oast. After it's been invented, or made, or procured, or whatever's got to be done, some comedian in the QuartermasterGeneral's show will insist on the result being packed up in receptacles warranted rot-proof against everything that the mind of man can conceive till compared to it. Of course, it's for those filthy Boohes. 580 tons of it! There won't be a bullet, or a Zeppelin, or a shell, or a bayonet, or a dart that won't be reeking with the stuff." I was aghast. "Shall I go and see the DirectorGeneral, A.M.S., about it, sir?" "Yes, do, by all means. The the Day of Judgment-you very thing." know the absurd way those sort of people go on, sir-and all that will take ages, æons." He really thought of everything. "And there'll have to be books of instructions, and classes, and the Lord knows what besides! After that the stuff'll have to be carted off to France and the Dardanelles, and maybe to Archangel and Mesopotamia; so Stingo and Co. are going to be up all night, and mean to arrive at some result or to perish in the attempt. And now, sir, what have you done about it at the Foreign Office?" He came back presently. "I've seen the D.-G., sir, and he's frightfully excited. He's got hold of all his deputies and hangers-on, and the whole gang of them are talking as if they were wound up. One of them says he thinks he has heard of an antidote, but of course he knows nothing whatever about it really, and is only talking through his hat. I tell you what, sir-we ought to lend them a hand in this business. I know Professor Stingo; he's miles and away the biggest man on smells and that sort of thing in London, if not in Europe. So, if you'll let me, I'll charter a taxi and be off and hunt him up, and get him to work. If the thing can be done, sir, he's the lad for the job. May I go, sir?" "Very well, do as you propose, and let me know the result." He turned up again in the afternoon. "I've seen old man Stingo, sir, and he's for it all right. He's going to collect a lot more sportsmen of the same kidney, and they're going to have the time of their lives, and to make a regular night of it. You see, sir, I pointed out to him that this was a matter of the utmost urgency-not merely a question of finding an antidote, but also of distributing it methodically and broad haven't done a blooming thing. What those 'dips' think they're paid for always beats me! However, I've got them to promise to cable out to their ambassadors and consuls and bottle-washers in Scandinavia to keep their wits about them. I offered to draft the wires for them; but they seemed to think that they could do it themselves, and I dare say they'll manage all right now that I've told them exactly what they are to say. I really do not know that we can do anything more about it this evening," he added doubtfully, and with a worried, far-away look on his face. Good heavens, he was never going to think of something else! He took himself off, however, still evidently dissatisfied and communing with himself. Next forenoon he came into my room in a hurry. "I've been hearing about the caterpillars, sir," he exclaimed joy. ously. "The caterpillars?" "Oh, not orawly things like one finds in one's salad, sir. The ones the Admiralty are making1— armoured, motor contrivances, with great big feet that will go across country, and jump canals, and go bang through Boche trenches and barbed wire as if they weren't there. They'll be perfectly splendid-full of platoons and bombs and machine guns, and all the rest of it. I will say this for Winston and those mariners across Whitehall when they get an idea, they earry it out and do not bother Som whether the thing'll be any use or can be made at all-care no more for the Treasury than if it was so much dirt, and quite right too! Just what it is. But when they've got their caterpillars made, they won't know what to do with them, any more than the Babes in the Wood. Then we'll collar them, but in the meantime I might be able to give them some hints, so, if you'll let me, I'll go across and "Yes, yes; but just one moment. How about the poison?" "The poison, sir? What poi-oh, that stuff. Didn't I tell you, sir? It isn't poison at all. You see, sir, it's this way. There are two forms of it. There's the white form, and that is poison, shocking poison; it's what the Fijians use when they want to pacify a busybody like Captain Cook who comes butting in where he isn't wanted. As a matter of fact there's uncommon little of it-they don't get a hundredweight in a generation. Then there's the red form, and that's what Johnnies have been dumping down 580 tons of at Whatsits-name. It's quite innocuous, and is used for commercial purposes-tanning leather, or making spills, or something of that kind. Now may I go to the Ad-" "But have you told all this to the Director-General?" "Oh yes, sir. I told him first thing this morning." "Did he pass no remarks as to your having started him off after this absurd hare of yours?" first I heard of the "Tanks," which made so successful a debut near the ar and a half later. "Well, you see, sir, he's an uncommonly busy man, and I didn't feel justified in wasting his time. So, after relieving his mind, I oleared out at once." "And your professors?" "Oh, those professor-menit would never do to tell them, sir. They'd be perfectly miserable if they were deprived of the excitement of muddling about with their orucibles and blow-pipes, and retorts and things. It would be cruelty te animals to enlighten them -it would indeed, sir; and I know that you would not wish me to do anything to discourscientific investigation. Now, sir, may I go over to the Admiralty?" And off he went. A treasure: unconventional, resourceful, and determined. The man to get a thing done that one wanted done-even if he did at times get a thing done that one didn't particularly want done -and in some respects quite the best intelligence officer I have come across in a fairly wide experience. age It has been as well that life in the War Office during the Great War-and especially was it well during those early anxious days of 1914 and 1915 -has had its lighter side. The astonishing cheeriness of the British soldier even under the most trying oiroumstances has become proverbial; but his officer shares this priceless oharacteristic with him, and displays it even amid the deadening surroundings of the big building in Whitehall. But the best laugh that we enjoyed during that strenuous period was on the morning when news came