So stupid, so supine, is the public, that Fleet Street will undertake to destroy a man's reputation in a week or two.
It was in this fashion that Lord Haldane fell.
"You have killed me," says Socrates, "because you thought to escape from giving an account of your lives.

But you will be disappointed.
There are others to convict you, accusers whom I held back when you knew it not, they will be harsher inasmuch as they are younger, and you will wince the more." One day the full truth of this scandalous story will be told, and the historian will then pronounce a judgment which will leave an indelible stain on the reputation of some who with a guilty conscience now sun themselves in the prosperity of public approval.

Their children will not read that judgment without bitter shame.
I condemn in this matter not only the man who gave the order for calumny and slander to set to work but, first, the friends of Lord Haldane who kept silence, and, second, the democracy of these islands which allowed itself to be deceived and exploited by the lowest kind of newspapers.
Why was Sir Edward Grey silent?
He was living in Lord Haldane's house at the time, and, agonizing over the abhorrent prospect of European slaughter and striving to the point of a nervous collapse to avert this calamity, was devotedly served and strengthened by his host.

Why was he silent?
Why was Mr.Asquith silent?
He knew that Lord Haldane had delivered the War Office from chaos and had given to this country for the first time in its history a coherent and brilliantly efficient weapon for this very purpose of a war with Germany.

He spoke when it was too late.