• * * *- The Home Secretary won the sympathy
of. the House by frankly admitting that in 1912 he had used intemperate language, and that he regretted it. How strange it is that so -few speakers -and-writers • can bring • themselves to acknowledge mistakes, although- - everybody - knows that this proof of honesty has always a -pleasant and flattering reception in - wait for it. We remember -a particular -debate in- the- House- of Commons in which Lord Charles Beresford quite outclassed his critics in his abuse of his own_ transgressions, and it -was noticeable how. pleased the House was with. him, and how much more ready it was to listen to him afterwards; - Mr. Oliver Stanley performed a most useful !office in extracting from Mr; MacDonald- the admission that what the Opposition questioned -was the expediency; not the propriety; of the Communist prosecution. That admission knocked the bottom out of the debate—if it had any Ieft—for what the Opposition had been objecting to was the advertisement which the trial gave to the Communists. But -here-was the House of Commons at the instigation of the -Opposition giving a further great and gratuitous advertisement. In the voting on the motion of censure the Government had a majority of 224. • .•
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