I do not blame my Tyneside questioner for displaying confusion.
Under modern dynamics even the most alert among us adopt a " That's Shell, that was " expression when observing current events. The paradoxes of one week become the commonplaces of the next, and our philippics turn into funeral orations by the time they come to be de- livered. I do not feel that even Sir Arnold Wilson would have recognised in the House of Commons when it met again last Tuesday " the confidence of men unwonted to be over- come." All that one noticed was the lack of confidence inspired by men who are unwonted to face unpleasant facts. Even Mr. Attlee, armed for a great attack upon the Spanish misfortune, delivered his attack with the delicacy of an undertaker unwilling to disturb any further skeletons in the cupboards of the bereaved family. Sir Archibald Sinclair, it is true, made a stirring speech, but the House was not in a mood to be stirred. Mr. Churchill was absent. Mr. Eden remained silent, and Mr. Lloyd George crept early away. Only Sir Henry Page Croft displayed any self-confidence, but this was not shared upon the benches around him.
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