CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIIIAT THE LIBERAL GRAVE-SIDE" ... 'I am no goatherd,' said Faiz Ullah. 'It is against izzat [my honour].''When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the policeman shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.''Thus, then, it is done,' grunted Faiz Ullah, 'if the Sahib will have it so'...."Rudyard Kipling:William the Conqueror.IThose who left London for a rare, short holiday between 1914 and 1918 were liable to find that the war followed them into the country with agitated headlines and with the daily rolls of honour, inevitable and inexorable, with gloomy letters and with vast departmental files bursting through their official envelopes. Those who were drawn to America at any time before the end of 1917 found there a people which seemed to realise the war as little as the English had realised it in 1914: the bitterness of death was not yet come. The excitement and preparation of her first entry into world-politics sent hardly a shiver through that warm atmosphere of peace and plenty; only the hard-bought experience of disorganisation and want, of jealousy and mistrust, of disappointment and impatience could bring home to America the suffering and losses, the occasional hopelessness, the recriminations and intrigues,the decline and abandonment of ideals which had overtaken one after another of the belligerents.It was only two and a half years since idealists in England had talked of a "war to end war," of international justice and the rights of small nations, of self-effacement and sacrifice, of a crusade and a new way of life. For a few weeks England displayed a great religious enthusiasm: the futility and squalor of the old world was sloughed off; a wave of disinterested pity swept over the country; there was a rush to arms and to work; old feuds were forgotten in a magnanimous handshake. How and why did the change come?Perhaps the conversion was too abrupt; perhaps long uncertainty and fear, long expectation and sudden knowledge of loss impose too heavy a strain on tender, unhardy greatness of soul. Death had hitherto been, for most, a release from suffering or the gentle termination of old age; for very few the mutilating rape of youth. At one moment, every one in England was clamouring to serve up to and beyond the limits of his capacity: in the race to the recruiting-stations, the old and the halt disguised their age and hid their infirmities; at another, each man inclined to see first what his neighbour was doing. Why should A fight while B shirked? Why should C give all he had, while D amassed riches? Why should E's husband be left alive when F's had been killed?Trust was driven out by suspicion; and for the suspicion there was but too good ground. Some men did evade military service or shelter themselves in fire-proof billets; some made their country's necessity their own opportunity; some hoarded coal and gold, food and oil; there were mistakes of policy and errors of judgement,as there were German spies and pro-German agents. Of all such, however, there is abundance in every country in every war; and it is illuminating to find that Ludendorff holds up the morale of Great Britain as a model to his own countrymen. Was the strain, were the people's defects of character sufficient to justify the wholesale jettisoning of all the early ideals?Or was their sacrifice rejected, were their early ideals betrayed by a government which cared too little about everything to see clearly about anything? Two and a half years of war achieved a series of contrasts so violent that a man might well rub his eyes and wonder whether he was in the same country. Great Britain, at least by the letter of her professions, had entered the war disinterestedly to uphold the neutrality of Belgium and to pay a debt of honour to France; she had since surrendered so completely to the acquisitive side of imperialism that she was collecting vast tracts of territory in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, promising Constantinople to Russia, Trieste and the Trentino to Italy—the former ally of Austria—and Alsace-Lorraine to France. In 1914 the prime minister had stirred the world with the eloquence of his plea for the small nationalities, but the stress of war induced him, with colleagues, supporters and opponents bleating joyous acquiescence, to suspend the home rule act which promised independence to at least one small nationality. In an England lately taught to loathe militarism and autocracy, the life and liberty of the subject lay so much at the mercy of autocratic regulations that criticism was stifled. Conscription had been imposed, with every kind of base capitulation, first to the incompetence of the War Office, then to the urgency of the press, then to sectional rivalries betweenmarried and unmarried men. The rights of minorities and the pleadings of conscience were left to assert themselves within the four walls of a prison-cell.And hardly a voice had been raised in protest. When they found that the policy of the cabinet was committing tens of millions, without their knowledge, to war, a handful of ministers did indeed resign, with less commotion than a man would cause in leaving a table where the cards were marked; but of the others who had raved and argued for non-intervention all were snugly ensconced in office. The major complaisance made easy the minor; and the party which had left its principles on the threshold before drifting into war drifted into conscription without realising that it had any more principles to abandon. Sir John Simon, who had stood forth as the champion of the voluntary system, argued half-heartedly from the standpoint of expediency and resigned when his political influence had evaporated. And yet this servility to the dictates of government was not the result of a splendid resolve to close the ranks and to support the ministry in its hour of crisis: there was no union of hearts comparable with that effected between the republicans and the democrats in America. The united front at home broke down after the battle of Neuve Chapelle; and from May 1915 till December 1916 there was such an orgy of political intrigue as Great Britain had not seen in living memory.The battle on the home front was joined on the morrow of the campaign which registered the failure of the first British offensive. Owing to disagreement or misunderstanding between the military experts, Sir John French at General Headquarters and Lord Kitchener at the War Office, the battle of Neuve Chapelle wasfought with much shrapnel and little high explosive; Mr. Asquith, basing himself on his secretary of state for war, spoke reassuringly at Newcastle on the shell position; but the commander-in-chief had by now discovered that high explosive was what he wanted, and on this subject it was impossible to speak reassuringly. To secure an adequate supply Sir John French put himself, through the medium of Captain the Honourable Frederick Guest, into communication, not with the prime minister nor with the secretary of state for war, but, behind their backs, with the chancellor of the exchequer. Mr. Lloyd George, though equally responsible with the rest of the cabinet, now posed before the world as the one minister seriously concerned to supply the army with munitions, and in his support the godliest and the greatest rubbed shoulders: Bishop Furze of Pretoria hurried to the assistance of the military experts by giving it as his considered opinion that the Neuve Chapelle failure was due to lack of an unlimited supply of high-explosive shells;The Timeslent its weight in the same direction. A debate was threatened at the moment when Italy was at last deciding to abandon her neutrality; and, though Mr. Asquith had announced but a few hours before that he did not contemplate forming a coalition government, his colleagues were invited a few hours later to place their resignations in his hands so that a coalition ministry might be formed.The liberal party was not consulted until the decision had been taken; and the men who had answered every demand on their loyalty for five, six and eight years were sufficiently disgruntled to call a meeting of protest. With the prime minister's entrance, indignation turned to sympathy; he was urged into the chair, andafter an explanation in which nothing was explained, the meeting dispersed, bright-eyed with emotion, to a murmured chorus of "Trust the P.M." In the reconstruction of the ministry, room had to be found for as many unionists as liberals; and, as at this time Mr. Lloyd George was advertising for "a man of push and go" to control the supply of munitions, the principle of coalition government was defined as one in which the tories pushed and the liberals went.This idea of fusion, with its amnesty of principles, its abandonment of awkward party controversies and its escape from embarrassing party opposition, was perhaps a greater novelty to the House of Commons than to the new head of the new Ministry of Munitions. To the coalition principle he is said to have been attracted for years before the war;[35]he remained faithful to it until the end; and, with the conclusion of the armistice, he exalted it into an article of political faith, which to reject was tantamount to instant death at the political stake; even now, when peace has been signed, the need for coalition government has, in his eyes, not yet abated. The change that overcame Mr. Lloyd George's mind between the battle of Neuve Chapelle and the December crisis of 1916 was that, in addition to the need for a coalition, he saw the need for himself at its head.IIBefore the House of Commons and the country could be prepared for the change of government in war-time, they had to be convinced that the old administration not only had failed in the past, but was doomed to fail in the future. One bird in the coalition nest had to foul it until the offence cried to heaven; thereafter the nest could be rebuilt and repopulated. So, for a year and a half, there was always one member of the government to dissociate himself from his colleagues and to point sorrowfully to mistakes for which his sorrow appeared to absolve him from responsibility. Owing to delay, mismanagement or lack of preparation, Neuve Chapelle, Loos and the Somme by land, Jutland by sea had achieved no decision; the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia campaigns had ended in smoke and blood. The difficulty of raising new drafts, of equipping them and of feeding the civilian population was magnified by a press which ministers scorned to make sympathetic. Ireland had been goaded into revolt and was being held quiet by force. As a record of failure, much platform capital could be made out of the government's succession of disasters.[36]Whether any other government made fewer mistakes absolutely, whether it was generous to emphasise these catastrophes and to disregard the practical achievements, future historians must determine. The wholeof Great Britain and of the British Empire had been brought unanimously and enthusiastically into the war; an unmilitary nation had raised and armed millions of men; it was spending thousands of millions of pounds each year; it was blockading the enemy and policing the seas. It was not, unfortunately, breaking the German line in the West nor the Turkish line in the East. Generosity was not a conspicuous quality among the men who were engaged in breaking the home front.To Mr. Asquith's eternal credit he rated unity in cabinet and country higher than any tactical advantage that he might have secured by a dialectical brawl with his energetic lieutenant. Mr. Lloyd George, who was now so anxious to "get on with the war," had been less anxious to follow his chief into war at the outset; "too late here," he complained, "too late there," but in every decision, were it the Dardanelles expedition or the shell controversy, he shared full and equal responsibility with the head and every member of the cabinet, he could have resigned in protest—and with greater dignity than he shewed in rounding upon his colleagues for mistakes in which he participated. From the time of Lord Kitchener's death until the December crisis, he was himself secretary of state for war with a predominant voice in all military decisions.It was easier to forget his own record and to focus the attention of his audience upon the future. After the failure of the Somme offensive, the apparent failure of the Jutland action, another winter campaign became inevitable; food was running short and would become shorter if German submarines were given free play; the evidence collected by the Dardanelles commissioners threw a disturbing light on the happy-go-lucky methodsof cabinet government; ministers were allowing themselves to be bullied in the House of Commons; and from a hundred different quarters there gathered a hundred thousand wisps and wreaths of fog which intensified in a tarnishing cloud of mistrust and disapproval. Under the military service act a man could appeal for exemption on the ground that he was indispensable in his present employment; from the first days of the war Mr. Asquith was hailed as the indispensable prime minister. It is impossible to draw any chart to shew the change in psychological attitude towards him; but by the autumn of 1916, perhaps on the day when he persuaded parliament to accept conscription and imposed it upon the country without a revolution, he was no longer indispensable; very soon the antagonism strengthened into a feeling that the war would never be won so long as he remained at the head of the government.This feeling was crystallised by Mr. Lloyd George in a memorandum which proposed that a committee of three, excluding the prime minister, should have full direction of the war. Discussion and correspondence followed; the proposal was made public inThe Timesof December 4th; there was one day's more correspondence, ending with Mr. Asquith's abrupt announcement on December 5th that he had tendered his resignation to the king. It seemed unlikely, to the outside spectator, that either Mr. Bonar Law or Mr. Lloyd George would be able to form a new administration, if, as was expected, the liberal and unionist ministers remained loyal to their old chief in resisting an ambitious colleague's effort to supplant him; but those responsible for the upheaval were leaving nothing to chance in the "well-organised, carefully engineered conspiracy" whichMr. Asquith described as being "directed" in part against some of his late unionist colleagues, but in the main against Lord Grey and himself. Mr. Bonar Law lost no time in handing on to Mr. Lloyd George the opportunity of an experiment in cabinet-making; the unionist members had been approached in advance, Mr. Balfour and Lord Robert Cecil consented to take office and the small fry followed their lead.So perished the first coalition, the liberal party and the political ascendancy of Mr. Asquith. Now, as before, his supporters were not consulted any more than when he plunged them into the first coalition or incurred that earlier debt of honour which was not an obligation, but which had the compelling force of an obligation in committing them to hostilities; though he expected and received their fealty throughout the first two and a half years of war, he never found it necessary to take them into his confidence before sacrificing every principle of liberalism, placing every liberal pledge in suspense and, at the end, abdicating from his half of the political throne. Ministers had an unchallenged, victorious majority; there was no adverse vote; the white flag fluttered into view before a shot had been fired; and it was not until he assembled the liberal party at the Reform Club on December 8th and hinted at the conspiracy before which he had retired that the party knew its fate. By that time the majority of the party was grown restive under this one-sided loyalty.Those were days of terrible passion and bitterness. No abuse was too strong for the perfidy of Mr. Lloyd George on the one hand or the lethargy of Mr. Asquith on the other. Ingratitude and bad faith were spluttered from one set of lips; incompetence and indifference fromthe other. A "defeatist" cabal in the cabinet was discovered or invented; and ministers were accused of not winning the war because they did not want to win the war. More than four years have passed since that black week and it is still too early to return an impartial verdict. No one is likely to question that Mr. Asquith's loyalty and generosity to his colleagues are without parallel in our political history: throughout the vulgarity of the Limehouse campaign, the tragi-comedy of Mr. Churchill's Sidney Street offensive and the squalor of the Marconi scandal, the prime minister's wide and indulgent cloak was ever at the disposal of the intemperate youngsters of his cabinet; never was indulgence repaid with blacker treachery. Those who like to fancy the workings of providence in human affairs may think that, as Mr. Asquith neglected and misled his party more thoroughly than any other prime minister, so he was overtaken by a more malignant nemesis.To suggest that he would have lost the war, if he had continued in office, is hardly less fantastic than to believe that Mr. Lloyd George won it. A press-ridden people is liable to exaggerate the difference between one prime minister and another; by 1917 a number of amateurs had learned something of war, and the new prime minister profited by experience as the old would have done; but through the organised clamour and dust of the next two years it is hard to discern a single act of courage or of decision which ranks higher than the day-by-day courage and decision displayed by the government in the first half of the war or which entitled Mr. Lloyd George more than Mr. Asquith to be regarded as a great war-minister. It was under Mr. Asquith's rule that the country was converted from peaceto war, that the great armies were raised and all but one of the great alliances concluded. If Mr. Lloyd George can claim credit for the unification of the higher command, he must allow that from no one but Mr. Asquith would conscription have been accepted; his own effort in 1918 to raise the age-limit and to include Ireland was hardly a triumph of practical efficiency or of political honesty. The difficulties of administration had, if anything, decreased by 1917: if Russia was no longer dependable, America—with all her resources of food, money and men—came to redress the balance. While Mr. Lloyd George's buoyant and inspiring optimism deserves all praise, Mr. Asquith's optimism, if more restrained, was no less constant; his determination, even when no longer in office, to prosecute the war with all possible vigour was a cause of perplexity and of offence to those of his party who wished him to lead a movement in favour of a negotiated peace and to those who hoped to see him retaliating on the new government for the guerilla so long waged against himself.As the fate of the country they governed is more important than that of either man, so the fate of the party they led is more important than the transitory fortune of its leader. One who lunched at the Reform Club on December 8th, in sight of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's portrait, may perhaps be excused for thinking of the library overhead and of the shattered host that listened there to the belated apologetics of its leader; he may be pardoned for putting on those kindly, shrewd lips the words: "Vare, legions redde."IIIEven the rout of the liberal party is inconsiderable by comparison with the death of liberalism which took place that day. The old shibboleths of peace, economy, personal liberty and internationalism were discarded; when next liberal candidates made profession of faith, they deafened themselves with a cry for revenge and for indemnities which could not be exacted, until the "war to end war" culminated in a peace to end peace. Forgotten were the aspirations of August 1914; nationality was blessed in the distant security of Czecho-Slovakia but ignored in Ireland; of the ideals with which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's lost legions had come into power there remained not one, of practical achievement their record shewed little more than a statute-book cumbered by bold acts of parliament which their authors had rendered inoperative.The generation that saw the liberalism on which it had been reared stricken to the ground by the annihilating onrush of war still hoped that, with the halting approach of peace, liberalism might raise its head again. Among the faithful are numbered the ardent and generous spirits of every generation; and the faith is imperishable even though from time to time it lack a prophet or a leader. It is inspired by compassion for all who are any way afflicted in mind, body or estate and it exists to relieve affliction by the gift of freedom. Liberty to sleep and wake and work and love, secure from the oppression of a despotic ruler or a strong neighbour; liberty to win the best from life, unhampered by hunger or thirst, by cold or disease, by ignorance or fear; libertyto enjoy the fruits of labour and to engage in the pursuit of happiness; liberty for a man to do whatsoever he wishes, provided that he does not infringe the liberty of his neighbour: all this is included in the faith of liberalism, which embraces also the liberty of the smaller aggregates, which we call classes, and of the larger aggregates, which we call nations, to mould their own destinies and to pursue, each in its own way, its own ideal of happiness. It is a militant faith, for, when compassion slumbers, the need for liberty and the faith in liberty are dead; it is kept ever alert and brightly armoured by the just young, who cannot tolerate that millions of their fellow creatures should begin life handicapped, and by the merciful, who believe that active or passive cruelty is the root of all evil and the mark of original sin. What a man becomes in later life is conditioned by the scars which the struggle for existence leaves upon him; for the man who was not a liberal in youth, there may be pity, but there can be no hope. The men who risked anything or everything in the war attached various labels to their political beliefs, but the act of sacrifice made liberals of them.After the crisis of December, 1916, fewer tears were shed for fallen liberal idols than for unpedestalled liberal ministers, and compassion was too much needed at home to be spared for export; now, as then, less righteous indignation is engendered by the collapse of liberalism than by the defection of prominent liberals. Captain Guest and Mr. Shortt, Sir Alfred Mond and Mr. Churchill, Dr. Addison and Mr. Macpherson, Sir Hamar Greenwood and Mr. Harmsworth, Sir Gordon Hewart and Mr. Montagu are felt by "wee free" liberalsto have sold their master; a year ago,[37]some of them were publicly acclaimed as "rats" and denied a hearing. Those who remained loyal to Mr. Asquith dropped gently out of political prominence until the general election of 1918 dropped them less gently out of public life. A British political faith has never been so completely and tidily demolished as was British liberalism, with its organisation and its army, at the hands of a Welsh solicitor, an Irish newspaper proprietor, a Canadian financier and their satellites, aided by the inexorable logic of events.The funeral of liberalism was carried out with more despatch than solemnity. On the night of Mr. Asquith's resignation the politicians separated at once into those who had surrendered office and those who hoped to fill the vacant places.Le roy est mort; vive le roy!Though Irish, English and Scotch were being killed on a dozen fronts, no time was being wasted at home; as in the political crisis after Neuve Chapelle, more than one soldier-politician had returned to London in full readiness to lay aside his sword in exchange for a portfolio; and before Mr. Bonar Law had visited the king, a "new gang" leader might have been overheard enquiring of an "old gang" minister how much he had got out of the "pool" of ministerial salaries. The mission to America offered to its members a welcome holiday from English politics.In those days any holiday from London would have been acceptable. Most of those who passed their time in government offices were overworked; almost all of themex hypothesiwere in one way or another unfit; all were stale. Their blood unfired by hand-to-hand fighting,they became unconscious victims of despondency which bore no accurate relation to the fluctuating fortune of war. While it is probably true that in the winter before America entered the war, when the reservoir of men was running dry, when food had first to be rationed and England was threatened with the "unrestricted" submarine campaign, there was better reason for depression than in September 1914 or March 1918, when the danger was past before it had been fully realised, it is also true that depression continued when improving news from the front should have relieved it. There is a close connection between a temporarily weakening morale and the first decline in the standard of living: by the end of 1916 food was deteriorating in quality and quantity; digestion and nerves were affected; bodily vitality became impaired. There is a connection no less close between mental vitality and light; an ill-lit room produces low spirits, and London was ill-lit after the first threat of an air-raid. Further, the health of mind and of body is dependent on sleep; and, if a civilian may criticise the strategy of the German air-service, it may be suggested that it would have done better to aim at breaking British morale by keeping Britain awake at night. The material achievement of the raiders must have been disappointing to the German general staff: the destruction of life was insignificant; the damage to property trifling; it may be doubted whether the bombs dropped on railways, munition works and public buildings retarded the pace of the war by an hour; there was no widespread panic; the civilian population was never driven to sue prematurely for peace, the seat of government was never transferred. To this extent the air-raids were a failure.If this contention be just, the most successful phase of the campaign was reached one week when there were six raid nights in succession. London was, in consequence, fretful and neurotic. While no one had the honesty to admit that he was frightened by raids, a few would admit their effect on the nerves of others. With the approach of evening the anxious Londoner calculated from the age of the moon and the height of the wind that it was, perhaps, a "good night for the Gothas." "I wonder whether they'll come to-night," he would observe conversationally, as he went in to dinner; and, whether they came or not, the atmosphere was affected by vague, hardly perceptible uneasiness. When the attack was inopportunely timed, dinner would be interrupted while children were flushed from bed and littered down in hall or cellar. Every taxi disappeared from the streets, the tube stations were filled with highly scented aliens and the anxious Londoner walked home between the bombardments of the anti-aircraft guns, perhaps to find that he was homeless, roofless or windowless. After a broken night, he awoke with a headache; and, if government offices were representative of London as a whole, a proportion of the morning would be spent in exchanging anecdotes of the raid.IVAt mid-day on the Wednesday in Easter week, after one or two false starts, the members of Mr. Balfour's mission entered a private bay at Euston, where the presence of a special train aroused among the porters mild speculation which died away in the opinion that the kingwas making an unadvertised journey. The Admiralty was represented by Rear-Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair and Fleet-Paymaster Lawford; the War Office by Major-General (Sir) Tom Bridges, Colonel Spender-Clay, Colonel Dansey and Major Rees; the Foreign Office by Lord Eustace Percy, Mr. Maurice Peterson, Mr. A. Paton and (Sir) Geoffrey Butler; the Board of Trade by Mr. F. P. Robinson; the Wheat Commission by (Sir) Alan Anderson; the Ministry of Munitions by Mr. W. P. Layton and Mr. M. L. Phillips; the Bank of England by its governor, Lord Cunliffe. Mr. Balfour's personal staff consisted of Sir Eric Drummond, (Sir) Ian Malcolm and Mr. Cecil Dormer. A later boat was to bring others who joined the mission in Washington.At two o'clock the special train left Euston for a port chosen by the Admiralty, but not disclosed. At a time chosen by the Admiralty, the mission was to embark on an unknown ship for an unknown destination on the western side of the Atlantic, there to escape for a few weeks from the imminence of war and to look upon a country which seemed own sister to the England which all had known before August 4, 1914.

