clothing, and knit socks for sailors and soldiers; and The Times accepted, with unprecedented success, the office of organ for col- lecting money for the British Red Cross and Order of St. John for the benefit of the wounded. Yet in spite of the various drains on manhood, time and purse, and of the cruel anxieties, as the tale of losses came in, in every house in the country, the public adopted as its motto " Business as usual," and carried on, so far as practicable, as if the nation were at peace. There was some, but comparatively little, panic at the outbreak of war as to food- stuffs, and a certain amount of hoarding, but no serious shortage. The abandonment of party strife entailed upon the Ministry one difficult decision. Were the Home Rule bill and the Welsh Disestablishment bill, which had passed in three suc- //omel?u/e cess * ve sess ' ons through all their stages in the Com- BH" " mons, but which had been vehemently opposed by the Unionists, and rejected by the Lords, to be allowed to become law automatically under the Parliament Act? Ministers, influenced no doubt largely by the desire to meet Mr. Redmond's magnanimous attitude at the outset of the war, determined to submit them to the King for signature, with the reservation that neither should be put into operation during the war, and that special arrangements should be made to meet the case of Ulster. The Opposition protested that this decision was a breach of faith, and denounced the Suspensory bill which the Government in- troduced and passed; but they maintained their patriotic at- titude unchanged. Their leaders generally had placed themselves at the disposal of the Government, and the services of Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Long, and Mr. F. E. Smith (afterwards Lord Birkenhead) had been accepted. Mr. Smith was made head of the Press Bureau, in order to give out "a steady stream of information." The press had shown as a body remarkable discretion about naval and military secrets, so that the arrival of the Expeditionary Force in France was a complete surprise to the Germans. But the secrecy neces- sarily observed gave rise to extraordinary rumours which were widely accepted as fact. The most notorious was the story, for which there was no foundation whatever, that trainloads of Rus- sian troops, arrived from Archangel, had passed through England to aid the French in their fight against the German invaders. Internal strife came to an end, not merely between parties in the House of Commons, but throughout the country. Political propaganda ceased. All strikes were promptly settled, of internal ' nc ' u< iing the great building strike in London. A gen- Strife. eral amnesty was proclaimed for offences in connex- ion with industrial disturbances and for suffragist prisoners. The women's agitation for the suffrage was sus- pended; " militancy " on their part was dropped; suffrage societies organized themselves for the relief of women and children who suffered by the war; many of the leading mili- tants diverted their oratorical talents to the promotion of recruiting. The nation was at one. The Churches impressed upon their adherents the need for endurance and sacrifice, and upheld the righteousness of the national cause. Friday Aug. 21 was appointed as a special day of intercession for soldiers and sailors, and crowded services were held all over the land, the King and Queen attending at Westminster Abbey.
There was considerable alarm in the country, for a long time,
in regard to German spies. Railways, bridges, and waterworks
were in consequence guarded by Territorial troops and
Aliens*" Bov Scouts. Aliens were registered, and restricted in
their freedom of movement and residence. The outcry
against aliens led Adml. Prince Louis of Battenberg, the First
Sea Lord, to retire owing to his German origin. Several spies
were arrested and tried, and a certain number shot.
The control of the war, as of all other portions of British policy, rested with the Cabinet. It was assisted by the Com- mittee of Imperial Defence, and the War Office and ^Council. Admiralty acted as executive agents. But a Cabinet of over 20 members, a large proportion of whom were immersed in details of internal policy, was obviously unfitted for the duties of superintendence of naval and military operations. On Xov. 25 a War Council was constituted, consisting mainly of
the members of the Committee of Imperial Defence, to whom the Cabinet delegated (subject to ultimate reference to itself) the ordinary management of the war. While Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Edward Grey, Lord Haldane, and Lord Crewe had seats and influence on the Council, the principal responsibility lay with the Prime Minister, Lord Kitchener, and Mr. Churchill; indeed, as was afterwards revealed, the meetings of the War Council were so intermittent that the authority of these three was but little controlled. The public gained its authentic knowledge of military progress mainly from Lord Kitchener's statements in the Lords, and similar statements about naval operations by Mr. Churchill in the Commons.
The varying fortunes of the early weeks of the war the German check at Liege, the retreat from Mons, the burning of Louvain, and the outrageous conduct of the Germans in Belgium and France, the escape of the " Goeben," the exploits of the "Arethusa" at sea, the advance meat. of the Russians in East Prussia and their expul- sion by Hindenburg, the brave resistance of Serbia to the Austrian attack, the threat to Paris and the removal of the French Government to Bordeaux, the victory of the Marne, the German stand on the Aisne, the torpedoing of three British cruisers in the North Sea, the death of the veteran Lord Roberts when on a visit to the army in France were all, in one way or another, calculated to stiffen the resolution of the nation. The session of Parliament was brought to a close on Sept. 19 amid unprecedented scenes. Cheers greeted the announcement that the Home Rule and Welsh Church bills had been duly passed under the Parliament Act. The King's Speech struck a lofty note. " I address you," His Majesty began, " in circumstances that call for action rather than speech. After every endeavour had been made by my Government to preserve the peace of the world, I was compelled, in the assertion of treaty obligations deliberately set at naught, and for the protection of the public law of Europe and the vital interests of my Empire, to go to war." And he summarized British policy when he declared: " We are fighting for a worthy purpose, and we shall not lay down our arms until that purpose is fully achieved." Mr. Crooks, of the Labour party, before the members separated, started singing, " God save the King," in which all present joined upstanding; and then he exclaimed, " God save Ireland," to which Mr. Red- mond responded, " God save England."
The Prime Minister had already, before the close of the session, started, with the cooperation of leading men of all parties, a great educational campaign, by means of meetings Tl}e throughout the United Kingdom, to vindicate the country justice of the British cause and to organize public sad the opinion and effort. The first meeting was at the Guildhall on Sept. 4, and was addressed by Mr. Asquith, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Churchill. Others were held in rapid succession in different parts of the country, the Prime Minister speaking himself not only in London but in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Dublin. In Dublin the Lord Mayor was in the chair, and the speakers included (besides the Prime Minister) the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, Mr. Redmond, Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Devlin. Mr. Redmond said that Ireland, which was profoundly moved by the sufferings of Belgium, would feel bound in honour to take her place beside the other autonomous portions of the King's Dominions. At a meeting in the London Opera House Mr. Crooks said that the fight was for liberty and home; he would rather see every living soul blotted off the face of the earth than see the Kaiser supreme anywhere. One of the most striking speeches was delivered by Mr. Lloyd George to a meeting of Welshmen in the Queen's Hall in London. The German Chancellor, he said, has called treaties " scraps of paper." So were bank-notes; so were bills of exchange. Treaties were the currency of international statesmanship. It was a great opportunity, and a new and more exalted patriotism was emerging. Britain had been living, he said, in a sheltered valley; the stern hand of fate had scourged her to an elevation whence the great peaks of honour were visible Duty, Patriotism, Sacrifice. The Prime Minister summed up the position of the
