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

he deep rivers pay a larger tribute to the sea than shallo

foreign affairs that I was that night meeting Lord Carnock

I see what he meant," was the answer; "but it is a wild mind that would say any one man made the war." Later, after some remarks which I do not feel m

e causes of the war to one intelligible origin, but it would also afford the people of England an opportunity o

eading the political heavens, a sentence in Bagehot's essay on Charles Dickens comes into my mind: "There is nothing less like the great lawyer, acquai

ose manner is certainly the last thing in the world that would recommend itself to the mind of an advertising agent. But there is no living politician who watched so intelligently the long beginnings of the war or knew so certainly in the days of te

aling any State secret or bre

cious of their country's weakness, and which brought to their ears again and again the rumbles of approaching storm. Lord Carnock, sincerely loving these people, received their confidence as one friend receives the confidence of another. His advice was honourable advice. He

ats of Prussia. Remember that the rulers of Russia in those days were the most charming and cultivated people in the world, whereas the Prussian as a diplomatist was the same Prussian whom, even as an al

propaganda of the War Party, hoped that the sword had only to be flashed in Russia's face for that vast barbarian to cower once again. Few statesmen in Europe thought otherwise. Sir Edward Grey, I have good reason to think, did not consider that Russia would fight. He erred with that great number of educated Germans who thought the sword had only to be rattled a little more l

truction and made a greater sacrifice of her noblest life than any other nation in the great struggle. The first Russian armies, com

e friend helps as well as gives good advice. But it would be a total misjudgment

e unworthy of a country whose intellectual achievements were so great as Russia's. He had no enmity at all against the Germans. He saw their difficulties

Germans thrusting Austria forward to a paramount position in the Balkans, and with his own eyes he saw the Germans in Bulgaria and Turkey fastening their hold upon those important countries

horrors of war and, if war came, the worse horrors of a German world-conquest. This work of his, which helped so materially to save the world, was done with clean hands. It was ne

t to them, and they recoil from the self-assertion which appears to be necessary to political advancement in the House of Commons. No doubt the intelligence of men like Mr. J.H. Thomas or Mr. William Brace, certainly of Mr. Clynes, is sufficient for the crudest of our hom

there will such a man accept the odious conditions of our public life, inspired by a sense of duty, and prepared to endure the intolerable ugliness and dishonesty of politics for the sake of a cause which moves him with all the force of a great affection. B

and a far nobler realization of its responsibilities by the Press, can the ancient spirit of England m

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common guard-house, in which the Prussians were drinking, spitting, smoking, and sleeping in all directions." Denon complained g

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AL OF THE FLEET (JO

1859-60; Egyptian War and Bombardment of Alexandria, 1882; Lord of the Admiralty, 1892-97; Commander-in-Chief, North America