A gentleman, such as you, was by way of interviewing Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone was castigating me. I was a Public Department. He said to you, who were interviewing him, that he was helpless against all the Public Departments, for he was fighting for Economy, and he gave a case to you worse than either Chepstow or Slough. I am sorry to say it was the War Office he was illustrating, as I am devoted to Mr. Churchill and would not hurt him for the world—even in a dream. It is too puerile to describe in print, but what Mr. Gladstone pointed to I have told you in conversation.
Now, the above is an Allegory.
Imagine! nearly a year after the Armistice and yet we are spending two millions sterling a day beyond an absolutely fabulous income—beyond any income ever yet produced by any Empire or any Nation!
Sweep them out!
Dr. Macnamara, a few days since, in his apologia pro vita sua excuses his Department to the public by saying that on the very day of the Armistice the Board of Admiralty sat on Economy! So they did! They sat on it!
Economy! To send Squadrons all over the globe that were not there before! The globe did without them during the War—why not now? “Oh my Sacred Aunt!” (as the French say when in an extremity). “Showing the flag,” I suppose, for that was the cry of the “baying hounds” in 1905 when we brought home some 160 vessels of war that could neither fight nor run away—and whose Officers were shooting pheasants up Chinese rivers and giving tea parties to British Consuls. How those Consuls did write! And how agitated was the Foreign Office! I must produce some of these communications directly “DORA” is abolished. Well, that’s what “showing the flag” means.
Sweep ’em out!
Gladstone was hopeless against Departments—so is now the Nation.
Dr. Macnamara may not know it, but Mr. Herbert Samuel was to have had his place. I did not know either of them, but I said to the Prime Minister “Let’s have the ‘Two Macs’!” Mind, I don’t class him with the Music Hall artist. (Tempus: Death of Campbell-Bannerman)—that epoch—I cannot forget Mr. Asquith’s kindness to me. He had telephoned to me from Bordeaux after seeing the King at Biarritz, asking me to meet him on his arrival home next night at 8.30 p.m. at 40 Cavendish Square. His motor car was leaving the door as I arrived. He told me he had seen the King, and had proposed Mr. McKenna as First Lord of the Admiralty. The King seemed to have some suspicion that I should not think Mr. McKenna a congenial spirit. I made no objection—I thought to myself that if Mr. McKenna were hostile then Tempus edax rerum. I don’t think Jonathan and David were “in it,” when Mr. McKenna and I parted on January 25th, 1910—my selected day to go and plant roses in Norfolk. I blush to quote the Latin inscription on the beautiful vase he gave me;
Joanni Fisher
Baroni Kilverstonæ
Navarchorum Principi, Ensis, Linguæ,
Stili Valde Perito,
Vel in Concilio vel in Praelio insigni,
Nihil Timenti,
Inflexibili, Indomitabili, Invincibili,[6]
Pignus Amicitiæ Sempiternae,
Dederunt Reginaldus et Pamela McKenna.
To
John
Lord Fisher of Kilverstone
First of Admirals
Skilled of Sword, Tongue & Pen
Brilliant in Council and Battle
Dreading Nought
Inflexible, Indomitable, Invincible[6]
This Token of Enduring Friendship
a Gift from
Reginald & Pamela McKenna