it! To have had experience of Germany as a foe for fifteen months and yet voluntarily to keep in force for the whole time an article which assumes that a German ship flying a neutral flag must be neutral! It would be incredible did we not know that it is true.
Another astounding incident in lawyer-conducted war was the order in force at one time, forbidding the captains of His Majesty's ships to arrest German and Austrian reservists on their way across the sea to join their regiments.
Again, it would be interesting to know why the enemy's trade was not attacked by our submarines in the Baltic until last October, when such action would not only have been a great injury to Germany, but would also have provided an answer to objections that our blockade unfairly discriminated in favour of Norway and Sweden. It may be that submarines of the necessary radius of action were not available until October, but we are told very little, and unfortunately are compelled to fear very much in the conduct of the war by a Government that has paid but little heed to the characteristics of the British people.
The most interesting and amusing of the Romanes Lectures which I have had the pleasure of hearing was that on 'The English National Character', delivered in 1896 by Dr. Mandell Creighton. 'In nothing', said the lecturer, 'is the peculiarity of the English character more strongly emphasized than in the curious prominence which it has always given to the claim for free expression of opinion.' And he noted how Tennyson has seized hold on this 'abiding product of a nation's past' when he speaks of England as
'A land where girt by friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will'.