The leaders in the fight, the distinguished chemists, are so eminent that I refrain from applying to them the term ‘agitators’; they are so eminent that I am sure they will bear with me patiently while I explain why, even though they appear to have accomplished it, they were trying to shut a door that was already closed, for ‘sweet reasonableness’ is an attribute of all eminence. It is not necessary now to inquire what were the reasons which induced the Government to refrain from putting cotton on the list of absolute contraband during the first six months of the War; it was a policy deliberately adopted by responsible Ministers; whether it was the right or the wrong policy is not the question which the leaders of the movement have put in issue. The errors of the past were at length to be retrieved. By the Order in Council of the 11th of March, a new policy was adopted which, in the opinion of the present Government, should have been effective to achieve what all desire--the prevention, by all possible legitimate means of warfare, of cotton, as well as everything else, from reaching Germany. This was intimated in Lord Moulton’s answer of the 19th March to the distinguished chemists who had moved in the matter;[50] and it was more fully explained by Lord Robert Cecil in the House of Commons in August. It is that policy which has been so vehemently attacked as insufficient, as part of our ‘sorry record in the cotton question.’ It was contended that in spite of the far-reaching effect of the Order in Council it was necessary further to reinforce the powers taken under it by putting cotton on the list of contraband of war; and the Government have now done what they were asked to do. The criticism of the Government took two forms, one of which was serious. The other may be dealt with summarily. It was to the effect that the Order in Council ought to be revoked because, so it was said, many lawyers considered it to be contrary to international law, and that it should be replaced by some provision dealing specially with cotton. I have endeavoured in the preceding articles to show that this opinion of my learned brothers, if indeed they hold it, is erroneous. But, putting this on one side, I believe the sound and only rule of speech and of the pen for Englishmen while the War lasts to be _omnia præsumuntur rite esse acta_. Criticism, based on learning or otherwise, of action taken by the Government against the enemy is out of place in time of war. The fact that such action affects neutral merchants injuriously does not justify criticism, for whatever weight it may have, by so much it adds to the difficulties, already immense, of temperate discussion with neutral Governments; by so much it heartens the enemy who seeks _per nefas_ to render the discussion intemperate. For the present, therefore, at least a judicious silence is the better and the wiser part.