Out of the welter of mendacity, evasions and intrigue, for a parallel to
which the records of this or indeed of any civilised country might be
searched in vain, one fact has at last emerged clear and indisputable.
The nation will learn this morning, with what feelings it is only too
easy to conjecture, that a great party, a party which, despite its many
political blunders, has at least a record for honourable if mistaken
statesmanship in the past, has now stooped to the final and abysmal
folly. Disguise the fact with what specious rhetoric they may, the truth
remains that our opponents have deliberately endeavoured to tamper with
a great national possession, and to make the British Army a tool in the
game of party.
Incredible, nay unthinkable, as such a situation would have been till
lately, who is now to deny it? If any doubt still remained, surely the
venomous outpourings of those journals which support and encourage the
machinations of "honourable gentlemen"--alas that the phrase should
henceforth have to be in quotation marks!--on the opposite side of the
House must by now have dispelled it. Beaten to their last ditch, and
discredited even in that, it is now evident that the conspirators had
determined to stake all upon one final throw. Fortunately the very
desperateness of the plot has proved its undoing, and from the tremulous
lips of the perpetrators themselves comes to-day a froth of vituperation
and rancorous abuse that is the surest confession of abject failure.
Happily, however, there is a brighter side to the picture; signs are not
wanting--and each hour, we are sure, will strengthen them--that moderate
men in the ranks of our opponents are beginning to share our own
indignation and dismay. Let but this spirit find its outlet and victory
is ours. We say it in no petty strain of party triumph, but the day of
reckoning can obviously no longer be delayed. A gang of wholly reckless
and unscrupulous political adventurers have sown the dragon's teeth in
the wind; let the whole nation see to it that they are now forced to
reap armed men in the whirlwind!
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[Illustration: AN ECHO OF SHOW SUNDAY.
(_Proving that a humorist is never allowed to be serious._)
_Visitor (after studying well-known humorous artist's classical Academy
picture)._ "DELIGHTFULLY COMIC. TELL ME, WHAT IS THE JOKE TO THIS ONE?"]
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"Many a man whose courage would not respond to the spur of some
huge burglar would die rather than be beaten by a wretched little
collar stud."--_Times._
The only burglar we have ever met was (luckily) in the Infantry.
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