t the right to say instantly whatever came into one's head,
particularly if it appeared to belittle one's own country. Because one
could not belittle England really. England was too great for that. But
it was salutary to try. It was also valuable to our Allies, because it
tended to prove to them how much in earnest and how united we must be.

A great sensation was now caused by the appearance of "An Englishman"
from Carmelite Street. This gentleman, who, like the man who dined with
the KAISER, desiring his anonymity to be respected, wore a John Bull
mask and brandished an ebony cane, made the PRIME MINISTER the special
mark of his attack. What, he asked, could be expected of a politician so
crafty and lost to shame as to bid the House wait and see? Was it not
the very essence of good statesmanship to blurt out everything at once?
Only a craven time-server would say wait and see. Waiting was a
contemptuous proceeding wherever practised, and seeing required eyes,
which Heaven knows the PREMIER woefully lacked. (Cheers.) What right had
an incorrigible hoodwinker such as Mr. ASQUITH to advise anyone to see?
It was monstrous. Let the people get rid of this impostor without a
twinge of compunction, and the sooner the better. As to swapping horses
in mid-stream being unwise, perhaps it was, but it was not unwise in the
way that waiting to see was. (Applause.)

Another masked gentleman, who was understood to be "Callisthenes" of
Oxford Street, now rose to make a few useful suggestions. He said that
as the only journalist who wrote what was practically the leading
article in four evening papers every day, he surely was entitled to
speak with some authority. The question was how to get it into the
country's head that England's only chance for recovering her
self-respect and winning the War was to cry stinking fish? (Loud
cheers.) Well, the best way was to keep on saying it in and out of
season. His experience had taught him that everything will bear saying
not merely three times, but three thousand times and three.

Mr. AMERY said it was ridiculous to suppose that any Cabinet Minister
wished the War to end or England to be victorious. The contrary was an
axiom on which the whole future of his political creed was based. One
had but to look at them to see how flabby and vacillating they were and
how devoted to the pickings of office.

Mr. HOGGE said that the Chairman in his opening remarks had disregarded
one of the most valuabl