Epoch-Making Assembly.
A public meeting, summoned under the auspices of the Candid Friends of England, has just been held at the Hall of the Grousers' Company, in Little Britain. The chair was taken by Mr. Outhwaite.
The Chairman, opening the meeting, said that the inception of the League was due to a number of public-spirited men who had come to the conclusion, very unwillingly, that the country was still insufficiently instructed as to the inherent and abysmal incapacity of every member of the Government. (Cheers.) It was true that certain sections of the Press did what they could to point this out, and there was also the noble, patriotic and self-sacrificing work carried on in the House at Question-time. (Loud cheers.) But he was sorry to say that there still remained a considerable and, alas! not wholly negligible number of persons in the country who hugged the quaint superstition that a Cabinet Minister could be earnest, capable and diligent. It was these benighted folk whom they desired to reach and convert. Not till every Englishman had been convinced that England was rotten could he (the speaker) and his friends rest content. (Frantic applause.) They were met to-day to listen to the views of various eminent gentlemen as to how best to spread this gospel.
Sir Arthur Markham, who was received with cheers, said that no one who had followed his recent speeches could be in any doubt as to the turpitude and sloth of the men whom a mischievous caprice had set at the head of this country's affairs. He for one should never cease to clamour for their dismissal. He begged to move a resolution that in the opinion of that important and representative meeting a complete change of Government was instantly necessary. (A Voice: "Not only now, but always.") No doubt there was something in what that gentleman said, but for the present perhaps "always" had better be omitted. The essence of the truest patriotism was distrust of one's rulers and dissatisfaction with one's country. (Hear! Hear!).
Mr. Austin Harrison, in seconding, said that the finest heritage of an Englishman was freedom of speech, and the more that freedom became licence the finer the Englishman. (Cheers.) By freedom of speech he meant the right to say instantly whatever came into one's head, particularly if it appeared to belittle one's own country. Because one could not belittle England really. England was too great for that. But it was salutary to try. It was also valuable to our Allies, because it tended to prove to them how much in earnest and how united we must be.
A great sensation was now caused by the appearance of "An Englishman" from Carmelite Street. This gentleman, who, like the man who dined with the Kaiser, desiring his anonymity to be respected, wore a John Bull mask and brandished an ebony cane, made the Prime Minister the special mark of his attack. What, he asked, could be expected of a politician so crafty and lost to shame as to bid the House wait and see? Was it not the very essence of good statesmanship to blurt out everything at once? Only a craven time-server would say wait and see. Waiting was a contemptuous proceeding wherever practised, and seeing required eyes, which Heaven knows the Premier woefully lacked. (Cheers.) What right had an incorrigible hoodwinker such as Mr. Asquith to advise anyone to see? It was monstrous. Let the people get rid of this impostor without a twinge of compunction, and the sooner the better. As to swapping horses in mid-stream being unwise, perhaps it was, but it was not unwise in the way that waiting to see was. (Applause.)
Another masked gentleman, who was understood to be "Callisthenes" of Oxford Street, now rose to make a few useful suggestions. He said that as the only journalist who wrote what was practically the leading article in four evening papers every day, he surely was entitled to speak with some authority. The question was how to get it into the country's head that England's only chance for recovering her self-respect and winning the War was to cry stinking fish? (Loud cheers.) Well, the best way was to keep on saying it in and out of season. His experience had taught him that everything will bear saying not merely three times, but three thousand times and three.
Mr. Amery said it was ridiculous to suppose that any Cabinet Minister wished the War to end or England to be victorious. The contrary was an axiom on which the whole future of his political creed was based. One had but to look at them to see how flabby and vacillating they were and how devoted to the pickings of office.
Mr. Hogge said that the Chairman in his opening remarks had disregarded one of the most valuable media for spreading the blessed news that England was at her last gasp, throttled by place-hunters and parasites. That was the variety stage. It was wonderful what a good comic song could do. He had heard one only the night before, in which its singer had been vociferously applauded at the end of a verse which stated that there were now no German spies in England because they had all been naturalised and given War Office clerkships. That was the kind of home truth which the public appreciated and even paid their money to hear. There could not be too many songs of that kind.
Mr. Bernard Shaw said that another way was to induce publishers to issue new and amended editions of those popular writers who had been betrayed by impulsiveness or short-sight into eulogies of England. He remembered several such unfortunate outbursts in the works of the national poet. There was, for example, that ill-balanced utterance of the dying John of Gaunt in praise of our little isle; but of course one could not expect the intellect to be at its best just before dissolution. Still, they would all agree that Shakspeare would be the wholesomer without that passage. (Cheers.)