AT THE LIBERAL GRAVE-SIDE

" ... 'I am no goatherd,' said Faiz Ullah. 'It is against izzat [my honour].'

'When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the policeman shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.'

'Thus, then, it is done,' grunted Faiz Ullah, 'if the Sahib will have it so'...."

Rudyard Kipling:William the Conqueror.

Those who left London for a rare, short holiday between 1914 and 1918 were liable to find that the war followed them into the country with agitated headlines and with the daily rolls of honour, inevitable and inexorable, with gloomy letters and with vast departmental files bursting through their official envelopes. Those who were drawn to America at any time before the end of 1917 found there a people which seemed to realise the war as little as the English had realised it in 1914: the bitterness of death was not yet come. The excitement and preparation of her first entry into world-politics sent hardly a shiver through that warm atmosphere of peace and plenty; only the hard-bought experience of disorganisation and want, of jealousy and mistrust, of disappointment and impatience could bring home to America the suffering and losses, the occasional hopelessness, the recriminations and intrigues,the decline and abandonment of ideals which had overtaken one after another of the belligerents.

It was only two and a half years since idealists in England had talked of a "war to end war," of international justice and the rights of small nations, of self-effacement and sacrifice, of a crusade and a new way of life. For a few weeks England displayed a great religious enthusiasm: the futility and squalor of the old world was sloughed off; a wave of disinterested pity swept over the country; there was a rush to arms and to work; old feuds were forgotten in a magnanimous handshake. How and why did the change come?

Perhaps the conversion was too abrupt; perhaps long uncertainty and fear, long expectation and sudden knowledge of loss impose too heavy a strain on tender, unhardy greatness of soul. Death had hitherto been, for most, a release from suffering or the gentle termination of old age; for very few the mutilating rape of youth. At one moment, every one in England was clamouring to serve up to and beyond the limits of his capacity: in the race to the recruiting-stations, the old and the halt disguised their age and hid their infirmities; at another, each man inclined to see first what his neighbour was doing. Why should A fight while B shirked? Why should C give all he had, while D amassed riches? Why should E's husband be left alive when F's had been killed?

Trust was driven out by suspicion; and for the suspicion there was but too good ground. Some men did evade military service or shelter themselves in fire-proof billets; some made their country's necessity their own opportunity; some hoarded coal and gold, food and oil; there were mistakes of policy and errors of judgement,as there were German spies and pro-German agents. Of all such, however, there is abundance in every country in every war; and it is illuminating to find that Ludendorff holds up the morale of Great Britain as a model to his own countrymen. Was the strain, were the people's defects of character sufficient to justify the wholesale jettisoning of all the early ideals?

