I do not think the Government can complain that they have not had the fullest support from their country. We have been engaged in many struggles in our long history. Never has a Government been so free from criticism; never has a Government had reposed in it such absolute confidence; never has any British Government enjoyed such free and unrestricted power. No request that they have made to the House of Commons or to Parliament has been refused—and I cannot conceive any request that they might make for the successful prosecution of this war which would not be granted to them, if it complied, as I doubt not it would comply, with the ordinary canons of fairness and of justice.
They are, in fact, autocrats, and the House of Commons exists but to aid and to support them. Criticism is almost silent, and criticism of a kind that might damage their authority, or that might lessen their power, has been absolutely unheard of in the House of Commons from the opening of the crisis down to the present day. But if we are content—all parties in the House of Commons, and the Opposition most of all—to forego all the ordinary rights of an ordinary Opposition, if we seek to take no advantage of the mistakes which this Government makes, if we are content to accept, as our leaders have to accept—and I speak with some knowledge—sneers from our own friends for not being sufficiently active and not exercising a sufficient criticism of the deeds, or the want of deeds, of the Government—if we are to adopt an attitude of this kind and surrender our right of criticism, and seek only to help and to aid the Government, then great is the responsibility of the Ministers to use the autocratic power placed in their hands to the uttermost, in order to secure a successful prosecution of the struggle in which we are engaged. [Hear, hear.] Yes, and something more. If we are ready to show such confidence in them, they owe some confidence to us; if we are ready to submit to restrictions on our customary and traditional freedom, such as a few short months ago would have been unthought of by any British audience, then at least, where military necessity does not impose secrecy, they should take us into their confidence. I cannot speak to my countrymen at this time without appealing through them to the Government for a little more light on what is passing. I read to-day in the daily press that some event of which we have heard nothing has happened in connection with the operations in the Dardanelles, which has been fully described in the Italian papers. The
