The Week in Parliament
Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : —The comradeship in arms between ourselves and France in two great wars has created between us ties so close that the news of the collapse of their once magnificent army aroused in us the feelings with which the Roman Senate in old days received the tidings of Cannae. The full effects of the disaster cannot yet be measured. But like the Roman senators, and with far better reason, we can at least thank our own consul that he has not despaired of the salvation of his country. The Prime Minister has the great gift of fitting his words to the needs of the hour and the mood of the nation. He began with a stern warning against recrimination, reminding us that Members as well as Ministers have a responsibility to the country for their votes and speeches. He continued with a cool and businesslike appre- ciation of the facts of the new situation. Here he was like Robinson Crusoe on his island, counting his blessings—all that had been saved from the- wreck—and finding them suffi- cient. And finally in his great peroration on " the finest hour " he recalled the classic appeal of Aeneas to his storm-tossed companions:
revocate animos maestumque timorem mittite ; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvczbit.
Certainly Mr. Churchill succeeded in this, that without indul- gence in illusion or wishful thinking that could only produce a subsequent adverse reaction, he gave us an encouragement to hope: " to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates."
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