"I am especially interested, I confess, as a student of British politics, in this matter of 'trusting the people.' All your great writers have led me to believe that here lies the essential difference between your system and ours, and that the great superiority of yours to ours is demonstrated in the confidence which your statesmen never hesitate to place in the wisdom, fortitude, and patriotism of the people. Frankly, I do not understand it. Trust must surely have some esoteric meaning when applied to your populace which foreigners are unable to apprehend. I can discover no other sense in your phrase about 'trusting the people,' than that they are trusted not to find out their politicians. It certainly cannot be believed that you trust your people to hear the truth; for if so why has your government practised so rigorous an economy of this virtue, doling it out very much as we have lately been doing with our wheat and potatoes? {159} [Sidenote: THE BRITISH PRESS BUREAU] "Has your government not concealed actual disaster--concealed it from their own people, though from no one else; for all the world was on the broad grin? Everybody knew of your misfortune save a certain large portion of the British public. The motive of your government could not have been to hide it away from the Germans, or the Austrians, or from neutrals, for the illustrated papers all over the globe, even in your own colonies, contained pictures reproduced from photographs of the occurrence. It was only possible to muzzle the press and blindfold the people of the United Kingdom, and these things your government did; acting no doubt very wisely. "Again after the great German victory over the Russians at Tannenberg in September last, an official bulletin of simple and conspicuous candour was published at Petrograd which confirmed in most of the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Why did your Press Bureau during the heavy fighting from the middle of October to the middle of November persist in maintaining that 'the British are still gaining ground.' The British resistance from the beginning to the end of the four weeks' battle round Ypres is not likely to be forgotten by our German soldiers, still less to be belittled by them. {160} It was surely a great enough feat of arms to bear the light of truth. But. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "But is the same true of the British people? Can they be trusted to bear the light of truth?