The Mirrors of Downing Street / Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster

by Harold Begbie

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. 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. Long ago, too, he thought out a better and a complete system of Cabinet government. Long ago he had seen that the enmity between Capital and Labour must be brought to an end and an entirely new relation brought into existence, identifying the prosperity of the one with the other. For this, too, he had a scheme. These things were the chief concern of his life, and only for these things did he remain in politics.

The nation would have been in a healthier condition if Lord Haldane's reasoned policy had been acted upon and Mr. Lloyd George's talent for oratory had been employed to explain that reasoned policy to the less educated sections of the public, instead of used to arouse an angry opposition to the unreasoned and disconnected reforms of his own conception.

But what a topsy-turvy world! Mr. Lloyd George is "the man who won the war," he who did nothing to prepare for it, and suggested some things that might have made it difficult to be won; while Lord Haldane, who did prepare for it, and whose work did save the whole world, is cast out of office. And when the war is won, and Lord Haldane's position has been publicly and nobly vindicated by Lord Haig, Mr. Lloyd George as Prime Minister of England has a portfolio for Mr. Austen Chamberlain and another for Dr. Macnamara, but none for this man to whom more than to any other politician he owes his place and perhaps his life.

Lord Haldane is not what Prodicus used to call "a Boundary Stone, half philosopher and half practical statesman." His philosophy is his statesmanship, and his statesmanship is his philosophy. He has brought to the study of human life a profound mind and a trained vision. His search after truth has destroyed in him all pettiness of personal ambition. He desires, because he regards it as the highest kind of life, to further the work of creative evolution, to be always on the side of spiritual forces, and never to be deceived by transitory materialism. Democracy has need of these qualities, and a great empire without such qualities in its statesmen can hardly endure the test of time.