Or was their sacrifice rejected, were their early ideals betrayed by a government which cared too little about everything to see clearly about anything? Two and a half years of war achieved a series of contrasts so violent that a man might well rub his eyes and wonder whether he was in the same country. Great Britain, at least by the letter of her professions, had entered the war disinterestedly to uphold the neutrality of Belgium and to pay a debt of honour to France; she had since surrendered so completely to the acquisitive side of imperialism that she was collecting vast tracts of territory in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, promising Constantinople to Russia, Trieste and the Trentino to Italy—the former ally of Austria—and Alsace-Lorraine to France. In 1914 the prime minister had stirred the world with the eloquence of his plea for the small nationalities, but the stress of war induced him, with colleagues, supporters and opponents bleating joyous acquiescence, to suspend the home rule act which promised independence to at least one small nationality. In an England lately taught to loathe militarism and autocracy, the life and liberty of the subject lay so much at the mercy of autocratic regulations that criticism was stifled. Conscription had been imposed, with every kind of base capitulation, first to the incompetence of the War Office, then to the urgency of the press, then to sectional rivalries betweenmarried and unmarried men. The rights of minorities and the pleadings of conscience were left to assert themselves within the four walls of a prison-cell.

And hardly a voice had been raised in protest. When they found that the policy of the cabinet was committing tens of millions, without their knowledge, to war, a handful of ministers did indeed resign, with less commotion than a man would cause in leaving a table where the cards were marked; but of the others who had raved and argued for non-intervention all were snugly ensconced in office. The major complaisance made easy the minor; and the party which had left its principles on the threshold before drifting into war drifted into conscription without realising that it had any more principles to abandon. Sir John Simon, who had stood forth as the champion of the voluntary system, argued half-heartedly from the standpoint of expediency and resigned when his political influence had evaporated. And yet this servility to the dictates of government was not the result of a splendid resolve to close the ranks and to support the ministry in its hour of crisis: there was no union of hearts comparable with that effected between the republicans and the democrats in America. The united front at home broke down after the battle of Neuve Chapelle; and from May 1915 till December 1916 there was such an orgy of political intrigue as Great Britain had not seen in living memory.

The battle on the home front was joined on the morrow of the campaign which registered the failure of the first British offensive. Owing to disagreement or misunderstanding between the military experts, Sir John French at General Headquarters and Lord Kitchener at the War Office, the battle of Neuve Chapelle wasfought with much shrapnel and little high explosive; Mr. Asquith, basing himself on his secretary of state for war, spoke reassuringly at Newcastle on the shell position; but the commander-in-chief had by now discovered that high explosive was what he wanted, and on this subject it was impossible to speak reassuringly. To secure an adequate supply Sir John French put himself, through the medium of Captain the Honourable Frederick Guest, into communication, not with the prime minister nor with the secretary of state for war, but, behind their backs, with the chancellor of the exchequer. Mr. Lloyd George, though equally responsible with the rest of the cabinet, now posed before the world as the one minister seriously concerned to supply the army with munitions, and in his support the godliest and the greatest rubbed shoulders: Bishop Furze of Pretoria hurried to the assistance of the military experts by giving it as his considered opinion that the Neuve Chapelle failure was due to lack of an unlimited supply of high-explosive shells;The Timeslent its weight in the same direction. A debate was threatened at the moment when Italy was at last deciding to abandon her neutrality; and, though Mr. Asquith had announced but a few hours before that he did not contemplate forming a coalition government, his colleagues were invited a few hours later to place their resignations in his hands so that a coalition ministry might be formed.

The liberal party was not consulted until the decision had been taken; and the men who had answered every demand on their loyalty for five, six and eight years were sufficiently disgruntled to call a meeting of protest. With the prime minister's entrance, indignation turned to sympathy; he was urged into the chair, andafter an explanation in which nothing was explained, the meeting dispersed, bright-eyed with emotion, to a murmured chorus of "Trust the P.M." In the reconstruction of the ministry, room had to be found for as many unionists as liberals; and, as at this time Mr. Lloyd George was advertising for "a man of push and go" to control the supply of munitions, the principle of coalition government was defined as one in which the tories pushed and the liberals went.

This idea of fusion, with its amnesty of principles, its abandonment of awkward party controversies and its escape from embarrassing party opposition, was perhaps a greater novelty to the House of Commons than to the new head of the new Ministry of Munitions. To the coalition principle he is said to have been attracted for years before the war;[35]he remained faithful to it until the end; and, with the conclusion of the armistice, he exalted it into an article of political faith, which to reject was tantamount to instant death at the political stake; even now, when peace has been signed, the need for coalition government has, in his eyes, not yet abated. The change that overcame Mr. Lloyd George's mind between the battle of Neuve Chapelle and the December crisis of 1916 was that, in addition to the need for a coalition, he saw the need for himself at its head.

Before the House of Commons and the country could be prepared for the change of government in war-time, they had to be convinced that the old administration not only had failed in the past, but was doomed to fail in the future. One bird in the coalition nest had to foul it until the offence cried to heaven; thereafter the nest could be rebuilt and repopulated. So, for a year and a half, there was always one member of the government to dissociate himself from his colleagues and to point sorrowfully to mistakes for which his sorrow appeared to absolve him from responsibility. Owing to delay, mismanagement or lack of preparation, Neuve Chapelle, Loos and the Somme by land, Jutland by sea had achieved no decision; the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia campaigns had ended in smoke and blood. The difficulty of raising new drafts, of equipping them and of feeding the civilian population was magnified by a press which ministers scorned to make sympathetic. Ireland had been goaded into revolt and was being held quiet by force. As a record of failure, much platform capital could be made out of the government's succession of disasters.[36]

Whether any other government made fewer mistakes absolutely, whether it was generous to emphasise these catastrophes and to disregard the practical achievements, future historians must determine. The wholeof Great Britain and of the British Empire had been brought unanimously and enthusiastically into the war; an unmilitary nation had raised and armed millions of men; it was spending thousands of millions of pounds each year; it was blockading the enemy and policing the seas. It was not, unfortunately, breaking the German line in the West nor the Turkish line in the East. Generosity was not a conspicuous quality among the men who were engaged in breaking the home front.

To Mr. Asquith's eternal credit he rated unity in cabinet and country higher than any tactical advantage that he might have secured by a dialectical brawl with his energetic lieutenant. Mr. Lloyd George, who was now so anxious to "get on with the war," had been less anxious to follow his chief into war at the outset; "too late here," he complained, "too late there," but in every decision, were it the Dardanelles expedition or the shell controversy, he shared full and equal responsibility with the head and every member of the cabinet, he could have resigned in protest—and with greater dignity than he shewed in rounding upon his colleagues for mistakes in which he participated. From the time of Lord Kitchener's death until the December crisis, he was himself secretary of state for war with a predominant voice in all military decisions.

It was easier to forget his own record and to focus the attention of his audience upon the future. After the failure of the Somme offensive, the apparent failure of the Jutland action, another winter campaign became inevitable; food was running short and would become shorter if German submarines were given free play; the evidence collected by the Dardanelles commissioners threw a disturbing light on the happy-go-lucky methodsof cabinet government; ministers were allowing themselves to be bullied in the House of Commons; and from a hundred different quarters there gathered a hundred thousand wisps and wreaths of fog which intensified in a tarnishing cloud of mistrust and disapproval. Under the military service act a man could appeal for exemption on the ground that he was indispensable in his present employment; from the first days of the war Mr. Asquith was hailed as the indispensable prime minister. It is impossible to draw any chart to shew the change in psychological attitude towards him; but by the autumn of 1916, perhaps on the day when he persuaded parliament to accept conscription and imposed it upon the country without a revolution, he was no longer indispensable; very soon the antagonism strengthened into a feeling that the war would never be won so long as he remained at the head of the government.

This feeling was crystallised by Mr. Lloyd George in a memorandum which proposed that a committee of three, excluding the prime minister, should have full direction of the war. Discussion and correspondence followed; the proposal was made public inThe Timesof December 4th; there was one day's more correspondence, ending with Mr. Asquith's abrupt announcement on December 5th that he had tendered his resignation to the king. It seemed unlikely, to the outside spectator, that either Mr. Bonar Law or Mr. Lloyd George would be able to form a new administration, if, as was expected, the liberal and unionist ministers remained loyal to their old chief in resisting an ambitious colleague's effort to supplant him; but those responsible for the upheaval were leaving nothing to chance in the "well-organised, carefully engineered conspiracy" whichMr. Asquith described as being "directed" in part against some of his late unionist colleagues, but in the main against Lord Grey and himself. Mr. Bonar Law lost no time in handing on to Mr. Lloyd George the opportunity of an experiment in cabinet-making; the unionist members had been approached in advance, Mr. Balfour and Lord Robert Cecil consented to take office and the small fry followed their lead.

So perished the first coalition, the liberal party and the political ascendancy of Mr. Asquith. Now, as before, his supporters were not consulted any more than when he plunged them into the first coalition or incurred that earlier debt of honour which was not an obligation, but which had the compelling force of an obligation in committing them to hostilities; though he expected and received their fealty throughout the first two and a half years of war, he never found it necessary to take them into his confidence before sacrificing every principle of liberalism, placing every liberal pledge in suspense and, at the end, abdicating from his half of the political throne. Ministers had an unchallenged, victorious majority; there was no adverse vote; the white flag fluttered into view before a shot had been fired; and it was not until he assembled the liberal party at the Reform Club on December 8th and hinted at the conspiracy before which he had retired that the party knew its fate. By that time the majority of the party was grown restive under this one-sided loyalty.

Those were days of terrible passion and bitterness. No abuse was too strong for the perfidy of Mr. Lloyd George on the one hand or the lethargy of Mr. Asquith on the other. Ingratitude and bad faith were spluttered from one set of lips; incompetence and indifference fromthe other. A "defeatist" cabal in the cabinet was discovered or invented; and ministers were accused of not winning the war because they did not want to win the war. More than four years have passed since that black week and it is still too early to return an impartial verdict. No one is likely to question that Mr. Asquith's loyalty and generosity to his colleagues are without parallel in our political history: throughout the vulgarity of the Limehouse campaign, the tragi-comedy of Mr. Churchill's Sidney Street offensive and the squalor of the Marconi scandal, the prime minister's wide and indulgent cloak was ever at the disposal of the intemperate youngsters of his cabinet; never was indulgence repaid with blacker treachery. Those who like to fancy the workings of providence in human affairs may think that, as Mr. Asquith neglected and misled his party more thoroughly than any other prime minister, so he was overtaken by a more malignant nemesis.

To suggest that he would have lost the war, if he had continued in office, is hardly less fantastic than to believe that Mr. Lloyd George won it. A press-ridden people is liable to exaggerate the difference between one prime minister and another; by 1917 a number of amateurs had learned something of war, and the new prime minister profited by experience as the old would have done; but through the organised clamour and dust of the next two years it is hard to discern a single act of courage or of decision which ranks higher than the day-by-day courage and decision displayed by the government in the first half of the war or which entitled Mr. Lloyd George more than Mr. Asquith to be regarded as a great war-minister. It was under Mr. Asquith's rule that the country was converted from peaceto war, that the great armies were raised and all but one of the great alliances concluded. If Mr. Lloyd George can claim credit for the unification of the higher command, he must allow that from no one but Mr. Asquith would conscription have been accepted; his own effort in 1918 to raise the age-limit and to include Ireland was hardly a triumph of practical efficiency or of political honesty. The difficulties of administration had, if anything, decreased by 1917: if Russia was no longer dependable, America—with all her resources of food, money and men—came to redress the balance. While Mr. Lloyd George's buoyant and inspiring optimism deserves all praise, Mr. Asquith's optimism, if more restrained, was no less constant; his determination, even when no longer in office, to prosecute the war with all possible vigour was a cause of perplexity and of offence to those of his party who wished him to lead a movement in favour of a negotiated peace and to those who hoped to see him retaliating on the new government for the guerilla so long waged against himself.

As the fate of the country they governed is more important than that of either man, so the fate of the party they led is more important than the transitory fortune of its leader. One who lunched at the Reform Club on December 8th, in sight of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's portrait, may perhaps be excused for thinking of the library overhead and of the shattered host that listened there to the belated apologetics of its leader; he may be pardoned for putting on those kindly, shrewd lips the words: "Vare, legions redde."

