Think what we may of Mr. Asquith—we need not here
go into the question whether ho was or was not a very lethargic Prime Minister--we cannot ourselves see that he could have spoken at Newcastle in 1915 otherwise than he did. Surely the only thing a responsible and careful statesman could do was to convey to the nation as urgent a demand for munitions as he possibly could without giving away to the enemy any secrets about the extremity of our distress. That is exactly what Mr. Asquith did. If he had told the Germans that we were so short of shells that an attack at Ypres, for instance, had only to be pressed by them in order to succeed, surely Mr. Asquith would have deserved to be shot in the Tower the next morning I Never- theless, so far as we can make out after reading many of the criticisms of Mr. Asquith's speech, this is what a number of peoplethink he ought to have done.
Previous page
