crushing, that was to test to the limit not alone his generosity and his justice but also his statesmanship and his vision; that was to subject him to reproach and abuse, that disappointed his friends, perplexed the unprejudiced and aroused the passionate hatred of his opponents. No man was more maligned. Seldom has any man's motives been so little understood or so cruelly distorted. Silent in the face of criticism, uncomplaining and asking no vindication, admitting few persons to share his companionship, he worked and waited with a confidence born of conviction that the course he followed would not bankrupt his honor or that of the nation.

CHAPTER VII

AMERICA AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

1

THE war fell like a blow on Europe, although talk of war had been almost its daily diet for the last ten years, and since 1904 there had been no session of Parliament in which war with Germany had not been openly discussed and regarded as inevitable by some of the most influential English newspapers. British naval and military preparations were made always with the thought of Germany as the enemy. Across the Channel there was the same mental attitude. Both nations were firmly convinced there must come a day when they would have either to yield to Germany or fight for their existence; nevertheless in both countries the pacifist element was strong, Socialists, Internationalists, the men who love every other country except their own; the agents of Germany, who were to be found in every rank of society; Frenchmen and Englishmen, who loudly proclaimed their loyalty but were abetting Germany; Ministers of the Crown in England and members of the Government in France, - some of them in the highest places, either allowed

themselves to be blinded or deliberately sought to betray their country for the advantage of Germany.

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The same social forces that brought Mr. Wilson into power did a few years earlier bring Mr. Asquith into power. In England as in America there had been a revolt of the masses against the classes; just as in America the people were resentful of the privileges of plutocracy, of class legislation, of favors extended to a select few, so in England the laboring man, the artisan, the great lower middle class were demanding their 'rights", and conscious of their power, determined to exert it. Mr. Asquith's supporters were not only "Liberals" in the party sense, but radicals, social reformers, advanced thinkers; and to them force or restraint was intolerable. In economics they were free traders, because, as they believed in their delusion, free trade broke down the barriers between nations, and internationalism was one of the cardinal articles of their faith. They passionately advocated disarmament, because great navies and huge standing armies were a menace and a sure invitation to war, and to them war was anathema. There was more than a little leaven of idealism in all this; they were as selfish and grasping as the professional philanthropist. If instead of the people being taxed to build battleships and maintain armies their millions were used for the benefit of the people, for old-age pensions, workingman's insurance and other social reforms that were praiseworthy, and some of the fantastic schemes that

Utopia delights in, the people would be the gainers; especially if the rich were to be made to bear more than their equitable burden of taxation.

Holding his commission under these terms, Mr. Asquith was justified in enacting his program of social legislation. He represented for the time being the majority; that majority had demanded certain changes in the social fabric, and the reforms that enticed them he believed in. It was therefore not only his duty but his desire so to shape the foreign policy of his Administration as to remove the danger of war with Germany, and as an earnest of good faith to reduce to the lowest limits consistent with the national safety military expenditures. The foreign policy of his Administration, for which he was responsible but which was carried out through his Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, is a sorry story of that curse of European diplomacy, treaty making in the dark. There were the usual secret agreements, the exchange of "confidential" letters, "private" conversations, the customary network of intrigue and deceit binding nations whose people were kept in ignorance and who, when they asked inconvenient questions, were told it would be unpatriotic to embarrass the government merely to have their idle curiosity satisfied. The whole story has since been told; it is now history and the world knows it, but it reflects little credit upon the men on whom responsibility rests.

Almost to the very day of war this policy of beguil

ing the people was followed, and scarcely a week passed but what members of the Cabinet told English audiences they had nothing to fear. A few months before the war, Mr. Lloyd George, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: "This is the most favorable moment in twenty years to overhaul our expenditures on armaments." About the same time Lord Haldane, the Lord Chancellor, the great authority in the Cabinet on Germany, who had been sent by the Prime Minister to Germany to see if an understanding could not be reached so as to remove the danger of war which every one feared, said: "Europe was an armed camp, but an armed camp in which the indications were that there was a far greater prospect of peace than ever there was before."

That was the picture within a few months of the declaration of war, but after the war had been in progress two months, for the first time the truth was told. Speaking at Cardiff, on October 2, 1914, Mr. Asquith admitted that for two years at least he had known that Germany was preparing to make her war of conquest. The German Government, in 1912, he said, "asked us to put it quite plainly - they asked us for a free hand so far as we were concerned if, and when, they selected their opportunity, to overbear and dominate the European world."