ommunication of any sort.

As we have seen, no literal lie was told. But Parliament and the
country assumed that the Ministers had denied any gambling in
Marconis of any sort. And the Ministers must have known that this was
what their denials had been taken to mean.*

[* Rufus Isaacs' son mentions a theory held by some (though he thinks
there are strong arguments against it) that Rufus' silence was due to
instructions from the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, who was not
anxious to have the connection of Lloyd George with the matter
disclosed, "fearing that his personal unpopularity would lead to such
an exacerbation of the attacks that the prestige of the whole
Government might be seriously impaired." (_Rufus Isaacs, First
Marquess of Reading_, pp. 248-9.)]

On October 29 the names were announced of the members appointed to
the promised Committee of Enquiry. As usual they represented the
various parties in proportion to their numbers in the House. The
Liberals were in office, supported by Irish Nationalists and Labour
Members: 9 members of the Committee (including the Chairman) were
from these parties; 6 were Conservatives. One might have expected
that the careful evasions in the House would have meant only a brief
respite for the Ministers who had been so economical of the truth.
They would appear before the Committee and then the whole thing would
emerge. But though the Committee was appointed at the end of October
and met three times most weeks thereafter, five months went by and no
Minister was called. The plain fact is that Mr. Samuel's department,
the Post Office, slanted the enquiry in a different direction right
at the start by putting in evidence a confidential Blue Book and
suggesting that Sir Alexander King, secretary to the Post Office, be
heard first.

On the question of the goodness or badness of the contract itself,
the Committee uncovered much that was interesting. It emerged that
the Poulsen System had offered to erect stations at a cost of about
L36,000 less per station than the Marconi, and that the Admiralty
itself had estimated a cost, if they were undertaking the work, about
the same as the Poulsen offer. But, by a confusion as to whether
their figure did or did not include freight charges, the Admiralty
estimate had been put down at L10,000 higher than it was! Nor was
this the only confusion. When Sir Alexander King spoke of
"concessions" made to the Government by the Marconi Company, he
admitt