Among the many Government changes that are imminent it is to be hoped
that the PRIME MINISTER will appoint someone to an office of the
highest importance for the well-being of the Cabinet in the public
eye. Far too long has the man-in-the-street been encouraged in an
attitude of scorn for the efforts of the Twenty-three. It is not
suggested that the new official shall be added to that mystic number
and bring it up to twice-times-twelve, or four-times-six, or even
three-times-eight. There is no need for him to have Cabinet rank, but
he must be permitted some inside knowledge or his labours will not
be fully fruitful. Only by such labours can the Twenty-three
really expect a fair reputation. As it is, everyone is more or less
suspicious of them, led by the papers in their self-imposed sacred
task of leaders or leader-writers of the Opposition; while the
music-halls are of course frankly against any but a purely Tory
Government, as they have always been, and so whole-heartedly and
superior to detail that even to this day at one of the leading variety
houses of London a topical song is being sung and loudly applauded
in which Mr. ASQUITH is still taunted with his inability to come to
a decision about conscription. The fact that the conscription problem
was long since settled is immaterial to these loud-lunged patriots.
Any stick is good for such a dog. True there has of late been rather
less venom in certain of the anti-Premier papers, which now substitute
for their ancient scoldings a bland omniscience and kindliness in
their reminders of the obvious, but none the less contrive still to
insert the knife and even to give it a furtive twist.
The fact then remains that what the Government need is a friend,
a trumpeter, a fugle-man, a pointer-out of merits, a signaller of
This-way-to-the-virtues, in short, a Callisthenes. They should take a
lesson from the self-sacrificing zeal of that other Callisthenes who
serves a certain London emporium so faithfully, awaking every morning
to a new and rapturous vision of its excellence, which nothing can
stop the discoverer at once putting into words for the evening papers.
Such _trouvailles_ must not be kept for private use; all the world
must know. How it is that editors are so complacent in printing these
rhapsodies, which, truth to tell, are sometimes very like each other,
no one knows; but there it is. They see the light, and everyone
rejoices to think that in a country which has been a good deal blown
upon there is, at any rate, one perfect thing.
Why should there be two?
There could be if the Government would appoint a Callisthenes of their
own and set the eager pen similarly to work. Then every day we should
be assured of the extraordinary vigour and vitality of our rulers.
Doubt would vanish and the nation would blossom as the rose. For if
all editors are so ready to print the present-day eulogies of the
emporium, how much readier should they be to print to-morrow's
eulogies of the Empire!
One can see the new Callisthenes inspiring confidence and heartening
the public with some such words as these; for of course the new one
should, if possible, be modelled on the old--it might even be (daring
thought!) the same:--