IV
Of all that Mr. Moore said on that extraordinary occasion, I remember most his sudden outburst into what he called practical politics. He demanded the impeachment of Mr. Asquith, the restoration of the Coronation Oath and the abolition of all dogs! The comic incongruity of those three items in a plan to win the war was apparent neither to him nor his three elderly auditors, or so it seemed, and I deemed it wise to control my laughter. Mr. Moore declared that Mr. Asquith's inertia, of which we were hearing so much then, was certain to bring defeat to the Allies. One of Mr. Asquith's daughters had sat beside Mr. Moore at dinner one night in London and had informed her neighbour that "Father is bored with the War!" whereupon Mr. Moore informed her (or so he said) that her father's boredom might cause the Allies to lose the War. Mr. Asquith was guilty of more serious crimes than that: he had ruined the Irish gentleman and delivered the country over to hobbledehoys and low minded peasants. Not content with ruining Ireland, no longer fit to be inhabited by gentlemen, fit only to be the country of publicans, pawnbrokers, priests and politicians, Mr. Asquith had tried to make equal ruin in England. He has abolished the Coronation Oath which, until his advent, had always been administered to the kings of England at their crowning. In this Oath, they declare their belief that the Mass is an idolatrous ceremony, not to be acknowledged by reasonable persons and likely to be accepted only by vulgar Papists. Mr. Asquith, mindful of the fact that many hundreds of thousands of Catholics are members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, decided that the kings of England should not be humiliated and embarrassed at their coronation by the compulsion to insult the faith of many of their subjects; and so he introduced a Bill into Parliament to abolish the Oath, which was, in due time, abolished. Mr. Moore seemed to think that all the evils from which mankind has suffered since 1914 directly sprang from that political achievement.
As for dogs, these abominable animals, he said, are nuisances at any time, but during a war and period of food shortage, they are a positive menace to the country. He begged us to consider (a) the great quantity of food consumed by dogs, (b) the amount of nervous irritability brought about by their incessant yapping, and (c) the extent to which they defile the streets. He threatened us with famine, insanity and, finally, plague!... There is an English poet who is also a breeder of bulldogs. Whenever he reads one of Mr. Moore's periodical canine denunciations, he becomes so enraged that only the strongest efforts of his friends prevent him from emptying the contents of his kennels on to Mr. Moore's doorstep that they may there do their worst. The ambition of his life is to see one of his bulldogs fasten its teeth firmly in the calf of Mr. Moore's venerable leg....