xpress its real
opinion at all: the motion was defeated by 346 to 268. Lloyd George
and Rufus Isaacs expressed regret for any indiscretion there might
have been in their actions: Rufus explained that he would not have
bought the shares--"if I had thought that men could be so suspicious
of any action of mine." In the debate the Leader of the Opposition,
Arthur Balfour, somewhat disdainfully refused to make political
capital out of the business. Lloyd George and Isaacs were loudly
cheered by their own Party--though whether they were cheered for
having bought American Marconis or for having concealed the purchase
from the House there is now no means of discovering. At any rate
their careers were not damaged: the one went on to become Lord Chief
Justice of England and later Viceroy of India: the other became Prime
Minister during the war of 1914-1918.

One question arising from the episode is whether it meant what Cecil
Chesterton and Belloc thought it meant in the world of party
politics, or something entirely different. They seem throughout to
have assumed that their thesis of collusion between the Party Leaders
was proved by this scandal: it seems to me quite as easy to make the
case that it was _disproved_.

A Conservative first raises the matter by inconvenient questions in
the House. A group of young Conservatives pay the costs of Cecil
Chesterton's defence. When a Parliamentary Committee is appointed to
enquire into the alleged corruption, the story of every session
becomes one of a Conservative minority trying hard to ferret out the
truth and a ministerial majority determined to prevent their
succeeding. Finally the leading Conservative Commissioner, Lord
Robert Cecil, issues a restrained but most damning report which is,
as a matter of course, rejected by the Liberal majority.

A Conservative M.P. told me he thought the great mistake made was
that it had all been made "too much of a party question." Unless you
already disbelieved quite violently in the existence of the two
parties this would certainly be the effect upon you of reading the
report of the Commission Sessions, and all that can be set against it
is the fact that Mr. Balfour did, in the House of Commons, utter a
conventional form of words which, as has been said, really amounted
to a refusal to make political capital out of the affair.

I do not say, for I do not pretend to know, if this is the correct
interpretation: it is certainly the obvious one