Taking the interview as a whole, we feel bound to
protest against the growing tendency of Ministers to deal in public with matters outside their own departments, and thus to run great risks of causing danger and confusion in the conduct of public affairs. At any rate, there are only two Ministers who should _express opinions on foreign relations in public, the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister; unless, of course, for some special reason the Cabinet delegates to some other Minister the duty of announcing some line of action which has been settled by the Cabinet. We note that at the end of his inter- view Mr. Lloyd George strongly denounces the notion that England is conspiring to isolate Germany. "One could never write enough," he declared, "to destroy such an infamous suspicion." Though we still think that the less Cabinet Ministers are interviewed by foreign journalists the better, we fully acknowledge that Mr. Lloyd George was here on safe ground and was speaking no more than the truth. He was merely endorsing what Sir Edward Grey, with the full sense of responsibility, said very strongly in his place in Parliament.
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