Lord Haldane delivered an apology for himself and the late
Government at a demonstration in his honour in the National Liberal Club on Monday. We need not follow his defence of the scheme of having behind a powerful Navy a highly trained Expeditionary Force, and a Territorial Army which provided the framework for an indefinite expansion, for we have often admitted that no Secretary for War has ever produced a better scheme than Lord Haldane's. We of course needed National Service and a great reserve of rifles, but there is not a trace of evidence that any other Liberal Secretary for War -would have given us these things. As for Lord Haldane's defence of the honeyed words he used habitually in speaking of Germany, we admit that there was at least method in his attitude. He hoped to remove any excuse the German military party might have for saying that they were being hemmed in and bullied by the Triple Entente. We ourselves thought it wiser to describe German conduct in the plain terms it merited, and not by any means to trust to the peace party getting the upper hand in Germany, for we felt sure of the utter impotence of that party. It was, indeed, only tolerated because it was useful as a narcotic for British states- men with kindly feelings towards the German race. But though this is so, it is monstrously unfair to speak of Lord Haldane's policy as a kind of treachery.
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