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Page 31
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.
His faults are a too generous confidence in the good sense of democracy
and a lack of impassioned energy. He is too much a thinker, too little a
warrior. Unhappily he is not an effective speaker, and his writing is
not always as clear as his ideas. He is at his best in conversation with
men whom he likes.
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