Mr. King's incongruous remarks fell on the House rather as
though some one on a great domestic occasion, such as a wedding or a funeral, should worry the life out of the staff and the guests because he had lost a hairbrush or a stud. It was more than Mr. Asquith could bear, and after listening to a good many complaints, he said that one would not guess from such talk that six millions of men in arms were fighting one another to the death. How could he say when the General Election would be All he knew was that we were in the presence of terrible and unspeakable possibilities. The Plural Voting Bill and the other commitments of the Govern- ment must be postponed. Mr. Asquith so often speaks with an easy optimism that the country should mark the gravity of his words. As for the niggling grumblers, we may remark on the very curious fact that men whose political convictions are in form and intention considerate and humane seem so often to be entirely wanting in the "bowels of compassion" for tragic sufferings on the grandest scale. They see a good
deal at close range and see it acutely. But their sense of proportion breaks down after a certain point, and they are blind to the immensity of such a situation as that in which we are now involved.
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