THE NATION'S LEADER IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2687, 5 February 1916, Page 13

THE NATION'S LEADER IN WAR TIME

SHOULD BE k DICTATOR DOES MR ASQUITH FILL THE BILL

"In time of war," writes "Auditor Tantuin," discussing the Imperial Cabinet ill the "Fortnightly Review," "there arc two essentials for ihe successful working of the Cabinet system. One is a tolerably small Cabinet; the other, and by far the more important, is that the Prime Minister, or the ruling Minister, whoever he be, shall possess the qualities of a powerful Dictator. . . . Lord Morley, in a weft, known passage, has s.et down oil paper the qualifications which ho desiderates >11 tho ideal Prime Minister:— " 'The first qualification in ono who aspires to a ruling place in the councils of the nation is that he should have sound and penetrating judgment; the second is ample and accurate knowledge of the business in hand, and the third is tenacity of will and strength vsf character.' "There is no doubt as to Mr. Asquith's possession of the first and second qualifications. His judgment is as Bound and penetrating as that of any man alive; his knowledge of whatever business which he takes in hand is ample and accurate, But has he tenacity of will and strength of charaoter? There lies the haunting _ doubt in the minds of many who admire his great qualities and have most loyally and trustfully followed his lead during the war. The record-of-his Premiership by no means dispels it. Is it a mere accident that the phrase which has come to be most intimately associated with Mr. Asquith in the public mind is 'Wait and see!' Ho hasc'managed' his Cabinet wonderfully well; but has he ruled it and dominated it He is a marvellous 'parliamentary hand,' but what the time requires is a bold statesman. Once more we are reminded rather of the younger than of the older Pitt.

"Before tlie war Mr. Asquith was the most indulgent of cliiefs. Ho drove his team with a dangerously loose rein, and they pranced about and showed oft their individual paces as the whim sciztxl tliem. Mr. Gladstone once sai<l of Sir Robert Peel that in his Cabinets nothing was ever matured or even projected without the cognisancc of the Prime Minister, and it was often romarked that in referring .to tho Government lie regularly 10 person singular. If Mr. Asquith had ruled his colleagues with a firmer grip in time of peace wo should liavo had the greater confidence in liim now. John. Hay wrote of Abraham Lincoln during the crisis of the Civil War in ,1863:—"I never knew with .what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet till now. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at once." Conditions are vastly different to-day from what they were only half a century ago. No one expects Mr. Atsquith to direct the work of the great Departments, as, for instance, Chatham directed it. The operations of war were comparatively simple then, and it must not be forgotten that Chatham himself had been trained as .a soldier. But what is expected of Mr. Asquith by the country is that he shall exercise what Wyndham once described in a curious letter to Pitt, who had offered 'iini the post of Secretary of State for War, as "a leading and even an overruling ascendency in the conduct of public affairs." We want a man who believes in himself, and sees his way clear to victory. "I am afraid," said Lord St. Aldwyn in the House of Lords the other day, "that there is some want of determination and energy on the part of the Government, and, finally on the part of the Prime Minister." If tho Government dare not tackle the awful waste of public money and start the work of retrenchment by beginning at the top, how will they dare the necessary measures to win this war? We need a Prime Minister who will saj> what Chatham said to the Duke of Devonshire: "My lord, I believe that I can save this nation, and that no other mail can." Let Mr. Asquith take firm hold over the 'War Council! If the. Government has trusted too implicity to the organising power of one man, and Lord Kitchener has not been able single-handed to perform a work which would have tasked half a dozen Carnots, let the necessary reorganisation and decentralisation be swiftly accomplished 1 But let there be a master in the War Council and the Cabinet, and let it be the Prime Minister 1 Let him trust his own judgment, and act as one who knows the country firm and resolute behind him 1 England looks to him. If he fails her, she will look to another:—

Undaunted still, though wearied and porplext; ' : : Once Chatham saved thee, but who saves the© next? V