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

ver achieved without

lves on other occasions as sick of prurient tales, will pronounce this hero to be a prig. In like manner, let a politician evince concern for the moral character of the nation an

speak well of him, and confess willingly that he is vastly superior in character and intellect to the ruck of

nd rank. He has every quality for the first rank, and for the foremost place in that rank, save the one urging passion of enthusiasm. It is a sense of humour, an engaging

ture, it would seem, has fashioned him neither pachydermatous nor pugilistic. He appears upon the platform as a gentleman makes his entrance into a drawing-room, not as a toreador leaps into the bull ring. He expresses his opinions as a gentleman expresses his views

ng use of vulgar methods from which a person of Lord Robert Cecil's quality would naturally shrink, it is nevertheless not at all n

which in Cromwell induced Hume to call him "this fanatical hypocrite," and which Burke adequately def

s modest nature will henceforth seem to him like the whisperings of temptation. He must cease to watch the shifts of public opinion. He must cease merely to recommend the probable advantage of rather more idealism in the poli

me so with an unforgettable emphasis, well aware that under the public show of our national life the heart of the British people was famishing for such guidance. He

character-a love of justice, an instinct for kindness, and faith in truth. He knows that they are more capable than any other people in Europe of generous self-sacrifice, and that any absence of grace in their manner which must distress the superficial observer comes rather

opaganda of hate. But he made no move to save the national honour. The better part, and as I firmly believe the greater part, of the nation was waiting for moral leadership: particularly were the young men of the nation who marched to death with the purest flame of patriotism in their hearts hungering for such leadership; but Lord Robert Cecil, the one man in Parliament

can excuse so fatal a silence. Great p

ct as a "murder," since by the rules of war, as she herself confessed, Miss Cavell incurred the penalty of death. He replied: "What strikes me as most serious in that act is not so much that the Germans should thin

that we were not fighting an enemy who could be shouted down or made ashamed by abusive epithets, but that we were opposing a spirit whose anger and temper were entirely different from our own, and therefore a spirit which must be understood if we were to conquer it. It was not merely the armies of German

hese addresses have been, their spirit has always had the wistful and piano tones of philosophy, never the consuming fervour of fanaticism. He knows, as few other men know, that without a League of Nations the future of civilization is in peril, even the futur

ruth nothing more than the conscience of a nation striving to express itself in State action. Because of this politics become degraded and sink to the lowest levels of a mere factional manoeuvring for place. They engage the a

use moral weapons in the political arena is hard to understand. He debates where he should appeal; he criticizes where he should deno

ced Lord Robert make a pencilled note on a slip of paper and pass it across the gangway with a nod of his head toward Lord Hugh. I watched the journey of this little paper and watched to see its effect. Lord Hugh unfolded the slip of paper, read it, smiled very boyishly all over his face, and, folding it up again, slowly turned his head and looked back towards his brother. The smile they exchanged was a Cecilian biography. One saw in the light of that instant and whole

sire of Germany to march an army through Sweden and Finland to the thus easily reached Russian capital. His work, too, at the Peace Conference in Paris entitles him to the gratitude of the nation: he kept the idea of the League of Nations alive in an atmosphere that was charged with war. He prevented these conferences fro

STON CH

STON CH

year; Correspondent of the Morning Post in South Africa, 1899-1900; taken prisoner and escaped, 1900; in long series of actions including Spion Kop, Pieters, and capture of Pretoria; M.P. Oldham, 1900-06; M.P. for Manchester, 1906-08; commissioned Colonel, 1916; retired, 1916; Under Colonial Secretary,