The King made a speech impressing upon his Lieutenants the duty of energetically co-operating with the Secretary of State in launching the new county associations. To use an expression of one who was present, “The King played up magnificently.” The Duke of Norfolk replied on behalf of his colleagues, and assured the King in a few admirable words that he might rely upon his Lords Lieutenant to perform their new duties. We see the result to-day. Right nobly have the Territorials justified their existence and the confidence of the King in the great War Minister who was responsible for them. I have been privileged to see a letter from one of the greatest of our Generals at the front. It would be difficult to imagine a finer tribute to Lord Haldane’s administration of the War Office. It is now generally acknowledged that but for him and for the measures which he initiated, our position at the beginning of the war would have been very different from what it was. He enabled us to send out a force, which if still insufficient to break the German legions, was yet worthy of England. The rest will follow. I hold no brief for Lord Haldane, nor should I be guilty of the impertinence of attempting any estimate of his work. He is too great a man and can afford to be judged by results. What I seek to show is the patient industry and vigilant care with which the King mastered a complicated scheme at a moment when there was no stimulus such as the existence, or even the near probability, of a state of war to excite the imagination. In the same way he supported his trusted friend, Lord Fisher, in regard to the Navy; and here again we see to-day what has come of his wise adoption of a new departure. Would that great Lord of the Sea any more than Lord Haldane accuse the King of lending a languid or half-hearted attention to his proposals? It is a difficult matter for anyone who knew King Edward to write an appreciation of him. The danger of lapsing into indiscretion is obvious. At the same time it is equally clear that only those who did know him intimately can give a just estimate of his character, and that to leave his portrait to be painted by those who did not know him, however gifted they may be, must inevitably lead to misconceptions and misrepresentations, and that is still more dangerous. The fact is that King Edward had as many sides to his character as a brilliant has facets. The man who knew him not, sees one or more of those facets and rushes off at a tangent, drawing the whole character from such an imperfect view of him. Nothing could be more unfair, nothing more unlucky in the case of a sovereign who must live in history.