Evening Post. FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1915. THE NATIONAL CABINET

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 125, 28 May 1915, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1915. THE NATIONAL CABINET

The latest rtnnour regarding tho British Cabinet is that Mr. Asquith may retire, handing over the leadership to Mr. Lloyd George. This is a very disquieting story to be in circulation at the expense of a Cabinet which has only been forty-eight hours in existence, yet it is declared by the Manchester Guardian, which is the best informed and weightiest of the Liberal journals, to be not without foundation. The resignation of a Prime Minister of course ■involves the resignation of the Cabinet ■which he has had the responsibility of forming, but it may be assumed that if the rumour is correct the contingency has been already provided for, and there will be no need to put the Cabinet into the melting-pot again. The retirement of Mr. Lloyd George from the Exchequer, where he had won the confidence and the enthusiastic support of the business world which had previously regarded him as its most dangerous enemy, was one of the great surprises of the ,jjeconstruction. It is now tempting to suggest that Mr. Lloyd George was relieved of that particularly onerous portfolio in order that he might be free to take the leadership when Mr. Asquith has got the new team into working order. But at least as plausible an explanation of Mr. Lloyd George's departure from the Exchequer is that the new portfolio of Munitions will keep his hands sufficiently full for tho present, and the selection of Mr. M'Kenna as the new Chancellor ■■does look rather as though the place were being kept warm for its previous What has Mr. M'Kenna done •that he should be permanently charged with so onerous a responsibility? He r was a failure at tho Admiralty; he has not been a brilliant success at the Home Office; and his head was one of "those demanded by the Morning Post and other Unionist advocates of reconstruction two months ago. Mr. Asquith's head was also among the demands of the Unionist head-hunters •at that time. He was charged with want of grip, with want of initiative, with failing to keep a sufficiently firm hand on his colleagues, or to think out the needs of the position in advance. To what extent these charges may be well founded it is impossible at this distance to judge. If Mr. Asquith failed to keep Mr. Churchill within bounds, it may be said that he merely failed to control the uncontrollable; but it would plainly have been better if he had faced the issue months ago instead of waiting to have his hands forced by Lord Fisher's threatened resignation. If Mi-. Asquith had contemplated retirement, it might have been supposed that he would have selected the present as a suitable opportunity for accepting promotion to one of those distinguished eminences in "another pjace," ' which could have been had for the asking on such a reconstruction as has just taken place. Though not a Chancery lawyer, the Woolsack would probably have suited him very well. The chief reason for Lord Haldarre's retirement was doubtless Uh? prejudice aroused by his German affinities. As a philosopher, he declared in the -days of peace that Germany was his "spiritual home" — a statement which in its time and place was so harmless as to hurt nobody's feelings, but which has been recently turned to very vicious uses by the editor of the National Review and other swashbucklers of the Opposition. The succession to "Schopenhauer," as Mr. Maxse has been pleased to dub him. belonged in ordinary course J*> the Attorney-General in the kU tefe^i^ -J^-^fcwA. £fcnsPftWsU%i

many men who have had the offer of the Lord Chancellorship at the age of fortytwo, and those who have refused it must be fewer still. Both at the law and in politics Sir John Simon's rise has been rapid and brilliant, and lie has been for some time considered as destined in due course for the Liberal leadership. Such are his aptitudes for the position, a-nd such his chances of getting it. that his refusal even of such a prize ac the Lord Chancellorship will not be regarded either by friend or foe as foolish. Of Sir Stanley Biuskmafiter, to whom the prize has fallen, probably a majority of those who in this country pay a fairly close attention to British politics are not yet quite sure to which side in politics he belongs. Of the three leading Unionists in the Cabinet, Mr. Bonar Law takes charge of Colonial affairs, Mr. Austen Chamberlain of the India Office, while Lord Lanedowne is a Minister without portfolio. Failing health is the sole reason why Lord Lansdowne has not undertaken more definite responsibilities, and his presence, like that of Mr. Arthur Henderson, who also seems to have no portfolio, is invaluable from his representative character. It will be interesting to see how Mr. Bonar Law shapes at the Colonial Office. The appointment of the Unionist leader to that position may be taken as a high compliment to the Dominions, and his speech at the Guildhall last weefc shows that he is fully alive to its importance.