“MARGOT'S “ SECOND VOLUME

Evening Star, Issue 18141, 4 December 1922, Page 8

“MARGOT'S “ SECOND VOLUME

MYSTERIOUS “MR X.” IFeom Ouk London Correspondent. ) October 28. TTio second volume of Mrs Asquith’s diary promises to be even more piquant than the first, perhaps because it deals with current controversies at a much closer range. Margot makes two assertions which may, because they impinge vitally on prominent figures and popular topics, loom large in the General Election campaign. She resolutely defends her husband on tho question of the shell shortage which brought about his downfall, and was the turning point in Mr Lloyd George’s career. According to Mrs Asquith, her husband played, not a futile or ignoble, but a gallant role. He received secret letters from both Kitchener and French assuring him Hi at there was no shortage of ammunition. Sooner than weaken tho prestige of the high command during critical days, Mr Asquith refrained from publishing those exonerating documents, and accepted his own fate with quiet dignity. Margot's own statement is at.il! mure interesting. She refers repeatedly to a mysterious “Mr X.,” a. prominent member of Mr Asquith's 1914 Cabinet, who at first opposed our joining in Hie war at all. The only clue Margot gives -to the identity of Mr X., who was intriguing “with, that scoundrel Z,” is that it was not Mr M‘Hernia, who was “splendid,” but a Minister who since tho Boor War had been a leather of militarism, and was trying to find how much backing he had in tho country.

A school strike has been declared in Spandau, Germany, in protest against religious instruction in the schools. Four hundred pupils formed in lines and marched around the playground singing the ‘ Internationale.’ They formed an organisation in the afternoon and 150 more children joined the demonstration. The Czecho-Slovak Office for Foreign Trade announces that permission to import cheese will no longer be given, the home production now being sufficient to supply domestic consumption. An exception to the ruling is being made in the case of Switzerland, which by reason of the commercial agreement between that country and Czecho-Slovakia may send four and a-half carloads of Swiss cheese to G^echo-Sloyakia,