[The Mirrors of Downing Street by Harold Begbie]@TWC D-Link book
The Mirrors of Downing Street

CHAPTER X
7/12

Why did he not speak when the hounds were in full cry?
And why were Mr.Lloyd George and Mr.Winston Churchill silent?
Could they not have told the nation that they had grudged Lord Haldane his Army estimates, and that they had even suggested another and less expensive scheme of national defence--a scheme that was actually examined by the War Office experts and condemned?
Let Mr.Lloyd George look back.

If he had had his way with the War Office could Germany have been stopped from reaching Paris and seizing the Channel ports?
Moreover, if he had had his way, could he himself have hoped to escape hanging on a lamp-post?
Is it not true to say that in saving France from an overwhelming and almost immediate destruction the British Expeditionary Force also saved his neck, the neck of Mr.
Winston Churchill, and the necks of all the Cabinet?
But if this is so, and his own conscience shall be the judge, how is it that he said no word to the nation which might have saved Lord Haldane from martyrdom?
The nation, I think, does not know what it loses in allowing its judgment to be stampeded by unconscionable journalism.

Lord Haldane is no political dilettante.

Few men in modern times have brought to politics a mind so trained in right thinking, or a spirit so full of that impressive quality, as Morley calls it, the presentiment of the eve: "a feeling of the difficulties and interests that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow." Long ago he foresaw the need in our industrial life of the scientific spirit, and in our democracy of a deeper and more profitable education.

"Look at Scotland, the best educated nation; and at Ireland, the worst!" For these things he prepared.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books