Sir• Valentine Chirol has done well to remind the public,
in the Times of Friday week, that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has never yet withdrawn the baseless charges which he made against our Govern- ment in the early days of the war. He said, for example, in the Labour Leader of August 13th, 1914, that " when Sir Edward Grey failed to secure peace between Germany and Russia he worked deliberately to involve us in war, using Belgium as his excuse." Mr. MacDonald adopted, in fact, the official German theory that Great Britain lured or hounded an innocent -Germany into war, and the German propaganda made full use of his support. All the world knows that Mr. MacDonald's accusations were quite untrue. After the revelations of Prince Liohnowsky, Dr. Muehlon, and now of Count Lerchenfeldt, the Bavarian agent at Berlin, the official fables about the war are wholly discredited even in Germany. Mr. MacDonald, however, has not uttered a word of apology for his slanders on. the good faith of our statesmen. The Labour Party might have had a great opportunity at this Election. But so long as it is largely controlled: by men like' Mr. MacDonald it must alienate the sympathy of ordinary citizens who love their country and have a. regard for the decencies of public life.
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