MR. CHURCHILL'S RETURN.
LTo TUE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.)
value your opinions in most matters very highly, but from at least one at the present time I respectfully venture to differ. In your issue of July 21st you say of Mr. Churchill's appoint- ment that Mr. Lloyd George is stretching the patience of many of his supporters to the breaking-poiut, and that the nation will take this nomination as the worst sign yet shown by the Govern- ment of unsteadiness and levity. That is assuredly not the general view held in Liverpool, as far as I am able to gather it.
Mr. Churchill may sometimes speak rashly and in an undignified mariner, but of how many strong statesmen may not this be said with equal truth? I have heard his foresight and courage very highly praised in well-informed quarters, even to the assertion that these totalities saved the British Empire and the Allies at the very beginning of the war, as evidenced by the absolute prepared- ness of our Navy, without which we would have had the Germans bombarding our coast towns and overrunning England within a week. Personally this is my conviction.
Then much adverse criticism has been launched against him with reference to the failure of the Antwerp move; but was it altogether • failure, and did it not serve to delay the enemy for two or three days when time was such a great element in the war? With reference to the Dardanelles it would not be, I think, a difficult matter to prove that that was not such a complete failure as it is at present made out to be, and that, though the great hope was not fulfilled, it yet Nerved a successful purpose, just as the present position in Salonika is doing with its apparently inert armies. The Dardanelles was not a failure because of its inception, but because of the utter incapacity of one in command at a 'critical moment, when a Churchill dash of character would have made it • perfect success. Many of us are glad that the appointment has
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