We do not want to say anything to palliate the
conduct of the Opposition in regard to letting down the supply of ammunition, and we think Mr. Balfour played the part of an honourable and upright statesman in making a confession so humiliating when he might have said nothing. It is right now that the danger is over that the country should be told how it stood in 1900. But the matter is far too serious for party recrimination. The responsibility must rest on the Secretary of State for War at the time of the shortage.
Cartridges do not yank& by magic, and nothing can excuse him and his official advisers for having allowed the stock to fall to the figure given. It would have been criminal reckless- ness to let it fall even for a week to ten million rounds. To let it fall to three thousand three hundred rounds was madness. The moment war was declared, or rather the moment war was in sight, every factory should have been set at work. It surely did not require a military brain to see that. Many of our readers, we believe, thought the attacks which we felt it our duty to make on Lord Lansdowne last year were cruel and without warrant. We appeal to Mr. Balfour's statement as our justificatien.
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