Even the rout of the liberal party is inconsiderable by comparison with the death of liberalism which took place that day. The old shibboleths of peace, economy, personal liberty and internationalism were discarded; when next liberal candidates made profession of faith, they deafened themselves with a cry for revenge and for indemnities which could not be exacted, until the "war to end war" culminated in a peace to end peace. Forgotten were the aspirations of August 1914; nationality was blessed in the distant security of Czecho-Slovakia but ignored in Ireland; of the ideals with which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's lost legions had come into power there remained not one, of practical achievement their record shewed little more than a statute-book cumbered by bold acts of parliament which their authors had rendered inoperative.

The generation that saw the liberalism on which it had been reared stricken to the ground by the annihilating onrush of war still hoped that, with the halting approach of peace, liberalism might raise its head again. Among the faithful are numbered the ardent and generous spirits of every generation; and the faith is imperishable even though from time to time it lack a prophet or a leader. It is inspired by compassion for all who are any way afflicted in mind, body or estate and it exists to relieve affliction by the gift of freedom. Liberty to sleep and wake and work and love, secure from the oppression of a despotic ruler or a strong neighbour; liberty to win the best from life, unhampered by hunger or thirst, by cold or disease, by ignorance or fear; libertyto enjoy the fruits of labour and to engage in the pursuit of happiness; liberty for a man to do whatsoever he wishes, provided that he does not infringe the liberty of his neighbour: all this is included in the faith of liberalism, which embraces also the liberty of the smaller aggregates, which we call classes, and of the larger aggregates, which we call nations, to mould their own destinies and to pursue, each in its own way, its own ideal of happiness. It is a militant faith, for, when compassion slumbers, the need for liberty and the faith in liberty are dead; it is kept ever alert and brightly armoured by the just young, who cannot tolerate that millions of their fellow creatures should begin life handicapped, and by the merciful, who believe that active or passive cruelty is the root of all evil and the mark of original sin. What a man becomes in later life is conditioned by the scars which the struggle for existence leaves upon him; for the man who was not a liberal in youth, there may be pity, but there can be no hope. The men who risked anything or everything in the war attached various labels to their political beliefs, but the act of sacrifice made liberals of them.

After the crisis of December, 1916, fewer tears were shed for fallen liberal idols than for unpedestalled liberal ministers, and compassion was too much needed at home to be spared for export; now, as then, less righteous indignation is engendered by the collapse of liberalism than by the defection of prominent liberals. Captain Guest and Mr. Shortt, Sir Alfred Mond and Mr. Churchill, Dr. Addison and Mr. Macpherson, Sir Hamar Greenwood and Mr. Harmsworth, Sir Gordon Hewart and Mr. Montagu are felt by "wee free" liberalsto have sold their master; a year ago,[37]some of them were publicly acclaimed as "rats" and denied a hearing. Those who remained loyal to Mr. Asquith dropped gently out of political prominence until the general election of 1918 dropped them less gently out of public life. A British political faith has never been so completely and tidily demolished as was British liberalism, with its organisation and its army, at the hands of a Welsh solicitor, an Irish newspaper proprietor, a Canadian financier and their satellites, aided by the inexorable logic of events.

The funeral of liberalism was carried out with more despatch than solemnity. On the night of Mr. Asquith's resignation the politicians separated at once into those who had surrendered office and those who hoped to fill the vacant places.Le roy est mort; vive le roy!Though Irish, English and Scotch were being killed on a dozen fronts, no time was being wasted at home; as in the political crisis after Neuve Chapelle, more than one soldier-politician had returned to London in full readiness to lay aside his sword in exchange for a portfolio; and before Mr. Bonar Law had visited the king, a "new gang" leader might have been overheard enquiring of an "old gang" minister how much he had got out of the "pool" of ministerial salaries. The mission to America offered to its members a welcome holiday from English politics.

In those days any holiday from London would have been acceptable. Most of those who passed their time in government offices were overworked; almost all of themex hypothesiwere in one way or another unfit; all were stale. Their blood unfired by hand-to-hand fighting,they became unconscious victims of despondency which bore no accurate relation to the fluctuating fortune of war. While it is probably true that in the winter before America entered the war, when the reservoir of men was running dry, when food had first to be rationed and England was threatened with the "unrestricted" submarine campaign, there was better reason for depression than in September 1914 or March 1918, when the danger was past before it had been fully realised, it is also true that depression continued when improving news from the front should have relieved it. There is a close connection between a temporarily weakening morale and the first decline in the standard of living: by the end of 1916 food was deteriorating in quality and quantity; digestion and nerves were affected; bodily vitality became impaired. There is a connection no less close between mental vitality and light; an ill-lit room produces low spirits, and London was ill-lit after the first threat of an air-raid. Further, the health of mind and of body is dependent on sleep; and, if a civilian may criticise the strategy of the German air-service, it may be suggested that it would have done better to aim at breaking British morale by keeping Britain awake at night. The material achievement of the raiders must have been disappointing to the German general staff: the destruction of life was insignificant; the damage to property trifling; it may be doubted whether the bombs dropped on railways, munition works and public buildings retarded the pace of the war by an hour; there was no widespread panic; the civilian population was never driven to sue prematurely for peace, the seat of government was never transferred. To this extent the air-raids were a failure.

If this contention be just, the most successful phase of the campaign was reached one week when there were six raid nights in succession. London was, in consequence, fretful and neurotic. While no one had the honesty to admit that he was frightened by raids, a few would admit their effect on the nerves of others. With the approach of evening the anxious Londoner calculated from the age of the moon and the height of the wind that it was, perhaps, a "good night for the Gothas." "I wonder whether they'll come to-night," he would observe conversationally, as he went in to dinner; and, whether they came or not, the atmosphere was affected by vague, hardly perceptible uneasiness. When the attack was inopportunely timed, dinner would be interrupted while children were flushed from bed and littered down in hall or cellar. Every taxi disappeared from the streets, the tube stations were filled with highly scented aliens and the anxious Londoner walked home between the bombardments of the anti-aircraft guns, perhaps to find that he was homeless, roofless or windowless. After a broken night, he awoke with a headache; and, if government offices were representative of London as a whole, a proportion of the morning would be spent in exchanging anecdotes of the raid.

At mid-day on the Wednesday in Easter week, after one or two false starts, the members of Mr. Balfour's mission entered a private bay at Euston, where the presence of a special train aroused among the porters mild speculation which died away in the opinion that the kingwas making an unadvertised journey. The Admiralty was represented by Rear-Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair and Fleet-Paymaster Lawford; the War Office by Major-General (Sir) Tom Bridges, Colonel Spender-Clay, Colonel Dansey and Major Rees; the Foreign Office by Lord Eustace Percy, Mr. Maurice Peterson, Mr. A. Paton and (Sir) Geoffrey Butler; the Board of Trade by Mr. F. P. Robinson; the Wheat Commission by (Sir) Alan Anderson; the Ministry of Munitions by Mr. W. P. Layton and Mr. M. L. Phillips; the Bank of England by its governor, Lord Cunliffe. Mr. Balfour's personal staff consisted of Sir Eric Drummond, (Sir) Ian Malcolm and Mr. Cecil Dormer. A later boat was to bring others who joined the mission in Washington.

At two o'clock the special train left Euston for a port chosen by the Admiralty, but not disclosed. At a time chosen by the Admiralty, the mission was to embark on an unknown ship for an unknown destination on the western side of the Atlantic, there to escape for a few weeks from the imminence of war and to look upon a country which seemed own sister to the England which all had known before August 4, 1914.

