itain alone, but also Ireland, would
have swallowed conscription with gusto in September 1914, after the
retreat from Mons. Our man-power could in that case have been tapped
gradually, by methods that were at once scientific and equitable, so
as to cause the least possible disturbance to the country's productive
capacity.

Twelve months later, he had ceased to present quite so commanding a
figure to the proletariat as he had presented when first he was called
in to save the situation. Of this he was probably quite aware himself,
and it is a great mistake to suppose that he was indifferent to
public opinion or even to the opinion of the Press. By that time,
moreover, he was probably a good deal hampered by some of his
colleagues and their pestilent pre-war pledges. A good many
politicians nowadays find it convenient to forget that during those
very days when the secret information reaching them must surely have
made them aware of Germany's determination to make war on a suitable
opportunity presenting itself, they were making the question of
compulsory service virtually a party matter, and were binding
themselves to oppose it tooth and nail. The statemonger always assumes
that the public take his pledges (which he never boggles over breaking
for some purely factious object) seriously. The public may be silly,
but they are not quite so silly as that.

Having missed the tide when it was at the flood, Lord K. was wise in
acting with circumspection, and in rather shrinking from insisting
upon compulsion so long as it had not become manifestly and
imperatively necessary. When, in the early autumn of 1915, he told me
off as a kind of bear-leader to a Cabinet Committee presided over by
Lord Crewe, which was to go into the general question of man-power and
of the future development of the forces--a Committee which was
intended, as far as I could make out, to advise as to whether
compulsory service was to be adopted or not--I found him a little
unapproachable and disinclined to commit himself. I was, of course,
only supposed to assist in respect to information and as regards
technical military points; but it would have been a help to know
exactly what one's Chief desired and thought. Fitzgerald was a great
standby on such occasions. I gathered from him that the Secretary of
State was not anxious to precipitate bringing the question to a head,
with the conception ever at the back of his mind of conserving
sufficient fighting re