that Anzao and Suvla had been evacuated at the cost of only some half-dozen casualties and of the abandonment of a very few worn-out guns. Then it was that an official who was very much behind the scenes extraoted a document on the familiar grey-green paper from his safe and read it out with appropriate "business to a joyous party. This State paper, a model of incisive diction and of moving prose, conceived in the best Oxford manner, drew a terrible picture of what might occur in withdrawing troops from а foreshore in presence of a ferocious foe. Its polished periods portrayed a scene of horror and despair, of a bulletswept beach, of drowning soldiers and of shattered boats. It quoted the case of some similar military operation, where warriors who had gained a footing on a hostile coast-line had been obliged to remove themselves in haste and had had the very father and mother of a time during the process— it was Marathon or Syracuse, or some such contemporary martial event, if I remember aright. This masterly production, there is reason to believe, had not been without its influence when the question of abandoning the Gallipoli Peninsula was under consideration of those responsible. I had enjoyed a somewhat singular experience in connection with those discussions myself. But that story must wait for a time when more serious matters can be passed in review. IRELAND. A LARGE number of people ing Act had been passed. In in England are demanding demanding May 1916 he decided that, in that the recommendations of consequence of the Rebellion, the Convention should be put Home Rule should be introin force immediately. It is duced without further delay. not unnatural that & man He offered to do so, excluding who has not made any special six counties. That offer the study of the subject should say, Nationalists rejected. He then "Parliament has decided to proposed to summon a Congive self-government to Ire- vention, composed of all land. A Convention of Irish- parties, in the hope that they men of all parties has met, might come to some agreeand has decided by a large ment. The Ulstermen only majority the precise form form consented to take part in the which they wish that self- Convention on the express congovernment to to take. Then dition that its recommendations let us at once carry out their should not be enforced unless wishes, and so settle for ever they had been arrived at not the Irish question, which has merely by a majority of the been the worry of England Convention, but by all the for centuries. The objection parties represented at it. made by a handful of recal- This was only natural on citrants cannot be allowed to their part; for to say otherthwart the wishes of the na- wise would have been tantation." But it may be doubted mount to an admission not whether those who take this merely that they waived their line have ever examined what objections to the existing Act the circumstances were and the promise of an which the Convention came Amending Bill, but that they to its conclusion; what its agreed to accept any extenrecommendations are, or what sions of the existing Aot would be the probable result which the Nationalist majorof enforcing them. ity at the Convention might see fit to recommend. in In August 1914, when Mr Asquith broke his pledge and advised the King to sign the Home Rule Aot, he gave a solemn undertaking, on behalf of himself and his solleagues, that they never would do anything in the way of coercing Ulster, and that the Aot would never be put in force until an Amend Four parties were represented at the Conventionthe Ulstermen, the Southern Unionists, the Nationalists, and the Labour Party. On the 25th February 1918, Mr Lloyd George wrote to Sir H. Plunkett "It is of the highest importance, both for the present policy." They found also that situation and for future good relations in and with Ireland, the Nationalists demanded that compulsory service should not be imposed on Ireland unless with the consent of the Irish Parliament. The discussions showed that the aim of the Nationalists was to establish a Parliament practically free from effective control by the Imperial Parliament. Believing that these demands would create turmoil at home and weakness abroad, they refused to sign the Report. that the settlement should come from an Irish Assembly and from mutual agreement among all parties. To secure this, there must be concessions on all sides. . . . It is clear to the Government that . . . the only hope of agreement lies in a solution which on the one hand provides for the unity of Ireland under a single Legislature with adequate safeguards for the interests of Ulster and the Southern Unionists, and, on the other hand, preserves the wellbeing of the Empire and the fundamental unity of the United Kingdom." The line taken by the Southern Unionists was peculiar. They took part in the deliberations and signed the Report; but they added a note recording their unaltered conviotion that the Legislative Union provides the best system of government for Ireland, and stating that they regard it as a vital point that an adequate contribution should be made by Ireland to Imperial services. This action on their part was unfortunate. It has led careless people, who read the Report but do not take the trouble to study the notes, to imagine that the Southern Unionists are now Sir H. Plunkett's idea of concessions on all sides was that, inasmuch as the Nationalists had increased their demands since 1916, the Ulstermen should give up their claims altogether. The Ulstermen found, soon after the Convention commenced its sittings, that the Nationalists recognised no responsibility for any portion of the prewar National Debt or for the present war expenditure, and did not admit that under reconeiled to Home Rule. Home Rule the Imperial Recent events have shown Parliament should have any that that is certainly not power of levying taxes in the case. More than that, it Ireland for any purpose what- has enabled dishonest people, ever. As the Nationalist mem- trusting to this carelessness, bers expressed it, "We regard to represent that a larger Ireland as a nation, an eco- measure of agreement has been nomic unity. Self-government reached upon the principle and does not exist where those details of Irish self-governnominally entrusted with affairs ment than has ever yet been of government have not con- attained. People who retain trol of fiscal and economie an unaltered conviction that |