The need to rush it through in this fashion was
the result of the indiscretions of Ministers. Thus Nemesis visits the whole nation because of the thoughtless and improper conduct of some of those in the highest offices. The Select Committee, instead of being able to give its whole attention to the desirability of the original contract, bad its attention deflected—quite inevitably in the circumstances —to the conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Attorney-General, and Lord Murray. The committee lost sight of its proper purpose, and was finally broken up in an atmosphere of mingled scandal, ridicule, and recrimination, with its work unfinished. No one can doubt that if the attention of everybody interested had been confined to the original contract as a business proposal, a conclusion must have been reached in time to prevent a second contract being scrambled through the House of Commons without the independent criticism which is always desirable in such a case. When Ministers fall away from the highest standard of conduct one cannot easily foresee the end of the disservices which they may have indirectly done to their country.
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