Irreverent opponents of the Prime Minister have sometimes compared him to Micawber, on the ground that he was always waiting for something to turn up. I found another link to-day between these celebrated characters. As Mr. Asquith unfolded the details of the two new Votes of Credit, one of 120 millions to clear up the present financial year, the other of 300 millions to start the new one, he reminded me of Micawber calculating his indebtedness to Traddles. While professing a proper alarm at the colossal amount of the expenditure—nearly two thousand millions already, or twice the cost of the twenty-two years' war against Napoleon—he rolled these gigantic figures off his tongue as if he loved them. You will remember Copperfield's remark when the famous I.O.U. had been handed over: "I am persuaded not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had to think about it." The Prime Minister's financial optimism left the House under much the same impression, and Mr. McKenna rather deepened it by the declaration that with prudence and statesmanship our credit would survive the War however long it might last.
Tuesday, February 22nd.—For nearly ten years, without a break, Mr. George Lambert, Yeoman, as the reference-books describe him, sat on the Treasury Bench as Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Then the Coalition came along and his place knew him no more. For eight long months he has yearned to let the new Administration know what he thought of them, and to-day he seized the opportunity furnished by the Vote on Account.
Beginning with a moving tale of how the War Office took several weeks and a traction engine to move a load of hay two miles from a rick to a railway station in his native Devon, the Yeoman proceeded with other counts of his indictment. The Prime Minister mentioned yesterday a new plan by which an outside Committee, composed of business men and headed by a Cabinet Minister, was checking the expenditure of the Service Departments. (The cost of shells, we were told to-day by Dr. Addison, has been brought down to a figure which means an economy of £400,000 a week on our future production.)
But Mr. Lambert would have none of it. Speaking with all the authority of his long official experience he laid down the dictum that one Cabinet Minister could not supervise another. Next he attacked the new Order in Council, which makes the Chief of the Staff responsible for the orders given to the Army, declaring that it reduced Lord Kitchener to the level of a civilian; and finally he denounced the Government for not making more use of Lord Fisher. Under the stress of these terrific blows the Government ought to have reeled, if it did not fall. But nothing happened, except that the Votes on Account for four hundred and twenty millions were by half-past seven duly passed.
In the Lords meanwhile the Government was sustaining a heavier attack, arising out of their failure to stop all supplies from reaching Germany. Lord Sydenham attributed it to the Declaration of London, which had crippled the Navy; Lord Beresford thought it was the result of trying to run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. Lord Lansdowne, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by appointing a Minister of Blockade.
Wednesday, February 23rd.—At Question-time, Mr. Asquith announced that the new Minister was Lord Robert Cecil. It is close upon fifty years since another Lord Robert Cecil (who had just become Lord Cranborne) entered the Cabinet of Lord Derby.
NEW DEPARTURES BY SEA AND AIR.
Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Derby.
In consequence of the recent decision that no Member shall in future receive two salaries it had been rumoured that Parliamentary salaries would be abolished altogether. There were signs of heartfelt relief from various quarters of the House when the Premier met the suggestion with an uncompromising "No."