CHAPTER IXON THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON—AND AFTER"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."Now we are engaged in a great ... war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.... It is for us, the living, ... to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is ... for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."Abraham Lincoln:Address at the Dedication of the NationalCemetery at Gettysburg.ISome extracts from a diary of the next two months will give the history of the mission's movements and may recall, to those who had occasion to travel during the unrestricted submarine campaign, the sometimes romantic mystery and the always exasperating uncertainty of those days.Wednesday, April 11th, 1917.Non-stop to Crewe and again to Carlisle, where we changed engines in a hidden backwater of the station. Dormer[Mr. Balfour's assistant private secretary]explainedprogramme: viz. dine on train, reach unnamed port at 11.0 p.m., embark, land to-morrow at second unnamed port, train till mid-day to third unnamed port and embark in real earnest. Query: Stranraer, Larne, Loch Swilly and the "Olympic?" ... Rival rumour speaks of a cruiser or two. At Carlisle we stretch our legs....Left Carlisle 15 minutes before scheduled time, thus missing Admiralty telegram. This, however, caught us at Dumfries, where, dining agreeably and looking out over measureless wastes of snow, we were told that we must wait four-and-twenty hours, as the weather was impossible. Mission, which is so far taking everything in best spirit, clutched its despatch boxes and F.O. bags, indicated heavier luggage to obliging soldier-servants and tramped through snow to Dumfries Station Hotel....Until mid-day no orders were received.... Dormer then announced that we board train for dinner at 7.15 and start at 8.45. The mission is so much wrapped in mystery, and the S. of State so well known that he has been confined to his own room all morning....On reaching station at 7.15 we were presented with further Admiralty telegrams suspending our departure ... then told that we were to proceed to Greenock. It was low water when we arrived at 11.0 p.m. and ... illumined by the precarious flash of an electric torch, we descended a perpendicular gangway, much as a vampire descends the rain-water pipe on the outside of a house.... Greenock Station rumour says that our mission of twenty, with ten servants and sixty to eighty pieces of baggage, is carrying bullion.... Some little time on a perishingly cold tender, before boarding "Olympic."This ... has been for some little time a troopship; it is in fact heavily loaded with ... Canadian ... wives who are being repatriated; it contains three hundred to four hundred ... babies, all with ... a yell on their lips; finally, it has been waiting for the mission some six days, being ready to sail last Friday.... Consequently, when the Secretary of State mounted the gangway, followed by a score of men carrying a despatch-box in either hand ... the cheers rang out over the grey waters of the Clyde. "I cannot help feeling that they were ironical," murmured A. J. B., as we sat down to sardines on toast, cold ham and whiskey at midnight.... Unconscious of their doom, the little victims cheered, not guessing that the Admiralty's reason for stopping us yesterday was the discovery of a brand-new minefield outside Loch Swilly. I am told that we shall not start till Saturday, as a further mission, principally from the W.O. and M. of M. is due to start on that day; perhaps we shall wait for it. When, therefore, we arrive or start back, no man can say. Drummond[Mr. Balfour's principal private secretary]thinks it probable that we shall spend a week in Canada before returning.Friday, April 13th.An inauspicious day for starting, say the superstitious; but, though the Blue Peter tremble in the breeze, I see no likelihood of our moving.... Rumour, which is as busy on board the "Olympic" as elsewhere, has discovered that the midnight mission was not a mission at all, but a clandestine escape and that the £800 suite 'midships contains not the Secretary of State, but the ex-Czar of all the Russias.... No hopes of a start till to-morrow....Saturday, April 14th.Worked industriously ... until noon, when ears were caught by welcome sound of anchor being raised. Guns, four forward and two aft, were swung into position; three destroyers, like angry dragon-flies, appeared from nowhere and flew ahead; orders issued for every man, woman and child to put, and keep, on life-belt. Bidden by Drummond to lunch with Secretary of State in his cabin....Sunday, April 15th.Twenty hours out from Greenock. Our escort has left us, we no longer steer a zigzag course; and high speed, coupled with a bit of a roll, a bit of a pitch and considerable cold has thinned the ranks of the passengers.... The Atlantic, considering its size, is amazingly deserted.Monday, April 16th.Fairly smooth, settled down to work in earnest.... Dormer told me that, the night we were due to sail, every British west-coast port was carefully mined. Hence our stay at Dumfries. The ship's company has been very busy making a wood-and-canvas imitation of a submarine periscope; this is to be flung overboard to-morrow, and punctually at 11.0 our guns will try to sink it. Hope they succeed; otherwise, a lifelike periscope cruising at large over wide Atlantic will distress a number of innocent packets.Tuesday, April 17th.Delightfully warm; steaming well south. This an agreeable surprise after being told that we were due torun into a cold patch over the Banks.... Gun practise took place, as advertised; £7 per shell. As the wood-and-canvas mock-periscope sank shortly after being launched, there was no very satisfactory target, but the gunners had still the wide Atlantic at which to shoot and on several occasions I observed them hit it. Noise disconcerting, but nothing to consequent uproar, when 400 children all began to cry at once. However, if they had not been crying at the guns, they would have cried at something else.... Vernon Castle, who in happier times waltzes in and out the supper-tables of New York and London in company with his wife, happens to be on board, as an airman.Wednesday, April 18th.Weather getting warmer each day. Sighted first ship of any kind since leaving territorial waters.... The F.O. News Department is apparently collecting a series of autobiographical sketches of the mission. Infinite possibilities in this.... Dined with Secretary of State. A concert on behalf of Sailors' Families Fund....Thursday, April 19th.Passing over Banks: bitterly cold; going slow to make Halifax early to-morrow morning.... The wireless communiqués seem to grow more satisfactory each day. Confidential memorandum circulated to mission, hinting what should and what should not be communicated with members of pertinacious U.S.A. press.[38]Friday, April 20th.We came in sight of land this morning between 7.0 and 8.0. Yesterday evening was beautifully calm and clear, and, shortly before sundown, we met four transports and a cruiser escort steaming parallel to us to the south. By midnight we ran into a dense fog and spent the night almost motionless with the fog-horn blowing at three-minute intervals. An escort came out to meet us, but turned tail on failing to find us. Halifax harbour isimposing[39]—an immense stretch of water with hills on either side and an October-morning haze gradually disappearing before the sun. The mission will shortly disintegrate, as the M. of M. and the Wheat Commission are going to New York. On dropping anchor, we were boarded by an embassage from the Governor-General of Canada, consisting of Admiral Browning, his naval staff, the G. G.'s military secretary and others. We are bidden to lunch on the "Leviathan." Telegrams are flying between Halifax and Washington to discover when the U.S.A. Government would like us to arrive....Went on board "Leviathan" ... and was entertained most hospitably by ward-room officers; taken ashore in launch and spent hour inspecting Halifax. Returned to tea on board "Leviathan"; then ashore again and entered private car. Expect to reach Washington in forty-eight hours. Papers full of mission and arrangements for its reception....Saturday, April 21st.An airless and seismic night ... until we lay in St. John siding for an hour or two.... Due to cross frontier at 9.0 a.m....Meeting at frontier between mission, press, secret police and representatives of State Department and Embassy, Secretary of State and Long, Assistant Secretary of State Department.... Mission must not arrive before 3.0 p.m. Accordingly drew up in siding for three hours....Sunday, April 22nd.Crossed the Hell Gate Bridge, an amazing piece of railway construction, only opened three weeks ago, into New York, where we put down the Ministry of Munitions and the Chairman of the Wheat Commission, who will join us at Washington to-morrow night. Part of the Mission will be bedded out in a house provided ad hoc, the rest will go to the Shoreham Hotel.... Two days in the hottest train on record rather trying....Arrived safely at Washington.... We had a pilot engine running from the frontier before us, another following, the line guarded and the route not disclosed. Despite this, the U.S. head of the Eastern Command states that sleepers were laid across the line last night with intent to wreck the train.The mission was received by Secretary Lansing and most of the British Embassy Staff, a U.S. naval band, a crowd and several cars, which were then escorted by troops of cavalry.... Called at Embassy.... Summer weather prevailing; and spring leaves and flowers everywhere.IIThe Balfour mission remained in Washington from Sunday, April 22nd, until Thursday, May 24th, when it set out on its return journey through Canada. During that time Mr. Balfour and some of his colleagues paid short visits to other places, and almost the entire mission went up to New York for the week-end which had been set aside for its reception. Apart from this, as soon as they had established contact with their respective departments, most members were kept too busy to leave Washington: for seven days a week, all day and part of the night, they divided their time between the Embassy, the various departments, the headquarters of the mission in Mr. Secretary Breckenridge Long's house and the mission offices—opposite the Embassy—on Connecticut Avenue.No one who has ever been to the United States needs to be told that the mission was shewn the most lavish hospitality: city and country clubs extended honorary membership to it; public and private parties and receptions were given in its honour; and the State Department seconded Mr. Winslow and Mr. Hugh Gibson to the special duty of looking after it. While it would be of doubtful interest and undoubted impropriety to describe the negotiations and discussions which took place, it may be said in general terms that the mission was charged with the duty of collaborating in all war measures which the United States government took, furnishing information and coordinating the work of the corresponding departments. A few further extracts from the diary already cited will indicate everything, not closed with a confidential seal, that happened to one memberof the mission during his four or five weeks' sojourn in Washington.Monday, April 23rd.... Conference at Embassy at 10.20 to apportion work of mission.... Made exhaustive inspection of city: Washington Memorial, Capitol, Congress, Congressional Library, River Potomac, baseball grounds, Federal Museum and the like. Returning to luncheon at hotel met my friend Sir Hardman Lever, Financial Secretary of Treasury, who has been regulating Anglo-American finance in corner of J. P. Morgan's office for four months and has now come up from New York to join mission. Invited to lunch with him, Lady Lever and private secretary....Reception at White House; presented to President Wilson. Similar receptions in England would be made more tolerable if we adopted American practise of encouraging guests to smoke.Tuesday, April 24th.Paid visit to Trade Department of Embassy to ascertain how Washington conducts its end of our work.... Dined with Assistant Secretary of State Polk and attended reception by Secretary of State Lansing to meet A. J. B. Immense mob present; introduced to whole of Congress and most of judiciary....Wednesday, April 25th.Walked to Embassy and engaged Assistant Commercial Adviser in talk on blockade questions until interrupted by order that Embassy staff and mission should assume gala costume and cheer French mission on itsway. Sped back, rejoicing at opportunity of wearing silk hat and morning coat so carefully carried 3,000 miles; thence, with Chairman of Wheat Commission and Financial Secretary to Treasury, motored to rendezvous, disembarked and stood ... cheering as Joffre and Viviani drove by.... How many more missions are coming, God alone knows....Reception at Embassy.Thursday, April 26th.Most of the mission and part of the Embassy staff met at a 2½ hour conference at missions house, to arrange programme of work. Secretary of State in chair supported by Ambassador and senior Canadian representative. My work, already known to me, officially defined: now have only to wait for State Department to come and negotiate....... Wrote memorandum on export trade prohibitions.... Bidden to lunch with Secretary of Navy on Sunday aboard "Mayflower" and proceed to Mount Vernon....Saturday, April 28th.The worst feature of being the accredited representative of the War Trade Intelligence Department is that you are expected to be omniscient on war and trade and intelligent in the intervals. Received deputation ... on national registration, substitution and compulsory service.... Attended conference at Embassy.... Party at Alibi Club, a miniature Savage Club with many trophies and no rules. Speeches in American, English, German (pour rire) and Anglo-French. Half British and half French military missions there.Sunday, April 29th.To Embassy.... Then, in tall hat, to Navy Yard and embarked on President's yacht, "Mayflower," to be received by Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels, in company with entire British and French missions and fair slice of administration and Congress.... On coming level with Mount Vernon, the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," officers and men saluted, and the rest stood to attention. Put off in launches, landed and climbed hill to Washington's tomb where for first time in history Union Jack was flying (in company with the Stars-and-Stripes and Tricoleur). Eloquent speech by Viviani, who ended by placing wreath on tomb; followed by Secretary of State, shorter and even more eloquent, who in turn laid wreath on tomb in name of British Mission;[40]Marshal Joffre and General Bridges mounting guard the while beside the tomb. Proceeded uphill to Washington's house, which stands on a magnificentsite overlooking Potomac with beautiful scenery all round. House itself, white-walled, red-roofed, colonnaded and decorated in best Adam style, is preserved by pious body of female Regents in almost exactly same condition as when Washington was alive: there is the same vista which he cut through trees so that he could see guests coming miles away over richest English lawn at lodge gates. The house and out-houses, running in crescent away from river, are as he designed and left them, including smoke-house for curing, spinning-house and a dozen more. The gardens are as he laid them out, with box hedges, now grown to breast height, enclosing just such flowers as he knew in his day; and there are trees planted by Lafayette, when staying with him. To me two most interesting relics inside house were large wooden trunk marked "Geo. Washington: Virginia" and, at other end of life, key of Bastille, sent him by Lafayette shortly after 14th July, '89. Altogether an object-lesson in preservation of public monuments.Sunday, May 6th.Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. I worked half the morning at the Shoreham, the other half at the Embassy; lunched at the Metropolitan and returned to Embassy till 6.0 p.m. At 6.0 repaired to La Fayette Hotel, thence to a business dinner given by Eustace Percy at the Shoreham. We sat down at 6.30, of all ungodly hours, talked shop throughout the meal and sped away to the Department of Commerce. There until 1.30 a.m. we did the real work of the Trade Section of the Mission: Eustace Percy, Peterson, Broderick (our Assistant Commercial Adviser) and myself....Returned to Shoreham at 1.45 a.m.Monday, May 7th.... Introduced to ... Winston Churchill, the American novelist....Saturday, May 12th.After hot and restless night reached New York at 7.0 a.m. Motored down town, called on publishers and drove to Equitable Buildings, where on 39th floor, reached by express non-stop elevator, the Bankers' Club is palatially installed. A considerable view of New York is obtainable from a thirty-ninth floor.... Drove slowly up Broadway(the height of the buildings and the slowness of traffic are the two most noticeable things to a newcomer)....Dined at super-palatial Metropolitan (on Fifth Avenue) with American committee of British Red Cross. ... Adjourned to Carnegie Hall, where grand patriotic show had been arranged. Mission comfortably housed in half a dozen first-tier boxes; house decorated throughout with flags of the Allies; war-pictures, patriotic songs and national anthems ad lib.; suddenly everyone leapt to his feet and cheered, looking in our direction. Reason was that Secretary of State had just entered his box with Choate, formerly U.S. Ambassador in London.[41]At end of performance entire house rose once more and cheered itself hoarse, shouting "Balfour! Balfour!" until Secretary of State consented to deliver short speech....Monday, May 14th.Reached Washington in time for breakfast. Then to the Department of Commerce, then to the Capitol. Heard Senate debating the Espionage Bill, of which one or two provisions will affect the war trade policy and powers of the U.S.G.... Crossed to House of Representatives and heard debate on Revenue Bill.Thursday, May 17th.Divided morning between Embassy and Hotel. At noon drove to Mission House for interesting ceremony. The Senate and Alpha of Virginia Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity were convoked to elect into its membership Arthur James Balfour, Cecil Spring-Rice and members of the British Commission. The Phi Beta Kappa was founded at William and Mary College, as a quasi-masonic students' fraternity, in 1776; and, though its secret ritual has now been made public and its oath is now largely formal, it has continued ever since and has spread all over the States. One or two of the most distinguished members of a college are, I understand, admitted to it every year, but honorary membership is the rarest of compliments, reserved hitherto for a handful of men such as Lord Bryce. To quote the President and the Secretary of State, it was the highest academic distinction that America could confer or we receive.Assembling in an ante-room, the ten of us who happened to be graduates of Oxford or Cambridge marched in and were greeted by the President of the Federation on behalf of the Senate and Deputies of the Alpha of Virginia. Our names were called by one Senator, and the President made an admirable speech. The Presidentof the College of William and Mary initiated us into the history and mystery of the Fraternity, and the Rector of the college presented each of us with a leather case, stamped with our name, containing the gold key of membership, also stamped with our name, the date, the device of the fraternity and the date of its formation. The oath was then read, and the grip was explained and given. A speech in reply by the Secretary of State on behalf of the mission ended the proceedings, and the Senate was adjourned. We thereupon divested ourselves of our robes and drove to the apartment of Senator Hollis Godfrey, where we were entertained to luncheon. Altogether a charming and most interesting ceremony.After luncheon I was introduced to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the antarctic explorer, who is staying in Washington. An early dinner, after which I attended the Colonial Memorial Hall to hear Shackleton deliver a most interesting lecture, illustrated by admirable photographs, on his last "relative failure," as he calls it, in antarctic exploration.Sunday, May 20th.Rose and appeared at Department of Commerce to be greeted by muscular janitor with six-shooter.... Spent morning arranging what I hope will be almost last details of department as it is to be set up here, ranging in my stride from the cubic feet of office space to be occupied down to the number of dollars to be paid weekly to the char-ladies.... Motored out to Arlington, Robert E. Lee's old home, now the military cemetery of America and the most beautiful that I have ever seen. It stretches over 6,000 acres of valley, with magnificenttimber and winding drives and an open circular temple, from which addresses are delivered on Thanksgiving Day. The arrangement and style of the graves are in excellently simple taste. For the unknown dead of the Civil War there are plain square stones, a foot high; when the identity of any number is discovered, the stone is rounded at the corners and the name engraved.On leaving Arlington, we motored past the great wireless station with the Potomac and Washington lying below, back to the city.Thursday, May 24th.To President's private entrance at station. Dansey and Butler who are staying behind, saw us off on behalf of mission, Tom Spring-Rice on behalf of Embassy; U.S. Ministers present in force.... The Ambassador accompanies us to Ottawa....Friday, May 25th.Ran through Buffalo shortly after breakfast and left train at Niagara. Our American escort, Mr. Secretary Long, Hugh Gibson of the State Department and others provided us with trams and drove us down to the Rapids, then back to the Falls, from the American side. In size, beauty and volume of water they came fully up to my expectations: it is a strange sensation to stand, as it were, on the edge of the world and see a gigantic lake pouring over within a foot of where you stand. The spray rises in a snow-white cloud as high again as the length of the falls, and it is impossible to penetrate it to the other side. Our American escort then turned us out of the cars, which the leading citizens of Niagarahad thoughtfully provided, and restored us to our tram, in which we proceeded half-way across the bridge. There we took an affecting farewell, and, as the Americans left by one door, the Canadian escort, composed chiefly of lieutenant-governors and custodians of the Niagara property, entered by the other. We were then shewn the Canadian side of the Horse Shoe fall, conducted over the power station which supplies Toronto and driven out to the Canadian side of the Rapids and the Whirlpool. There is an aerial car running on cables over the Whirlpool (at a sickening height, say the timid) and almost all of us, myself included, were induced to risk our lives on the principle that where the Secretary of State leads the rest of the mission follows....At Toronto, I was told off to help lieutenant-governor's secretary; so sorted procession into carriages, jumped into private car and drove ahead of the band's sound and fury to Parliament Buildings, where I got in touch with a cable office, thanked Sir R. Borden in suitable terms for his telegram of welcome and strolled out to front, where, as on scaffold, Secretary of State was being subjected to native eloquence of mayors, lieutenant-governors et illud genus omne. His speech in reply aroused great enthusiasm, and, after interval for cinematograph men to ply their task, party moved away from scaffold.... Hurried away to bombard Government House and porter's office for several pieces of missing baggage; ... and drove in haste to Government House for dinner....The mission went from Toronto to Ottawa, thence to Montreal and Halifax.Saturday, May 26th.Nine hot, dusty hours wherein I was almost too tired to smoke or look out of window; general coma.... Peterson met me at Montreal Station at 6.35 p.m., and we drove to his house. Sir William[42]is at present in nursing-home, so we have place to ourselves. Heaven be thanked for the peace and quiet of it! No elevators, no bands at meals, no Middle-West-Congressman's wife being "paged" throughout the living rooms, no telephone calls, no expectant pressmen, nothing but simple English food, a silent house, deft female servants, a comfortable room, a warm bed, a spring-mattress and, in general, the conditions necessary to the mental peace of one whose nerves are rather quickly breaking up under the strain of the last six weeks.After a tête-à-tête dinner, Peterson and I walked round to the Mount Royal Club.... The rest of the mission is timed to leave Toronto this evening for Ottawa, where we are due to join it in three days' time; as, since the Parliament Buildings were burnt down, there is nothing much to see or do in Ottawa, and, as the mission is expected in Montreal on its way home, unless the anti-conscription riots become unduly intense, it would be highly satisfactory if we could arrange to join forces here instead of toiling back to Ottawa and from Ottawa to Montreal.Monday, May 28th.Awaiting telegraphic reply from Dormer to our request for leave to stay in Montreal until the missionpicks us up here on its homeward journey. Tried to arrange meeting with Stephen Leacock, who lectures to the students of M'Gill in the intervals of writing his immortal books; unhappily he is away from Montreal at present.... Caught Dormer by a long-distance call to Government House, Ottawa.... I may remain at Montreal until Wednesday, when mission comes to present Secretary of State, General Bridges and Admiral de Chair for honorary degrees and to pick me up en route for the boat....Wednesday, May 30th.... To Grand Trunk Station and waited for arrivalof mission train in company of Montreal's more distinguished citizens and a naval and military escort which whiled away time by practising "Maple Leaf." Great reception when party arrived and was driven to Windsor Hotel, where Canadian Club of Montreal, to number of 800, including guests and pressmen, presently sat down to crowded luncheon. Speeches by President, Secretary of State, Ambassador and Lord Shaughnessy, all delivered amid terrific cheers.... Then to Royal Victoria College.... Introductory speech by Principal, followed by presentation of Admiral de Chair, General Bridges, Sir C. Spring-Rice and Secretary of State for M'Gill degrees.... So to Grand Trunk Station. The mission, though impoverished by loss of Eustace Percy, Phillips, Paton, Rees and Peterson, is now enriched by presence of Judge Amos, J. H. Thomas and others.Dined on train, drew up opposite Quebec, and left for better view of Heights of Abraham by moonlight....Thursday, May 31st.Rose to find that we were steaming into Matepedia, on border of Quebec and New Brunswick. As we are a valuable mission, not lightly to be sunk by first Hun submarine, as General Pershing of the U.S. Expeditionary Force may meet us at Halifax and cross with us on the "Olympic,"[43]and as part of his staff is already with us, we are seeking to elude the omnipresent Boche by lying in siding in peculiarly deserted portion of Dominion from 9.0 a.m. till 1.30 a.m. to-morrow. Unfortunately for General Bridges, Governor of Bank of England and other noted anglers, the salmon have not yet come up the river; the rest of us, however, availed ourselves of fishing club-house and sat in verandah reading and smoking for portion of morning. In afternoon walked for several miles. No better place could have been chosen for our 16 hours' delay. Two rivers join here and flow down at rapid pace, bearing ceaseless burden of rough lumber, cut and marked miles nearer source and floated down to depot where it is collected. Tree-clad mountains all round, which will be in leaf in a few weeks' time, and on top of the mountains wide-stretching prairie land, now almost free of snow and gradually being put under the plough.Friday, June 1st.Secured a little sleep in morning hours as train, discovering dozen derailed cars 12 miles ahead, elected to retire into siding while the breakdown gang got to work. As line cannot be cleared for many hours and as we have to leave Halifax about sunset, we shall be 24 hours' latein starting and can look forward to another night in the train.Saturday, June 2nd.Left train about 10.0 a.m. and proceeded by tender to "Olympic," where commander, surgeon and purser greeted us as old friends.... Taken off by picket boat to lunch on Admiral Browning's flagship "Leviathan" once more and met same charming ward-room mess as had entertained me six weeks before. Rejoined ship after tea. We carry no repatriated Canadian wives this trip, Heaven be thanked; but troops to the number of 6,000 are round, above, below and in the middle of us....IIISunday, June 3rd.After a long night in a comfortable stateroom, I felt better than I have done for weeks. As a troopship we are restricted in liberty and comfort to some extent. Shrill bugles have exasperating knack of blowing a reveillé at 5.0 a.m. and repeating same at half-hour intervals; troops assemble on deck for physical drill, and between parades there is never any room to walk anywhere. As a set-off, we have a tolerable military band, now, alas, temporarily hushed to make room for fog-horn as we steam slowly through the mists of the Newfoundland Banks.Monday, June 4th.The day promised to be so lacking in incident that a solicitous management arranged an impromptu submarinescare. As we sat over our afternoon coffee and cigars, a bugle sounded a call unknown to me, but evidently familiar to every officer in the smoking-room, who took up his position in the "Birkenhead" manner on deck with his men. Within a few seconds bugles were calling all over the ship, one call after another, and every door and companion-way was filled with troops racing to their places. With a view to avoiding crowded promenade deck I sauntered on to boat deck, which by happy coincidence chanced to be the station accorded to the mission. As soon as the tumult and the shouting had died, we returned to our former places and avocations, and I was gratified to see that in the disorder I had got rid of a very uncomfortable life-belt in favour of one both more comfortable and more becoming.Tuesday, June 5th.The climate has grown trying, as we run in and out of the Gulf Stream, alternating tolerable cold with moist heat. I devoted my morning to work and dined with the Secretary of State.Wednesday, June 6th.A tranquil day was only disturbed by the necessity of preparing a report on my activities in Washington, to be added by Drummond to that volume of reports in which each member of the mission strives to ascribe to himself the credit for the mission's general success. In the afternoon there came the customary submarine alarm....Thursday, June 7th.Last night we entered the danger-zone, and our precautions were redoubled. The military police march upand down, treading with heavy foot on any who carry life-belts instead of wearing them; armed sentries also stand by every life-boat to the end that, when the deadly torpedo has done its work and our ship's complement of 7,000 is tossing about in life-boats and on rafts, there shall be attached to each party at least one man with a rifle, making life unpleasant to the submarine crew, if any question of machine-gunning the survivors arise.... As a compliment to the United States Navy, the convoy was made up of two American destroyers, subsequently increased to four. In the evening, by urgent request, the Secretary of State addressed the officers of the various Canadian regiments in the saloon. There followed a concert, principally contributed by Madame Edvina, whom we have the honour of carrying this trip.... Having discovered a native aptitude for the game of chess, I left the concert to take care of itself and competed with Judge Amos.[44]Friday, June 8th.Escorted by a varying number of U.S. destroyers, we slipped by eight submarines, and by the end of dinner were in sight of the Irish and Welsh coasts. After the officer commanding the Canadian troops had proposed the King's health, J. H. Thomas proposed the health of President Wilson and the U.S. Navy. A presentation is being made to the Secretary of State by the members of his mission....Saturday, June 9th.We dropped anchor in the Mersey at about 2.30 a.m. Immediately and for the short remainder of the night some 6,000 troops mobilised for disembarkation. Called at 6.0, but did not enter special train until 11.15. Read that J. H. Thomas has been made a Privy Councillor, which left pleasant taste in the mouth at end of long, varied, interesting and very pleasant mission.

