er-writing (as
was shown in his momentous epistle written on behalf of the Unionist
leaders when Mr. Asquith's Cabinet were in two minds at the beginning
of August 1914), his memorandum which is quoted in the "Final Report"
of the Dardanelles Commission, and in which he insisted upon the
advice of the military authorities with reference to the evacuation
of the Gallipoli Peninsula being followed, indicates how fortunate it
was that he remained at his post.

The truth is that resignations of the individual Minister seldom do
any good from the point of view of the public interest, except when
the individual Minister concerned happens to be unfit for his
position--and then he generally seems immune from that "unwanted
doggie" sort of feeling from which less illustrious persons are apt to
suffer when they are _de trop_. The cases mentioned on p. 144 in
connection with the Army Council stood on an entirely different
footing. When a body of officials resign, or threaten to resign, their
action cannot be ignored; in the second case mentioned the mere threat
sufficed. Lord Fisher paid me one of his meteoric visits on the
morning that he submitted his resignation to Mr. Asquith, and he
confided his reasons to me; the reasons were good, but it seemed
doubtful whether they were quite good enough to justify the taking of
so drastic a step.

There was no more edifying and compelling personality amongst the
party who were in the habit of taking the floor in 10 Downing Street
in 1915 than Lord Curzon. He, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd George
might almost have been called rivals for the role of _prima ballerina
assoluta_. The remarks that fell from his lips, signalized as they
ever were by a faultless phraseology and delivered with a prunes,
prisms and potatoes diction, seldom failed to lift the discussion on
to a higher plane, to waft his hearers on to the serene hill-tops of
thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the
spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the
meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever
cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that
he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were
the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his
mind to be carried into execution, any small hopes which remained of
our ever winning the war would inevitably be blotted out for good and
all. As for Mr. Lloyd