But Mr. Lloyd George could not get rid of the
control of the Chief of the General Staff or of the Commander-in-Chief by dismissing them, the right and proper way of dealing with the matter if a Prime Minister seriously believes that his military advisers are mis- managing affair e. He knew that the country would not tolerate, oven if he himself desired it, the dismissal of the Chief of Staff and of the Commander-in-Chief, to whose wisdom and courage we already owe so much, and to which if we are steady and sensible we shall soon owe so much n-ore. Therefore the impedimenta to Mr. Lloyd George's will could not be swept away directly. Accordingly, like the subtle and wilful politician he is, he determined to get free from their control by a new piece of machinery, and ho devised what we are bound to say is one of the cleverest methods of doming a flank which have over been seen in the politic al world. He does not propose to remove his chief expert advisers, but, as the bees do with troublesome people in the hive, to sting them in a way
which paralyses them till they can conveniently be smothered in honey.
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