on continues to be critical, and must be so until the fate
of Ladysmith is decided. Our own men are justifying to the full the
confidence reposed in them; what men can do they will accomplish. But
the Boers are fighting stubbornly, and may be able to wear out Sir
Redvers Buller's force before their own resistance collapses. We at home
must wait patiently, hoping for the best but prepared for fresh efforts.
At least we ought all now to realise that the splendid behaviour of our
soldiers in the field lays upon us as citizens the duty of securing for
the future the best possible treatment of those who are so generous of
their lives.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

_February 1st_, 1900

If on Tuesday the Bank of England had announced that it could not meet
its obligations I imagine that there would have been a certain amount of
uneasiness in the City and elsewhere, and that some at least of the rich
men to be found in London would have put their heads together to see
what could be done to meet a grave emergency.

On Tuesday a failure was indeed announced--a failure which must involve
the Bank of England and most of the great banking and trading
corporations of this country. But no one seems to have taken action upon
it, and I see no visible sign of general alarm. The Prime Minister,
speaking in his place in the House of Lords and on behalf of the
National Government, said: "I do not believe in the perfection of the
British Constitution as an instrument of war ...it is evident there is
something in your machinery that is wrong." That was Lord Salisbury's
explanation and defence of the failure of his Government in the
diplomacy which preceded the war, in the preparations for the war, and
in the conduct of the war. It was a declaration of bankruptcy--a plain
statement by the Government that it cannot govern. The announcement was
not made to Parliament with closed doors and the reporters excluded. It
was made to the whole world, to the British Nation, and to all the
rivals of Great Britain. Parliament did not take any action upon the
declaration. No committee of both Houses was formed to consider how
without delay to make a Government that can govern. The ordinary normal
routine of public and private life goes on. Thus in the crisis of the
Nation's fate we are ungoverned and unled, and to all appearance we are
content to be so, and the leader-writers trained in the tradition of
respectable formalism interpret the Nation's apath