ON THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON—AND AFTER

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great ... war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.... It is for us, the living, ... to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is ... for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln:Address at the Dedication of the NationalCemetery at Gettysburg.

Some extracts from a diary of the next two months will give the history of the mission's movements and may recall, to those who had occasion to travel during the unrestricted submarine campaign, the sometimes romantic mystery and the always exasperating uncertainty of those days.

Wednesday, April 11th, 1917.

Non-stop to Crewe and again to Carlisle, where we changed engines in a hidden backwater of the station. Dormer[Mr. Balfour's assistant private secretary]explainedprogramme: viz. dine on train, reach unnamed port at 11.0 p.m., embark, land to-morrow at second unnamed port, train till mid-day to third unnamed port and embark in real earnest. Query: Stranraer, Larne, Loch Swilly and the "Olympic?" ... Rival rumour speaks of a cruiser or two. At Carlisle we stretch our legs....

Left Carlisle 15 minutes before scheduled time, thus missing Admiralty telegram. This, however, caught us at Dumfries, where, dining agreeably and looking out over measureless wastes of snow, we were told that we must wait four-and-twenty hours, as the weather was impossible. Mission, which is so far taking everything in best spirit, clutched its despatch boxes and F.O. bags, indicated heavier luggage to obliging soldier-servants and tramped through snow to Dumfries Station Hotel....

Until mid-day no orders were received.... Dormer then announced that we board train for dinner at 7.15 and start at 8.45. The mission is so much wrapped in mystery, and the S. of State so well known that he has been confined to his own room all morning....

On reaching station at 7.15 we were presented with further Admiralty telegrams suspending our departure ... then told that we were to proceed to Greenock. It was low water when we arrived at 11.0 p.m. and ... illumined by the precarious flash of an electric torch, we descended a perpendicular gangway, much as a vampire descends the rain-water pipe on the outside of a house.... Greenock Station rumour says that our mission of twenty, with ten servants and sixty to eighty pieces of baggage, is carrying bullion.... Some little time on a perishingly cold tender, before boarding "Olympic."This ... has been for some little time a troopship; it is in fact heavily loaded with ... Canadian ... wives who are being repatriated; it contains three hundred to four hundred ... babies, all with ... a yell on their lips; finally, it has been waiting for the mission some six days, being ready to sail last Friday.... Consequently, when the Secretary of State mounted the gangway, followed by a score of men carrying a despatch-box in either hand ... the cheers rang out over the grey waters of the Clyde. "I cannot help feeling that they were ironical," murmured A. J. B., as we sat down to sardines on toast, cold ham and whiskey at midnight.... Unconscious of their doom, the little victims cheered, not guessing that the Admiralty's reason for stopping us yesterday was the discovery of a brand-new minefield outside Loch Swilly. I am told that we shall not start till Saturday, as a further mission, principally from the W.O. and M. of M. is due to start on that day; perhaps we shall wait for it. When, therefore, we arrive or start back, no man can say. Drummond[Mr. Balfour's principal private secretary]thinks it probable that we shall spend a week in Canada before returning.

