"You have killed me," says Socrates, "because you thought to escape
from giving an account of your lives. But you will be disappointed.
There are others to convict you, accusers whom I held back when you
knew it not, they will be harsher inasmuch as they are younger, and
you will wince the more."

One day the full truth of this scandalous story will be told, and the
historian will then pronounce a judgment which will leave an indelible
stain on the reputation of some who with a guilty conscience now sun
themselves in the prosperity of public approval. Their children will not
read that judgment without bitter shame.

I condemn in this matter not only the man who gave the order for calumny
and slander to set to work but, first, the friends of Lord Haldane who
kept silence, and, second, the democracy of these islands which allowed
itself to be deceived and exploited by the lowest kind of newspapers.

Why was Sir Edward Grey silent? He was living in Lord Haldane's house
at the time, and, agonizing over the abhorrent prospect of European
slaughter and striving to the point of a nervous collapse to avert this
calamity, was devotedly served and strengthened by his host. Why was he
silent?

Why was Mr. Asquith silent? He knew that Lord Haldane had delivered the
War Office from chaos and had given to this country for the first time
in its history a coherent and brilliantly efficient weapon for this very
purpose of a war with Germany. He spoke when it was too late. Why did he
not speak when the hounds were in full cry?

And why were Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill silent? Could
they not have told the nation that they had grudged Lord Haldane his
Army estimates, and that they had even suggested another and less
expensive scheme of national defence--a scheme that was actually
examined by the War Office experts and condemned?

Let Mr. Lloyd George look back. If he had had his way with the War
Office could Germany have been stopped from reaching Paris and seizing
the Channel ports? Moreover, if he had had his way, could he himself
have hoped to escape hanging on a lamp-post? Is it not true to say that
in saving France from an overwhelming and almost immediate destruction
the British Expeditionary Force also saved his neck, the neck of Mr.
Winston Churchill, and the necks of all the Cabinet? But if this is so,
and his own conscience shall be the judge, how is it that he said no
word to the