in the same government, but the twenty years preceding 1914 they had spent in political antagonism.  Page’s guests on this occasion learned much political history of the early twentieth century, and the mutual confessions of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour gave these two men an insight into each others’ motives and manoeuvres which was almost as revealing.  “Yes, you caught me that time,” Mr. Lloyd George would say, and then he would counter with an episode of a political battle in which he had got the better of Mr. Balfour.  The whole talk was lively and bantering, and accompanied with much laughter; and all this time shells from that long-distance gun were dropping at fifteen minute intervals upon the devoted women and children of Paris and the Germans were every hour driving the British back in disorder.  At times the conversation took a more philosophic turn.  Would the men present like to go back twenty-five years and live their lives all over again?  The practically unanimous decision of every man was that he would not wish to do so.

All this, of course, was merely on the surface; despite the laughter and the banter, there was only one thing which engrossed the Ambassador’s guests, although there were not many references to it.  That was the struggle which was then taking place in France.  At intervals Mr. Lloyd George would send one of the guests, evidently a secretary, from the room.  The latter, on his return, would whisper something in the Prime Minister’s ear, but more frequently he would merely shake his head.  Evidently he had been sent to obtain the latest news of the battle.

At one point the Prime Minister did refer to the great things taking place in France.

“This battle means one thing,” he said.  “That is a generalissimo.”

“Why couldn’t you have taken this step long ago?” Admiral Sims asked Mr. Lloyd George.

The answer came like a flash.

“If the cabinet two weeks ago had suggested placing the British Army under a foreign general, it would have fallen.  Every cabinet in Europe would also have fallen, had it suggested such a thing.”

     Memorandum on Secretary Baker’s visit

Secretary Baker’s visit here, brief as it was, gave the heartiest satisfaction.  So far as I know, he is the first member of an American Cabinet who ever came to England while he held office, as Mr. Balfour was the first member of a British Cabinet who ever went to the United States while he held office.  The great governments of the English-speaking folk have surely dealt with one another with mighty elongated tongs.  Governments of democracies are not exactly instruments of precision.  But they are at least human.  But personal and human neglect of one another by these two governments over so long a period is an astonishing fact in our history.  The wonder is that we haven’t had more than two wars.  And it is no wonder that the ignorance of Englishmen