21 APRIL 1917, Page 2

We are not asking for tumid rhetoric or grandiloquent phraseo-

logy. On the contrary, what we should have liked was language of the kind to which South refers in his famous sermon on " Plainness of Speech." " There is a certain majesty in plainness ; as the proclamation of a prince never frisks it in tropes or fine conceits, in numerous and well-turned periods, but commands in sober natural expressions." It is such language, as he says elsewhere, " that tickles not the ear but sinks into the heart." But it is perhaps rather unfair to be so critical of the resolution. Heaven knows, the Cabinet Ministers are busy enough already, and we may be quite sure that they would not have cared to hand over such a " piece of fat " to an outsider. Mr. Bonar Law's speech has been so widely read that we will not attempt to summarize it. It was fully worthy of the occasion, and in no way open to the objections which we have raised to the jejune character of the motion. The same may be said of Mr. Asquith's speech, and of Lord Curzon's stately oration in the Lords—a speech worthily supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Bryce.