The expert’s duty in such a position has been much disputed. The question, in brief, is whether he acts as adviser to his Minister only (in this case, Mr. Churchill), or to the Council as a whole. Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson, supported by Sir James Wolfe Murray, Chief of the Imperial General Staff under Lord Kitchener (who was always his own expert), maintained they were right in acting solely as Mr. Churchill’s advisers. Though they sat at the same table, they did not consider themselves members of the War Council. It was not for them to speak, unless spoken to. They were to be seen and not heard. The object of their presence was to help the First Lord, if their help was asked, as it never was. In case of disagreement with their chief, there could be “no altercation.” They must be silent or resign. Their office doomed them, as they considered, to the old Persian’s deplorable fate of having many thoughts, but no power.[22] In this view of their duties, they were strongly supported among the Dardanelles Commissioners by Mr. Andrew Fisher (representing Australia) and Sir Thomas Mackenzie (representing New Zealand). Following official etiquette, they were, it seems, justified in holding themselves bound by official rules to acquiesce in anything short of certain disaster rather than serve the country by an undisciplined word.[23] If this attitude was technically correct, it is the more unfortunate that the Ministers most directly concerned, as being members of the War Council, should have taken exactly the opposite view, though masters of parliamentary technique. In his evidence before the Commission, Mr. Churchill, the man most closely concerned, protested: [Sidenote: MR. CHURCHILL’S OBJECTS] “Whenever I went to the War Council I always insisted on being accompanied by the First Sea Lord and Sir Arthur Wilson, and when, at the War Council, I spoke in the name of the Admiralty, I was not expressing simply my own views, but I was expressing to the best of my ability the opinions we had agreed upon at our daily group meetings; and I was expressing these opinions in the presence of two naval colleagues and friends who had the right, the knowledge, and the power at any moment to correct me or dissent from what I said, and who were fully cognizant of their rights.”[24] Mr. Asquith said “he should have expected any of the experts there, if they entertained a strong personal view on their own expert authority, to express it.”[25] Lord Grey, Lord Haldane, Lord Crewe, Mr. Lloyd George, and Colonel Maurice Hankey, the very able Secretary to the War Council, gave similar evidence. Mr. Balfour said: “I do not believe it is any use having in experts unless you try and get at their inner thoughts on the technical questions before the Council.”[26] In the House of Commons, at a later date, Mr. Asquith maintained: