CARSON—"A TYPICAL 'AGINNER'"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 27, 1 August 1933, Page 7

CARSON—"A TYPICAL 'AGINNER'"

Driving with Lord Robert Cecil f rom | Paris to Douglas Haig's headquarters, amongst an infinite variety of topics out of which we made conversation, we came to the great advocates of the day. He had no hesitation in expressing the opinion that Sir Edward Carson was in his judgment the greatest. I saw something of these gifts in his war contribution. ,As soon as he joined the Asquith Coalition in 1915 he had penetrated all the . greatest weaknesses of the war administration —the fatal defects of the two personalities upon whom the potency of direction must descend, the Prime Minister and Lord Kitchener—the Prime Minister's lack of initiative and drive, LoTd Kitchener's absorption in comparatively unimportant details, his failure to grasp such of the problems of the y'ar as were not visible to his eye, the waning of the physical powers that once gave him energy, and his concealment of his limitations under a cloak of professional secrecy. Carson's questions cut through Gomplaconcy and irritated his colleagues of both parties. He exasperated the Prime Minister, whose almost morbid shrinking from unpleasantness was placed in constant jeopardy by the flourish of this deadly scalpel at every meeting of the Cabinet. Ho was very strongly opposed to the Dardanelles expedition before he entered tho Cabinet, and he never changed his opinions as to tho unwisdom of that

| disastrous expedition. But once he was inside the Government and found how deeply we were committed to the undertaking, he saw the importance of carrying it right through with all the forces at the disposal of the Allies. He also realised that now we had lost Serbia and the Bulgarians occupied the Balkans, our only chance of cutting the communications between Turkey and the Central Powers was to • open up the Dardanelles and give our Fleet access through the Marmora to the Bosphorus. As an exposer of sham, humbug, and pretension, Sir Edward Carson had no rival. But he had neither the natural gift nor the experience to make a good administrator. Even as a member of a Cabinet he had the fatal defect ingrained by centuries of habit in all men of his race—he was naturally opposed to every Government. The Irish have become through centuries of misrule a race of "Aginners." It will take a long experience of successful self-Government to eradicate this germ from their nature. Sir Edward was in this, as in other respects, a typical "Aginner." Still no one outside the Government could have given criticism such effective voice as he did. I doubt whether Mr. Bonar Law would have .taken the final step of threatened disruption had it not been for his fear of the lash of Carson's terrible tongue.