Dr. Creighton gave amusing illustrations of this strongly marked characteristic, going far back in our history. 'At the beginning of English literature stands Langland, burning with a simple Englishman's desire of saying his say about things in general. Hugh of Lincoln took Henry II by the shoulder and gave him a good shaking, when he petulantly refused to listen to him. Grosseteste hunted Henry III from place to place, as the king fled before the scolding which he knew was in store for him.' 'The truth is every Englishman likes to express his opinion, if he takes the trouble to make one.'
But now in this tremendous crisis every Englishman, however lethargic he may have been in less exciting times, is bound to have his opinion. And when the war is profoundly and, as experts maintain, disastrously influenced by vital decisions put into operation without explanation and as silently withdrawn, opinions that are helpful neither to the Government nor the country are bound to be expressed. When an Englishman ascertains that, by Article 28 of the Declaration of London, all kinds of material necessary for the conduct of war may not be made contraband, he is left hesitating between flabby sentimentalism and concealed German influence. He may be entirely wrong in this, and I hope he is. The fault is the Government's, which after making momentous and on the face of them disastrous decisions is satisfied to withdraw them without a word of explanation.
The conduct of the war by lawyer-politicians has recently been defended by one of their number. The line of argument he adopted is important for the subject of this lecture as it leads direct to one of the most terrible mistakes that has followed the neglect of science. Sir F. E. Smith is reported in The Times of November 5,