In sending his letter to the Press Sir Frederick Maurice,
who was recently Director of Military Operations—a very high position in which he had access to every source of information—has taken a gravely heroic course. In spite of his noticeable restraint in actual verbal expression, he risks the utter destruction of both his career and his reputation, and it hardly needs to be pointed out that only a supreme sense of duty in a terrible crisis of the nation's history, on the one hand, or malice or perversity amounting to crime, on the other hand, could have been the motive of his act. We have no doubt whatever that his motive was sincere, and if it be proved that he assured himself of the absolute truth of his indictment, we for our part are prepared to call his decision splendid. He was able, in the case we are assuming, to recognize one of the occasions on which it is not only permissible but necessary fol a soldier to break all the regulations and conventions for the good of his country. But as we write before there has been any inquiry into General Maurice's charges, we must prejudge nothing. We have written in an article elsewhere about the duty or a soldier who genuinely finds himself in a situation of divided duty. Here we must pass from the military aspect of the affair to the Parliamentary crisis created by the letter.