Friday, April 13th.

An inauspicious day for starting, say the superstitious; but, though the Blue Peter tremble in the breeze, I see no likelihood of our moving.... Rumour, which is as busy on board the "Olympic" as elsewhere, has discovered that the midnight mission was not a mission at all, but a clandestine escape and that the £800 suite 'midships contains not the Secretary of State, but the ex-Czar of all the Russias.... No hopes of a start till to-morrow....

Saturday, April 14th.

Worked industriously ... until noon, when ears were caught by welcome sound of anchor being raised. Guns, four forward and two aft, were swung into position; three destroyers, like angry dragon-flies, appeared from nowhere and flew ahead; orders issued for every man, woman and child to put, and keep, on life-belt. Bidden by Drummond to lunch with Secretary of State in his cabin....

Sunday, April 15th.

Twenty hours out from Greenock. Our escort has left us, we no longer steer a zigzag course; and high speed, coupled with a bit of a roll, a bit of a pitch and considerable cold has thinned the ranks of the passengers.... The Atlantic, considering its size, is amazingly deserted.

Monday, April 16th.

Fairly smooth, settled down to work in earnest.... Dormer told me that, the night we were due to sail, every British west-coast port was carefully mined. Hence our stay at Dumfries. The ship's company has been very busy making a wood-and-canvas imitation of a submarine periscope; this is to be flung overboard to-morrow, and punctually at 11.0 our guns will try to sink it. Hope they succeed; otherwise, a lifelike periscope cruising at large over wide Atlantic will distress a number of innocent packets.

Tuesday, April 17th.

Delightfully warm; steaming well south. This an agreeable surprise after being told that we were due torun into a cold patch over the Banks.... Gun practise took place, as advertised; £7 per shell. As the wood-and-canvas mock-periscope sank shortly after being launched, there was no very satisfactory target, but the gunners had still the wide Atlantic at which to shoot and on several occasions I observed them hit it. Noise disconcerting, but nothing to consequent uproar, when 400 children all began to cry at once. However, if they had not been crying at the guns, they would have cried at something else.... Vernon Castle, who in happier times waltzes in and out the supper-tables of New York and London in company with his wife, happens to be on board, as an airman.

Wednesday, April 18th.

Weather getting warmer each day. Sighted first ship of any kind since leaving territorial waters.... The F.O. News Department is apparently collecting a series of autobiographical sketches of the mission. Infinite possibilities in this.... Dined with Secretary of State. A concert on behalf of Sailors' Families Fund....

Thursday, April 19th.

Passing over Banks: bitterly cold; going slow to make Halifax early to-morrow morning.... The wireless communiqués seem to grow more satisfactory each day. Confidential memorandum circulated to mission, hinting what should and what should not be communicated with members of pertinacious U.S.A. press.[38]

Friday, April 20th.

We came in sight of land this morning between 7.0 and 8.0. Yesterday evening was beautifully calm and clear, and, shortly before sundown, we met four transports and a cruiser escort steaming parallel to us to the south. By midnight we ran into a dense fog and spent the night almost motionless with the fog-horn blowing at three-minute intervals. An escort came out to meet us, but turned tail on failing to find us. Halifax harbour isimposing[39]—an immense stretch of water with hills on either side and an October-morning haze gradually disappearing before the sun. The mission will shortly disintegrate, as the M. of M. and the Wheat Commission are going to New York. On dropping anchor, we were boarded by an embassage from the Governor-General of Canada, consisting of Admiral Browning, his naval staff, the G. G.'s military secretary and others. We are bidden to lunch on the "Leviathan." Telegrams are flying between Halifax and Washington to discover when the U.S.A. Government would like us to arrive....

Went on board "Leviathan" ... and was entertained most hospitably by ward-room officers; taken ashore in launch and spent hour inspecting Halifax. Returned to tea on board "Leviathan"; then ashore again and entered private car. Expect to reach Washington in forty-eight hours. Papers full of mission and arrangements for its reception....

Saturday, April 21st.

An airless and seismic night ... until we lay in St. John siding for an hour or two.... Due to cross frontier at 9.0 a.m....

Meeting at frontier between mission, press, secret police and representatives of State Department and Embassy, Secretary of State and Long, Assistant Secretary of State Department.... Mission must not arrive before 3.0 p.m. Accordingly drew up in siding for three hours....

Sunday, April 22nd.

Crossed the Hell Gate Bridge, an amazing piece of railway construction, only opened three weeks ago, into New York, where we put down the Ministry of Munitions and the Chairman of the Wheat Commission, who will join us at Washington to-morrow night. Part of the Mission will be bedded out in a house provided ad hoc, the rest will go to the Shoreham Hotel.... Two days in the hottest train on record rather trying....

Arrived safely at Washington.... We had a pilot engine running from the frontier before us, another following, the line guarded and the route not disclosed. Despite this, the U.S. head of the Eastern Command states that sleepers were laid across the line last night with intent to wreck the train.

The mission was received by Secretary Lansing and most of the British Embassy Staff, a U.S. naval band, a crowd and several cars, which were then escorted by troops of cavalry.... Called at Embassy.... Summer weather prevailing; and spring leaves and flowers everywhere.

The Balfour mission remained in Washington from Sunday, April 22nd, until Thursday, May 24th, when it set out on its return journey through Canada. During that time Mr. Balfour and some of his colleagues paid short visits to other places, and almost the entire mission went up to New York for the week-end which had been set aside for its reception. Apart from this, as soon as they had established contact with their respective departments, most members were kept too busy to leave Washington: for seven days a week, all day and part of the night, they divided their time between the Embassy, the various departments, the headquarters of the mission in Mr. Secretary Breckenridge Long's house and the mission offices—opposite the Embassy—on Connecticut Avenue.

No one who has ever been to the United States needs to be told that the mission was shewn the most lavish hospitality: city and country clubs extended honorary membership to it; public and private parties and receptions were given in its honour; and the State Department seconded Mr. Winslow and Mr. Hugh Gibson to the special duty of looking after it. While it would be of doubtful interest and undoubted impropriety to describe the negotiations and discussions which took place, it may be said in general terms that the mission was charged with the duty of collaborating in all war measures which the United States government took, furnishing information and coordinating the work of the corresponding departments. A few further extracts from the diary already cited will indicate everything, not closed with a confidential seal, that happened to one memberof the mission during his four or five weeks' sojourn in Washington.

Monday, April 23rd.

... Conference at Embassy at 10.20 to apportion work of mission.... Made exhaustive inspection of city: Washington Memorial, Capitol, Congress, Congressional Library, River Potomac, baseball grounds, Federal Museum and the like. Returning to luncheon at hotel met my friend Sir Hardman Lever, Financial Secretary of Treasury, who has been regulating Anglo-American finance in corner of J. P. Morgan's office for four months and has now come up from New York to join mission. Invited to lunch with him, Lady Lever and private secretary....

Reception at White House; presented to President Wilson. Similar receptions in England would be made more tolerable if we adopted American practise of encouraging guests to smoke.

Tuesday, April 24th.

Paid visit to Trade Department of Embassy to ascertain how Washington conducts its end of our work.... Dined with Assistant Secretary of State Polk and attended reception by Secretary of State Lansing to meet A. J. B. Immense mob present; introduced to whole of Congress and most of judiciary....

Wednesday, April 25th.

Walked to Embassy and engaged Assistant Commercial Adviser in talk on blockade questions until interrupted by order that Embassy staff and mission should assume gala costume and cheer French mission on itsway. Sped back, rejoicing at opportunity of wearing silk hat and morning coat so carefully carried 3,000 miles; thence, with Chairman of Wheat Commission and Financial Secretary to Treasury, motored to rendezvous, disembarked and stood ... cheering as Joffre and Viviani drove by.... How many more missions are coming, God alone knows....

Reception at Embassy.

Thursday, April 26th.

Most of the mission and part of the Embassy staff met at a 2½ hour conference at missions house, to arrange programme of work. Secretary of State in chair supported by Ambassador and senior Canadian representative. My work, already known to me, officially defined: now have only to wait for State Department to come and negotiate....

... Wrote memorandum on export trade prohibitions.... Bidden to lunch with Secretary of Navy on Sunday aboard "Mayflower" and proceed to Mount Vernon....

Saturday, April 28th.

The worst feature of being the accredited representative of the War Trade Intelligence Department is that you are expected to be omniscient on war and trade and intelligent in the intervals. Received deputation ... on national registration, substitution and compulsory service.... Attended conference at Embassy.... Party at Alibi Club, a miniature Savage Club with many trophies and no rules. Speeches in American, English, German (pour rire) and Anglo-French. Half British and half French military missions there.

Sunday, April 29th.

To Embassy.... Then, in tall hat, to Navy Yard and embarked on President's yacht, "Mayflower," to be received by Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels, in company with entire British and French missions and fair slice of administration and Congress.... On coming level with Mount Vernon, the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," officers and men saluted, and the rest stood to attention. Put off in launches, landed and climbed hill to Washington's tomb where for first time in history Union Jack was flying (in company with the Stars-and-Stripes and Tricoleur). Eloquent speech by Viviani, who ended by placing wreath on tomb; followed by Secretary of State, shorter and even more eloquent, who in turn laid wreath on tomb in name of British Mission;[40]Marshal Joffre and General Bridges mounting guard the while beside the tomb. Proceeded uphill to Washington's house, which stands on a magnificentsite overlooking Potomac with beautiful scenery all round. House itself, white-walled, red-roofed, colonnaded and decorated in best Adam style, is preserved by pious body of female Regents in almost exactly same condition as when Washington was alive: there is the same vista which he cut through trees so that he could see guests coming miles away over richest English lawn at lodge gates. The house and out-houses, running in crescent away from river, are as he designed and left them, including smoke-house for curing, spinning-house and a dozen more. The gardens are as he laid them out, with box hedges, now grown to breast height, enclosing just such flowers as he knew in his day; and there are trees planted by Lafayette, when staying with him. To me two most interesting relics inside house were large wooden trunk marked "Geo. Washington: Virginia" and, at other end of life, key of Bastille, sent him by Lafayette shortly after 14th July, '89. Altogether an object-lesson in preservation of public monuments.

Sunday, May 6th.

Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. I worked half the morning at the Shoreham, the other half at the Embassy; lunched at the Metropolitan and returned to Embassy till 6.0 p.m. At 6.0 repaired to La Fayette Hotel, thence to a business dinner given by Eustace Percy at the Shoreham. We sat down at 6.30, of all ungodly hours, talked shop throughout the meal and sped away to the Department of Commerce. There until 1.30 a.m. we did the real work of the Trade Section of the Mission: Eustace Percy, Peterson, Broderick (our Assistant Commercial Adviser) and myself....

Returned to Shoreham at 1.45 a.m.

Monday, May 7th.

... Introduced to ... Winston Churchill, the American novelist....

Saturday, May 12th.

After hot and restless night reached New York at 7.0 a.m. Motored down town, called on publishers and drove to Equitable Buildings, where on 39th floor, reached by express non-stop elevator, the Bankers' Club is palatially installed. A considerable view of New York is obtainable from a thirty-ninth floor.... Drove slowly up Broadway(the height of the buildings and the slowness of traffic are the two most noticeable things to a newcomer)....

Dined at super-palatial Metropolitan (on Fifth Avenue) with American committee of British Red Cross. ... Adjourned to Carnegie Hall, where grand patriotic show had been arranged. Mission comfortably housed in half a dozen first-tier boxes; house decorated throughout with flags of the Allies; war-pictures, patriotic songs and national anthems ad lib.; suddenly everyone leapt to his feet and cheered, looking in our direction. Reason was that Secretary of State had just entered his box with Choate, formerly U.S. Ambassador in London.[41]At end of performance entire house rose once more and cheered itself hoarse, shouting "Balfour! Balfour!" until Secretary of State consented to deliver short speech....

Monday, May 14th.

Reached Washington in time for breakfast. Then to the Department of Commerce, then to the Capitol. Heard Senate debating the Espionage Bill, of which one or two provisions will affect the war trade policy and powers of the U.S.G.... Crossed to House of Representatives and heard debate on Revenue Bill.

