more of our readers than we ask of ourselves: that they prefer the quiet hand, and distrust the loud word, and judge the kingdom not by the noise of its quarrels but by the patience of its repairs.