e
Napoleon had failed. He stuck to his point and said that but for the
violation of Belgium we would not have entered into the war. I answered
that no doubt this had made it easier for the party in power--of which
my husband was the head--because among the many convictions that divide
Liberals from Conservatives is that we believe in freedom, while they
believe in force: and that imperialism meant militarism against which we
would fight for ever. But, I added, no British Government of whatever
party would have watched with folded arms the whole German navy sail
down our coast to attack France.

He inquired if my husband had felt any qualms _when he took upon his
shoulders this great decision_. I answered that our Foreign Secretary,
Sir Edward now Lord Grey, Lord Crewe, and others, had made up their
minds from the first moment; and that in one year--thanks to the
Committee of Defence, Lord Haldane and Lord Kitchener--we had produced a
large voluntary army; and had he been in England at the time, he would
have been struck by the pathos and silence with which men of every class
joined up to fight in a war which was not their own, against a foe for
whom they felt no hatred.

He asked if England had been disappointed that America had come in so
late to help her, I confessed that in a moment of pique I had exclaimed
that had I been Christopher Columbus I would have said nothing about the
discovery, but that I doubted if Great Britain would have come in any
earlier to help the United States had they been in a similar quandary.

Someone asked me privately if I had lost a child in the war. I said
that my little boy had been too young to fight, but that both my
sisters, my three brothers and my husband had lost their sons; that
living in Downing Street in the first years of the war had been an
anguish, the depth of which no one could realise.

We had refused to drop any of our German friends in London, and in
consequence became targets for the abuse and calumny of our social and
political enemies.

It is a subject that rouses me to undying indignation when I remember
the manner in which we were persecuted, not only by our opponents, but
by some of my personal friends even after we had been defeated in the
General Election of 1918. One of the candidates said that she had often
been to Downing Street on matters of vital importance during the war and
had been struck by the lack of feeling shown by myself and my husband.

Mr.