11 MAY 1918, Page 10

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

FIR,—May I be permitted to congratulate you upon the vigour and pertinacity with which you continue in your attempts to make the nation realize the danger to our whole Empire which is iepre- rented by the continuance in power of Mr. Lloyd George ? I have been a reader of the Spectator for a long time, and I venture to say that you have never performed a greater public service. Alas that during months of vital importance yours should have been a voice crying in the wilderness! Surely we are at last awaking to a sense of our peril, and it is time indeed. We have seen the disappearance from office of great soldiers and sailors, often in circumstances which should bring the blush to our cheek. We have heard our Prime Minister make a speech in a foreign capital which is interpreted as an attack upon our own High Command. We have witnessed the dismissal—for here dismissal would seem actually more correct than resignation—of a man like Sir Hugh Trenchard at the mere nod of a Press magnate, and the recall of leaders like General Gough, who are allowed to rest under the shadow of grave condemnation. We see how the head of one great Department of State reads in his daily paper that the office he holds has been offered to another. We look on while another important Department scatters liberal largess from public funds; while feeble excuses are made for every mistake of a Government official; and while Ireland is again brought to the verge of civil war. And yet, Sir, apart from the exhortations of a few public- spirited men like yourself, there is no general cry of protest. No one has sounded a tsumpet-call to the nation—Away with this man! May we not look upon the letter of Major-General Maurice in Tuesday's papers as such a summons? It is a letter which is all the more damning by reason of the studied maderation of its tone. Will not now the hour produce the man P—I am, Sir, &e.,