Sir Frederick Maurice had a long and varied career. From
D.M.I. (Director of Military Intelligence) at the War Office to Principalship of the Working Men's College at St. Pancras, with which his grandfather Frederick Denison Maurice had been closely associated, thence to a similar post at the East London (Queen Mary's) College and an honorary fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, where Queen Mary's had found help and comfort when it was evacuated to Cambridge during the war, is a chequered journey, but one which Maurice with his equable disposition undertook cheerfully. In spite of the repute his books have brought him he will always be remembered first for his part In the Parliamentary storm of 1918 which finally disposed of the Liberal Party as a constructive political force. The Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, having declared (after the disasters in France in March of that year) that the army in France was considerably stronger in January, 1918, than in January, 1917, Sir Frederick, alarmed at the effect such a statement would have on the troops, took his official life in his hands and wrote to the Pre3s declaring the Prime Minister's assertion to be inaccurate. The Government, compelled to take notice of this, offered an enquiry into the facts by two Judges. Mr. Asquith, contending that a Select Conunittec was a more appropriate body to con- sider a statement made in the House of Commons, proposed that such a body should be appointed. Mr. Lloyd George got that proposal defeated, and thereafter nothing was heard of any enquiry by judges or anyone else. And every Liberal who had supported Asquith was marked down for destruction at the coupon General Election of the following December.
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