The Labour Party Conference broke up in order that the
delegates might at once disperse to the constituencies, but not before the Prime Minister had made an unreal speech laying the whole blame for the election which nobody wanted upon his political opponents. He declared that it was not the Campbell case that had caused the fall of the Government ; that case was only a cloak and an excuse. " The murder had been Plated and planned and it came off. . . . They knew that they were doing wrong. . . . I did not court it ; I did not want it." The truth, of course, is that there was a very clear case indeed for inquiry about the Campbell fiasco. After the Prime Minister himself had admitted that he had misled the House, and the Attorney-General had added new and disturbing facts which made the Prime Minister's admission and apology seem quite inadequate, it was astounding that the Prime Minister (who has always been a particular champion of publicity) should have denied that there was any CRUSC for inquiry. Mr. 546 Asquith noticeably went out of his way to offer any form of inquiry that the Government pleased, provided that there was an inquiry of some sort. In the eases of the Jameson Raid and the Marconi scandal the Unionist and Liberal Governments respectively granted inquiries quite spontaneously.
