23 SEPTEMBER 1922, Page 1

Speaking at Newcastle last Saturday, Mr. Shortt, the Home Secretary,

expressed himself in language which might have been, and probably was, coloured by the Government's panicky manifesto. He pointed out that the British Empire contained Moslem subjects all over the world, and asked what would be the effect of a reverse on the Empire either at Con- stantinople or in Gallipoli. He regarded it as almost certain that we should have to send more troops to the East. He assumed that our Allies France and Italy would act with us, and it was a satisfaction to think that they would do so, as a reverse—he used the word two or three times—would have

repercussions in India, Egypt and elsewhere. We must "above all things avoid anything like an injury to our prestige."