A DICTATOR WANTED

Southland Times, Issue 17658, 16 February 1916, Page 2

A DICTATOR WANTED

ESTIMATE OF MR ASQUITH. ‘‘ln time of war,” writes "Auditor Tantum,” discussing the Imperial Cabinet in the Fortnightly Review, "there are two essentials for the successful working of the Cabinet system. One is a tolerably small Cabinet, the other, and by far the more important, is that the Prime Minister, or the ruling Minister, whoever he be, shall possess the qualities of a powerful Dictator. . . Lord Morley, in a well-known passage, hks set down on paper the qualifications which he desiderates in the ideal Prime Minister: —

The first qualification in one who aspires to a ruling place in the councils of the nation is that he should have sound and penetrating judgment; the second is ample and accurate knowledge of the business in hand, and the third is tenacity of will and strength of character. ‘There is no doubt as to Mr Asquith’s possession of the first and second qualifications. His Judgment is a sound and penetrating as that of any man alive; his knowledge of whatever business which lie takes in hand is ample and accurate. But has he tenacity of will and strength of character? There lies the haunting doubt in the minds of many who admire his great qualities and have most loyally and trustfully followed his lead during the war. The record of his Premiership by no means dispels it. Is it a mere accident that the phrase which lias come to be most intimately associated with Mr Asquith in the public mind is ‘Wait and see!’ He has ‘managed’ his Cabinet wonderfully well; but has he ruled it and dominated it? He is a marvellous 'parliamentary hand.’ Once more we are reminded rather of the youger than of the elder Pitt.

“Before the war Mr Asquith was the most indulgent of chiefs. He drove his team with a dangerously loose rein, and they pranced about and showed off their individual paces as the whim seized them. Mr Gladstone once said of Sir Robert Peel that in his Cabinets nothing was ever matured or even projected without the cognisance of the Prime Minister, and it was often remarked that in referring to the Government he regularly used the first person singular. If Mr Asquith had ruled his colleagues with a firmer grip in time .of peace we should have had the greater confidence in him now. John Hay wrote of Abraliam lancoln during the crisis of the Civil War in 1863; —M never knew with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet till now. He is managing this war. the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union all at once.’

Conditions arc vastly different to-day ■front what they were only half a century apo. No one expects Mr Asquith to direct the work of the great departments as, for instance, Chatham directed it. The operations of war .were comparatively simple then, and it must not he forgotten that Chatham himself had been trained as a soldier. But what is exe.ptcted of Mr Asquith by the country is that he shall exercise what Windham once described in a curious letter to Pitt, wli:i l;ad offered him the post of Secretary of State for War, as a leading and even an overruling ascendancy in the conduct of public affairs.’ Wo want a man who believes in himself, and sees his way Hear to victory. ‘I am afraid,' said Cord St. Aldwyn in the House of Holds the other day, ’that there is some want of determination and energy on the part of the Prime Minister.’ If the Government dare not tackle the awful waste of public money and start tbe work of retrenchment by beginning at the top, how will they dare the necessary measures to win this war? Wo need a Prime Minister who will say what Chatham said to the Duke of Devonshire'. '.My lord, I believe that t can save this nation, and that no other man can.’ Let Mr Asquith take firm hold over- the War Council I If the Government has trusted too implicitly to the organising power of one man, and Lord Kitchener has not been able single-handed to perform a work which would have tasked half a dozen Carnots, let the necessary reorganisation and decentralisation he

swiftly accomplished: But let there be a master in the War Council and the Cabinet, and let it lie the Prime Minister! Let him trust his own judgment, and act as one who knows Hie country firm and resolute behind him: England loots to him. If he fails her, she will loot: tc another:

I’ndaunlcd still, though wearied ani perplext; Once Chatham saved thee, but who saves thee next?