LORD FRENCH'S MEMOIRS.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15075, 19 May 1919, Page 5

LORD FRENCH'S MEMOIRS.

COMMENT BY MR ASQUITH

VINDICATION OF LORD

KITCHENER.

(Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.)

(-Received May 18, 5.5 p.m.) London, May 16. Mr Asquith delivered a speech at Newcastle. He said he found it difficult or impossible to reconcile some of Lord French's statements with his own recollection of the facts and contemporaneous documents. "The living can take care of themselves," he said, "but with the dead it is different. I am constrained in justice to Lord Kitchener's memory to correct immediately Lord French's account of Lord Kitchener's visit to Paris in the autumn of 1914. It is wholly untrue that Lord Kitchener or the Government contemplated superseding Lord French, but the Government were seriously disquieted by Lord French's communiques regarding his intentions. The Cabinet unanimously arrived at important decisions of policy whidh:' werte entrusted; to (Lord Kitchener. With the full knowledge: and with the approval of his colleagues, Lord Kitchener's duty was to convey and explain them to /Lord French.

"Lord Kitchener thereby performed a service of the greatest value to the country with, as events showed, the happiest results. The full disclosures of confidential documents, including Lord French's letters, will establish all these points in due course, but it is necessary that Lord Kitchener's friends and colleagues should repudiate at once the aspersions cast on him."