We must note, though most reluctantly, one other point in
Sir Edward Grey's speech,—that dealing with Sir Redvers Bailer's speech. Sir Edward Grey says ironically that when Sir Redvers Buller was attacked " he committed the heinous offence of defending himself." Sir Edward Grey has always shown himself so scrupulously just and fair-minded in all his publics utterances that we feel sure that nothing but a lapse of memory can have made him use language which conveys the impression that Sir Redvers Buller merely defended him- self. If he had done so, however hard he had hit us and the other newspapers who had adversely criticised his appoint- ment, we should, of course, have no word of complaint. Sir Edward Grey has evidently forgotten the astonishing Non- sense that Sir Redvers Buller talked about the international spy or detective who visited him, andthe absurd innuendoes con- nected in some incomprehensible way with the international spy, in regard to a conspiracy to drive General Buller from his post somehow concocted by the Spectator and other newspapers. Either Sir Redvers Bailer's story of the spy and his warnings and the "coincidence" of newspaper attacks on him meant nothing, or it meant to suggest a conspiracy. The Government could not have retained General Buller in his command without tacitly endorsing the story of the spy and the conspiracy. It is to avoid dilemmas of this kind that the military servants of the Government are so strictly forbidden to deal with subjects of public controversy in regard to their profession. Otherwise Government would be constantly liable either to support or repudiate any number of wild speeches, Accordingly after such a speech as that by General Buller the Government had, it seems to us, no choice but to demand his resignation, or boldly to defend the speech, spy and all. We greatly regret that Sir Edward Grey should have dealt with the subject, and so challenged fresh controversy. Surely it would be much better for Sir Redvers Buller's friends to let the matter now rest. If the question of the speech is to be seriously pressed, the first result must be a demand on General Buller as a man of honour either to substantiate and make clear and definite his vague innuendoes in regard to the spy and the conspiracy, or else frankly to withdraw them.
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