that he
made mistakes, even very great mistakes, still, on the total result of
his gigantic labours, does not the public owe him a debt of gratitude?
Has he not been an honest man at the head of a department where
dishonesty had its chief opportunity? Did he not strike a death blow at
Germany when he secured, with a suddenness which ruined his rivals in
the field, the wool-clip of the world? Is there one man in these islands
who thought for a moment that the overplus of stores would fetch a sum
of L800,000,000?

I will say a word about Slough, which is still the favourite cry of Lord
Inverforth's critics, who have held their peace about the "dumps" since
the publication of the White Paper describing the sale of stores.

Slough was the work of the War Office. It was begun badly. Mistakes of a
serious kind were made. It might have been a financial disaster. But
Lord Inverforth is a chivalrous man. He has never disclosed the fact
that he inherited Slough. In the face of violent criticism he has
maintained a dignified silence, letting the world think that he was the
parent of the idea, and bending all his energies to make it a success.
He has had his reward. Slough has been sold and the transaction shows a
profit for the taxpayer.

During the last years of his administration I saw a good deal of Lord
Inverforth. He was anxious to get back to his own work. He asked again
and again to be relieved of his duties--the machinery he had set up
being in excellent running order. But the Prime Minister begged him to
stay, and he has stayed, against his will and against his own interests,
and all the time he has been subjected to a stream of malignant
criticism.

Let the reader ask himself whether the case of Lord Inverforth is likely
to encourage the best brains in the country to come to the political
service of the nation. Is there not a danger that we may fall into the
American position, and have our great men in commerce and our
second-rate men in politics?

I regard Lord Inverforth as one of the few very great men in commerce
who have the qualities of genuine statesmanship. I am not at liberty to
give my chief grounds for this belief, but before long the world may
know from Lord Inverforth's commercial activities on the Continent that
more than any other man in these islands he has seen the way and taken
the step to reconstruct the shattered civilization of Europe.

On many occasions I have discussed with him the future of