Thursday, May 17th.

Divided morning between Embassy and Hotel. At noon drove to Mission House for interesting ceremony. The Senate and Alpha of Virginia Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity were convoked to elect into its membership Arthur James Balfour, Cecil Spring-Rice and members of the British Commission. The Phi Beta Kappa was founded at William and Mary College, as a quasi-masonic students' fraternity, in 1776; and, though its secret ritual has now been made public and its oath is now largely formal, it has continued ever since and has spread all over the States. One or two of the most distinguished members of a college are, I understand, admitted to it every year, but honorary membership is the rarest of compliments, reserved hitherto for a handful of men such as Lord Bryce. To quote the President and the Secretary of State, it was the highest academic distinction that America could confer or we receive.

Assembling in an ante-room, the ten of us who happened to be graduates of Oxford or Cambridge marched in and were greeted by the President of the Federation on behalf of the Senate and Deputies of the Alpha of Virginia. Our names were called by one Senator, and the President made an admirable speech. The Presidentof the College of William and Mary initiated us into the history and mystery of the Fraternity, and the Rector of the college presented each of us with a leather case, stamped with our name, containing the gold key of membership, also stamped with our name, the date, the device of the fraternity and the date of its formation. The oath was then read, and the grip was explained and given. A speech in reply by the Secretary of State on behalf of the mission ended the proceedings, and the Senate was adjourned. We thereupon divested ourselves of our robes and drove to the apartment of Senator Hollis Godfrey, where we were entertained to luncheon. Altogether a charming and most interesting ceremony.

After luncheon I was introduced to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the antarctic explorer, who is staying in Washington. An early dinner, after which I attended the Colonial Memorial Hall to hear Shackleton deliver a most interesting lecture, illustrated by admirable photographs, on his last "relative failure," as he calls it, in antarctic exploration.

Sunday, May 20th.

Rose and appeared at Department of Commerce to be greeted by muscular janitor with six-shooter.... Spent morning arranging what I hope will be almost last details of department as it is to be set up here, ranging in my stride from the cubic feet of office space to be occupied down to the number of dollars to be paid weekly to the char-ladies.... Motored out to Arlington, Robert E. Lee's old home, now the military cemetery of America and the most beautiful that I have ever seen. It stretches over 6,000 acres of valley, with magnificenttimber and winding drives and an open circular temple, from which addresses are delivered on Thanksgiving Day. The arrangement and style of the graves are in excellently simple taste. For the unknown dead of the Civil War there are plain square stones, a foot high; when the identity of any number is discovered, the stone is rounded at the corners and the name engraved.

On leaving Arlington, we motored past the great wireless station with the Potomac and Washington lying below, back to the city.

Thursday, May 24th.

To President's private entrance at station. Dansey and Butler who are staying behind, saw us off on behalf of mission, Tom Spring-Rice on behalf of Embassy; U.S. Ministers present in force.... The Ambassador accompanies us to Ottawa....

Friday, May 25th.

Ran through Buffalo shortly after breakfast and left train at Niagara. Our American escort, Mr. Secretary Long, Hugh Gibson of the State Department and others provided us with trams and drove us down to the Rapids, then back to the Falls, from the American side. In size, beauty and volume of water they came fully up to my expectations: it is a strange sensation to stand, as it were, on the edge of the world and see a gigantic lake pouring over within a foot of where you stand. The spray rises in a snow-white cloud as high again as the length of the falls, and it is impossible to penetrate it to the other side. Our American escort then turned us out of the cars, which the leading citizens of Niagarahad thoughtfully provided, and restored us to our tram, in which we proceeded half-way across the bridge. There we took an affecting farewell, and, as the Americans left by one door, the Canadian escort, composed chiefly of lieutenant-governors and custodians of the Niagara property, entered by the other. We were then shewn the Canadian side of the Horse Shoe fall, conducted over the power station which supplies Toronto and driven out to the Canadian side of the Rapids and the Whirlpool. There is an aerial car running on cables over the Whirlpool (at a sickening height, say the timid) and almost all of us, myself included, were induced to risk our lives on the principle that where the Secretary of State leads the rest of the mission follows....

At Toronto, I was told off to help lieutenant-governor's secretary; so sorted procession into carriages, jumped into private car and drove ahead of the band's sound and fury to Parliament Buildings, where I got in touch with a cable office, thanked Sir R. Borden in suitable terms for his telegram of welcome and strolled out to front, where, as on scaffold, Secretary of State was being subjected to native eloquence of mayors, lieutenant-governors et illud genus omne. His speech in reply aroused great enthusiasm, and, after interval for cinematograph men to ply their task, party moved away from scaffold.... Hurried away to bombard Government House and porter's office for several pieces of missing baggage; ... and drove in haste to Government House for dinner....

The mission went from Toronto to Ottawa, thence to Montreal and Halifax.

Saturday, May 26th.

Nine hot, dusty hours wherein I was almost too tired to smoke or look out of window; general coma.... Peterson met me at Montreal Station at 6.35 p.m., and we drove to his house. Sir William[42]is at present in nursing-home, so we have place to ourselves. Heaven be thanked for the peace and quiet of it! No elevators, no bands at meals, no Middle-West-Congressman's wife being "paged" throughout the living rooms, no telephone calls, no expectant pressmen, nothing but simple English food, a silent house, deft female servants, a comfortable room, a warm bed, a spring-mattress and, in general, the conditions necessary to the mental peace of one whose nerves are rather quickly breaking up under the strain of the last six weeks.

After a tête-à-tête dinner, Peterson and I walked round to the Mount Royal Club.... The rest of the mission is timed to leave Toronto this evening for Ottawa, where we are due to join it in three days' time; as, since the Parliament Buildings were burnt down, there is nothing much to see or do in Ottawa, and, as the mission is expected in Montreal on its way home, unless the anti-conscription riots become unduly intense, it would be highly satisfactory if we could arrange to join forces here instead of toiling back to Ottawa and from Ottawa to Montreal.

Monday, May 28th.

Awaiting telegraphic reply from Dormer to our request for leave to stay in Montreal until the missionpicks us up here on its homeward journey. Tried to arrange meeting with Stephen Leacock, who lectures to the students of M'Gill in the intervals of writing his immortal books; unhappily he is away from Montreal at present.... Caught Dormer by a long-distance call to Government House, Ottawa.... I may remain at Montreal until Wednesday, when mission comes to present Secretary of State, General Bridges and Admiral de Chair for honorary degrees and to pick me up en route for the boat....

Wednesday, May 30th.

... To Grand Trunk Station and waited for arrivalof mission train in company of Montreal's more distinguished citizens and a naval and military escort which whiled away time by practising "Maple Leaf." Great reception when party arrived and was driven to Windsor Hotel, where Canadian Club of Montreal, to number of 800, including guests and pressmen, presently sat down to crowded luncheon. Speeches by President, Secretary of State, Ambassador and Lord Shaughnessy, all delivered amid terrific cheers.... Then to Royal Victoria College.... Introductory speech by Principal, followed by presentation of Admiral de Chair, General Bridges, Sir C. Spring-Rice and Secretary of State for M'Gill degrees.... So to Grand Trunk Station. The mission, though impoverished by loss of Eustace Percy, Phillips, Paton, Rees and Peterson, is now enriched by presence of Judge Amos, J. H. Thomas and others.

Dined on train, drew up opposite Quebec, and left for better view of Heights of Abraham by moonlight....

Thursday, May 31st.

Rose to find that we were steaming into Matepedia, on border of Quebec and New Brunswick. As we are a valuable mission, not lightly to be sunk by first Hun submarine, as General Pershing of the U.S. Expeditionary Force may meet us at Halifax and cross with us on the "Olympic,"[43]and as part of his staff is already with us, we are seeking to elude the omnipresent Boche by lying in siding in peculiarly deserted portion of Dominion from 9.0 a.m. till 1.30 a.m. to-morrow. Unfortunately for General Bridges, Governor of Bank of England and other noted anglers, the salmon have not yet come up the river; the rest of us, however, availed ourselves of fishing club-house and sat in verandah reading and smoking for portion of morning. In afternoon walked for several miles. No better place could have been chosen for our 16 hours' delay. Two rivers join here and flow down at rapid pace, bearing ceaseless burden of rough lumber, cut and marked miles nearer source and floated down to depot where it is collected. Tree-clad mountains all round, which will be in leaf in a few weeks' time, and on top of the mountains wide-stretching prairie land, now almost free of snow and gradually being put under the plough.

Friday, June 1st.

Secured a little sleep in morning hours as train, discovering dozen derailed cars 12 miles ahead, elected to retire into siding while the breakdown gang got to work. As line cannot be cleared for many hours and as we have to leave Halifax about sunset, we shall be 24 hours' latein starting and can look forward to another night in the train.

Saturday, June 2nd.

Left train about 10.0 a.m. and proceeded by tender to "Olympic," where commander, surgeon and purser greeted us as old friends.... Taken off by picket boat to lunch on Admiral Browning's flagship "Leviathan" once more and met same charming ward-room mess as had entertained me six weeks before. Rejoined ship after tea. We carry no repatriated Canadian wives this trip, Heaven be thanked; but troops to the number of 6,000 are round, above, below and in the middle of us....

Sunday, June 3rd.

After a long night in a comfortable stateroom, I felt better than I have done for weeks. As a troopship we are restricted in liberty and comfort to some extent. Shrill bugles have exasperating knack of blowing a reveillé at 5.0 a.m. and repeating same at half-hour intervals; troops assemble on deck for physical drill, and between parades there is never any room to walk anywhere. As a set-off, we have a tolerable military band, now, alas, temporarily hushed to make room for fog-horn as we steam slowly through the mists of the Newfoundland Banks.

Monday, June 4th.

The day promised to be so lacking in incident that a solicitous management arranged an impromptu submarinescare. As we sat over our afternoon coffee and cigars, a bugle sounded a call unknown to me, but evidently familiar to every officer in the smoking-room, who took up his position in the "Birkenhead" manner on deck with his men. Within a few seconds bugles were calling all over the ship, one call after another, and every door and companion-way was filled with troops racing to their places. With a view to avoiding crowded promenade deck I sauntered on to boat deck, which by happy coincidence chanced to be the station accorded to the mission. As soon as the tumult and the shouting had died, we returned to our former places and avocations, and I was gratified to see that in the disorder I had got rid of a very uncomfortable life-belt in favour of one both more comfortable and more becoming.

Tuesday, June 5th.

The climate has grown trying, as we run in and out of the Gulf Stream, alternating tolerable cold with moist heat. I devoted my morning to work and dined with the Secretary of State.

Wednesday, June 6th.

A tranquil day was only disturbed by the necessity of preparing a report on my activities in Washington, to be added by Drummond to that volume of reports in which each member of the mission strives to ascribe to himself the credit for the mission's general success. In the afternoon there came the customary submarine alarm....

Thursday, June 7th.

Last night we entered the danger-zone, and our precautions were redoubled. The military police march upand down, treading with heavy foot on any who carry life-belts instead of wearing them; armed sentries also stand by every life-boat to the end that, when the deadly torpedo has done its work and our ship's complement of 7,000 is tossing about in life-boats and on rafts, there shall be attached to each party at least one man with a rifle, making life unpleasant to the submarine crew, if any question of machine-gunning the survivors arise.... As a compliment to the United States Navy, the convoy was made up of two American destroyers, subsequently increased to four. In the evening, by urgent request, the Secretary of State addressed the officers of the various Canadian regiments in the saloon. There followed a concert, principally contributed by Madame Edvina, whom we have the honour of carrying this trip.... Having discovered a native aptitude for the game of chess, I left the concert to take care of itself and competed with Judge Amos.[44]

Friday, June 8th.

Escorted by a varying number of U.S. destroyers, we slipped by eight submarines, and by the end of dinner were in sight of the Irish and Welsh coasts. After the officer commanding the Canadian troops had proposed the King's health, J. H. Thomas proposed the health of President Wilson and the U.S. Navy. A presentation is being made to the Secretary of State by the members of his mission....

Saturday, June 9th.

We dropped anchor in the Mersey at about 2.30 a.m. Immediately and for the short remainder of the night some 6,000 troops mobilised for disembarkation. Called at 6.0, but did not enter special train until 11.15. Read that J. H. Thomas has been made a Privy Councillor, which left pleasant taste in the mouth at end of long, varied, interesting and very pleasant mission.

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