HELD!
WANTED--A ST. PATRICK
ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL: "I'm afraid I'm not so smart as my brother-saint at dealing with this kind of thing. I'm apt to take reptiles too lightly."
Even Sir Edward Carson admitted that Mr. Birrell had been well intentioned and had done his best. By the middle of the month Mr. Asquith had gone to Ireland, in the hope of discovering some arrangement for the future which would commend itself to all parties. By the 25th he was back in his place after nine days in Dublin. But he had no panacea of his own to prescribe; no cut-and-dried plan for the regeneration of Ireland. All he could say was that Mr. Lloyd George had been deputed by the Cabinet to confer with the various Irish leaders, and the choice is generally approved. If anyone knows how to handle high explosives without causing a premature concussion it should be the Minister of Munitions.
Ireland has dominated the political scene at home, for it is impossible not to connect our new commitments across St. George's Channel with the introduction and passing of the new Military Service Bill establishing compulsion for all men, married or single--always excepting Ireland. The question of man-power is paramount. Mr. Asquith is at last convinced that "Wait and See" must yield to "Do it Now": that the nation won't have the sword of Damocles hanging over its head any longer, but will have compulsion in its hand at once. On the progress of the War Mr. Asquith has said little in Open Session, but any omission on his part has been made good by Mr. Churchill, now home on unlimited leave, who has spoken at great length on the proper use of armies.
Mr. Arthur Ponsonby and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who raised the question of Peace on Empire Day, urging the Government to open negotiations with Germany, have elicited from the Foreign Secretary the deliberate statement that the only terms of peace which the German Government had ever put forward were the terms of victory for Germany, and that we could not reason with the German people so long as they were fed with lies.
Mr. Henry James, who so nobly repaid the hospitality England was proud to show him by adopting her nationality in her hour of greatest need, said shortly before his death that nothing grieved him more than the constant loss of England's "best blood, seed and breed." The mothers of England "give their sons," but they know that the choice did not rest with them:
We did not give you--all unasked you went,
Sons of a greater motherhood than ours;
To our proud hearts your young brief lives were lent,
Then swept beyond us by resistless powers.
Only we hear, when we have lost our all,
That far clear call.
But how can the grief be measured of those
Whose best,
Eager to serve a higher quest
And in the Great Cause know the joy of battle,
Gallant and young, by traitor hands,
Leagued with a foe from alien lands,
Struck down in cold blood, fell like butchered cattle?
Though Ireland is not for the moment a source of humour she contrives to be the cause of it in others. A daily paper tells us that Sir Robert Chalmers is to be "Permanent Under-Secretary of Ireland pro tem." Another daily paper, the Daily Mail, to be precise, has discovered a new test of valour: "Mr. Hellish, a regular reader of the Daily Mail for years, was awarded the V.C. last month for conspicuous bravery."
June, 1916.
At last the long vigil in the North Sea has ended in the glorious if indecisive battle of Jutland, the greatest sea fight since Trafalgar. Yet was it indecisive? After the momentary dismay caused by the first Admiralty communiqué with its over-estimate of our losses, public confidence, shaken where it was strongest, has been restored by further information and by the admissions of the enemy. We have to mourn the loss of many ships, still more the loss of splendid ships' companies and their heroic captains. We can sympathise with the cruel disappointment of those who, after bearing the brunt of the action, were robbed of the opportunity of overwhelming their enemy by failing light and the exigencies of a strategy governed in the last resort by political caution. But look at the sequel. The German Fleet, badly battered, retires to port; and despite the pæans of exultation from their Admirals, Kaiser, and Imperial Chancellor, remains there throughout the month. Will it ever come out again? Meanwhile, Wilhelmshaven is closed indefinitely, and nobody is allowed to see those sheep in Wolff's clothing--the "victorious fleet." The true verdict, so far as we can judge, may be expressed in homely phrase: The British Navy has taken a knock but given a harder one. We can stand it and they can't.
THE LOST CHIEF
In Memory of Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener, Maker of Armies
Within a week of Jutland the Empire has been stirred to its depths by the tragic death of Lord Kitchener in the Hampshire, blown up by a mine off the Shetlands on her voyage to Archangel. On the eve of starting on his mission to Russia his last official act had been to meet his critics of the House of Commons face to face, reply to their questions and leave them silenced and admiring. On the day of the battle of Jutland these critics had moved the Prime Minister to declare that Lord Kitchener was personally entitled to the credit for the amazing expansion of the army. Sir Mark Sykes, no mean authority, asserted that in Germany our War Secretary was feared as a great organiser, while in the East his name was one to conjure with; and Sir George Reid, a worthy representative of the Dominions, observed that his chief fault was that he was "not clever at circulating the cheap coin of calculated civilities which enable inferior men to rise to positions to which they are not entitled." These tributes were delivered in his lifetime; they deserve to be contrasted with the appreciations of those journalists who clamoured for his appointment, then clamoured for his dismissal, and profaned his passing with their insincere eulogies. Three weeks of Recess elapsed before the Houses could render homage to the illustrious dead. In the Lords the debt has been paid by a statesman, Lord Lansdowne, a soldier, Lord French, and a friend, Lord Derby. In the Commons the speeches were all touched with genuine emotion and the sense of personal loss. Through all these various tributes rang the note of duty well done, and Mr. Bonar Law did well to remind the House of the sure instinct which caused Lord Kitchener to realise at the very outset the gigantic nature of the present War. In a sense his loss is irreparable, yet his great work was accomplished before he died. Sometimes accused of expecting others to achieve the impossible, he had achieved it himself in the crowning miracle of his life, the improvisation of the New Armies.
The violation of Greek territory by the Bulgarian troops, as might be expected, has not led to any effective protest from King Constantine. On the contrary, one seems to hear this benevolent neutral deprecating any apology on the part of King Ferdinand: "Please make yourself at home. This is Liberty Hall."
It is otherwise with the irruption of the Russians under General Brusiloff. His great offensive is a source of offence to the Austrians, who have good reason to complain that the "steam-roller" is exceeding the speed limit. Or to change the metaphor, the bear and his tormentor have changed places.
Ireland has receded a little from her place in the limelight, and though debates on martial law continue, and Irish members ask an inordinate number of questions arising out of the hot Easter week in Dublin, the temperature is no longer "98 in the shade" as a local wit described it at the time. Ministers are extremely economical of information: the anticipated settlement still hangs fire, and there are increasing fears that it will not hold water.
