the war,
since Parliament convened there's been a great row, which doesn't
get less. The labour men give trouble; people blame the
politicians: Lloyd George is saving the country, say some; Lloyd
George ought to be hanged, say others. Down with Northcliffe! They
seem likely to burn him at the stake--except those who contend that
he has saved the nation. Some maintain that the cabinet is too
big--twenty-two. More say that it has no leadership. If you favour
conscription, you are a traitor: if you don't favour it, you are
pro-German. It's the same sort of old quarrel they had before the
war, only it is about more subjects. In fact, nobody seems very
clearly to know what it's about. Meantime the Government is
spending money at a rate that nobody ever dreamed of before. Three
million pounds a day--some days five million. The Germans,
meantime are taking Russia; the Allies are not taking the
Dardanelles; in France the old deadlock continues. Boston at its
worst must be far more cheerful than this.

Affectionately and with my love to Chud,

W.H.P.

_To the President_

London, September 26, 1915.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The suppression of facts about the military situation is more
rigorous than ever since the military facts have become so
discouraging. The volume of pretty well authenticated news that I
used to hear privately has become sensibly diminished. Rumours that
reach me by the back door, in all sorts of indirect ways, are not
fewer, but fewer of them are credible. There is great confusion,
great fear, very great depression--far greater, I think, than
England has felt, certainly since the Napoleonic scare and probably
since the threat of the Armada. Nobody, I think, supposes that
England herself will be conquered: confidence in the navy is
supreme. But the fear of a practical defeat of the Allies on the
continent is become general. Russia may have to pay a huge
indemnity, going far to reimburse Germany for the cost of the war;
Belgium may be permanently held unless Germany receive an indemnity
to evacuate, and her seaports may be held anyhow; the Germans may
reach Constantinople before the Allies, and Germany may thus hold,
when the war ends, an open way to the East; and France may have to
pay a large sum to regain her