We must make allowance for the time.  No minister in our lifetime was confronted by such a gigantic menace.  Moreover, the Cabinet was not united.  Mr. Asquith came out of that tremendous ordeal creditably, but not, I think, as a great national hero.  As for his conduct of the war, it was dutiful, painstaking, dignified, wise; but it lacked the impression of a creative original mind.  He did not so much direct policy and inspire a nation as keep a Cabinet together.  One seemed to see in him the decorative chairman of a board of directors rather than the living spirit of the undertaking.

When the historian comes to inquire into the trivial consequences of Mr. Asquith’s fall from power he will be forced, I think, to lift that veil which Mr. Asquith has so jealously drawn across the privacy of his domestic life.  For although he ever lacked the essentials of greatness, Mr. Asquith once possessed nearly all those qualities which make for powerful leadership.  Indeed it was said in the early months of the war by the most able of his political opponents that it passed the wit of man to suggest any other statesman at that juncture for the office of Prime Minister.

His judicial temperament helped him to compose differences and to find a workable compromise.  His personal character won the respect of men who are easily influenced by manner.  There was something about him superior to a younger generation of politicians—­a dignity, a reticence, a proud and solid self-respect.  With the one exception of Mr. Alfred Spender, a man of honour and the noblest principles, he had no acquaintance with journalism.  He never gave anybody the impression of being an office-seeker, and there was no one in Parliament who took less pains to secure popularity.  Above all things, he never plotted behind closed doors; never descended to treason against a rival.

Search as men may among the records of his public life they will fail to discover any adequate cause of his fall from power.  He was diligent in office; he took always the highest advice in every military dispute; settled the chief difficulty at the War Office without offence to Lord Kitchener; he gave full rein to the fiery energy of Mr. Lloyd George; he was in earnest, but he was never excited; he was beset on every side, but he never failed to maintain the best traditions of English public life; he was trusted and respected by all save a clique.  Even in the humiliation of the Paisley campaign he was so noble a figure that the indulgence with which he appeared to regard the rather violent aid of a witty daughter was accepted by the world as touchingly paternal—­the old man did not so much lean upon the arm of his child as smile upon her high-spirited antics.