ry means in our power. As
ground for his belief in a better day, Bright speaks--and his language
is prophetic--of the people "sublime in their resolution." It is that
resolution which, in spite of our unprepared condition and of all the
mistakes that have been made, as well as of disasters that could not
have been foreseen, and of a power in the enemy far greater and a
wickedness more diabolical than anyone dreamed of, will "bring victory
home."

To have watched the action of the electorate during the last fifty years
leads to the conclusion that in spite of apparent vacillations it has
been characterised by good sense and good feeling, and that its
judgment, so far as conditions from time to time permitted of its true
expression, has been sound. To go about the country now and see what
earnest and useful work is being quietly done, what loss and suffering
bravely borne, confirms and renews the trust in our fellow-countrymen
which might be shaken if we listened only to the utterances in the Press
and in Parliament.

"Trust in the people" should be a habit of mind--a rule of action
tacitly adopted--not a party watchword. Tell a man or boy--more than
once--that you trust him, and he will probably take it--and not without
a warrant--that you don't, that in fact you have grave doubts but do not
wholly despair. The phrase might be taboo on the platform to raise cheap
cheers but silently recognised in the Cabinet as a guide in action. How
much better would it have been all through the War, and how much better
now, if there were no concealment, except when information given might
assist the enemy, if we knew at once even when things went wrong! There
have been times when it was necessary, in order to know at all what was
really going on, to read the German reports rather than our own, subject
of course to a discount. The difficulty with those German preparations
is to determine whether the discount for intentional falsification
should be 5 per cent. or 90 per cent. Candour, however, leads us rather
to admit the former as generally nearer the mark when military
operations have been the subject of them, at least until the Germans
began to suffer serious defeats in the field.

It would have been far better, too, to have assumed--there was real
ground for the assumption--that the nation was ready and willing at once
to make any sacrifice, to submit to privation, to rouse itself to any
effort if only the necessity for it were ma