Irreverent opponents of the PRIME MINISTER have sometimes compared him
to _Micawber_, on the ground that he was always waiting for something to
turn up. I found another link to-day between these celebrated
characters. As Mr. ASQUITH unfolded the details of the two new Votes of
Credit, one of 120 millions to clear up the present financial year, the
other of 300 millions to start the new one, he reminded me of _Micawber_
calculating his indebtedness to _Traddles_. While professing a proper
alarm at the colossal amount of the expenditure--nearly two thousand
millions already, or twice the cost of the twenty-two years' war against
NAPOLEON--he rolled these gigantic figures off his tongue as if he loved
them. You will remember _Copperfield's_ remark when the famous I.O.U.
had been handed over: "I am persuaded not only that this was quite the
same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself
hardly knew the difference until he had had to think about it." The
PRIME MINISTER'S financial optimism left the House under much the same
impression, and Mr. MCKENNA rather deepened it by the declaration that
with prudence and statesmanship our credit would survive the War however
long it might last.
_Tuesday, February 22nd._--For nearly ten years, without a break, Mr.
GEORGE LAMBERT, Yeoman, as the reference-books describe him, sat on the
Treasury Bench as Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Then the Coalition came
along and his place knew him no more. For eight long months he has
yearned to let the new Administration know what he thought of them, and
to-day he seized the opportunity furnished by the Vote on Account.
Beginning with a moving tale of how the War Office took several weeks
and a traction engine to move a load of hay two miles from a rick to a
railway station in his native Devon, the Yeoman proceeded with other
counts of his indictment. The PRIME MINISTER mentioned yesterday a new
plan by which an outside Committee, composed of business men and headed
by a Cabinet Minister, was checking the expenditure of the Service
Departments. (The cost of shells, we were told to-day by Dr. ADDISON,
has been brought down to a figure which means an economy of £400,000 a
week on our future production.)
But Mr. LAMBERT would have none of it. Speaking with all the authority
of his long official experience he laid down the dictum that one Cabinet
Minister could not supervise another. Next he attacked the new Order in
Council, which makes the Chief of the Staff responsible for the orders
given to the Army, declaring that it reduced Lord KITCHENER to the level
of a civilian; and finally he denounced the Government for not making
more use of Lord FISHER. Under the stress of these terrific blows the
Government ought to have reeled, if it did not fall. But nothing
happened, except that the Votes on Account for four hundred and twenty
millions were by half-past seven duly passed.
In the Lords meanwhile the Government was sustaining a heavier attack,
arising out of their failure to stop all supplies from reaching Germany.
Lord SYDENHAM attributed it to the Declaration of London, which had
crippled the Navy; Lord BERESFORD thought it was the result of trying to
run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. Lord
LANSDOWNE, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the
Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by
appointing a Minister of Blockade.
_Wednesday, February 23rd._--At Question-time, Mr. ASQUITH announced
that the new Minister was Lord ROBERT CECIL. It is close upon fifty
years since another Lord ROBERT CECIL (who had just become Lord
CRANBORNE) entered the Cabinet of Lord DERBY.
[Illustration: NEW DEPARTURES BY SEA AND AIR.