16 MARCH 1912, Page 2

The final question is : Will Mr. Asquith, in the

last resort, show the firmness and the power to give that last tug on the rope which is the essential of statesmanship ? For one man who can give the last pull there are hundreds who can pull well up to the lust moment, but who then fail. We believe that that firmness in great things, if not in small, is to be found in Mr. Asquith, and we desire to repudiate in the strongest terms the most unfair and ill-timed attack made upon him by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. We do not want Mr.. Ramsay MitoDonald to praise the Prime Minister when he thinks him wrong, but the kind of carping speech which he made last Sunday cannot be justified from any point of view.