(how
numerous they are nobody knows) are the loudest spokesmen for such
a peace as can be made. But it is talked much of in Asquith circles
that the time may come when this policy will be led by Mr. Asquith,
in a form somewhat modified from the Lansdowne formula. Mr. Asquith
has up to this time patriotically supported the government and he
himself has said nothing in public which could warrant linking his
name with an early peace-seeking policy. But his friends openly
and incessantly predict that he will, at a favourable moment, take
this cue. I myself can hardly believe it. Political victory in
Great Britain doesn't now lie in that direction.

The dominant section of opinion is much grieved at Russia's
surrender, but they refuse to be discouraged by it. They recall how
Napoleon overran most of Europe, and the French held practically
none of his conquests after his fall.

Such real political danger as exists here--if any exists, of which
I am not quite sure--comes not only now mainly of this split in
public opinion but also and to a greater degree from the personal
enemies of the present government. Lloyd George is kept in power
because he is the most energetic man in sight--by far. Many who
support him do not like him nor trust him-except that nobody doubts
his supreme earnestness to win the war. On all other subjects he
has enemies of old and he makes new ones. His intense and superb
energy has saved him in two notable crises. His dismissal of Sir
William Robertson[70] has been accepted in the interest of greater
unity of military control, but it was a dangerous rapids that he
shot, for he didn't do it tactfully. Yet there's a certain danger
to the present powers in the feeling that some of them are wearing
out. Parliament itself--an old one now--is thought to have gone
stale. Bonar Law is over-worked and tired; Balfour is often said to
be too philosophical and languid; but, when this feeling seems in
danger of taking definite shape, he makes a clearer statement than
anybody else and catches on his feet. The man of new energy, not
yet fagged, is Geddes[71], whose frankness carries conviction.

_To the President_

London, March 17, 1918.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The rather impatient and unappreciative remarks made by the Prime
M