Circum- 

 stantial 

 evidence 



The 



Liberal 



Club 



The Days of a Man 1914 



Archangel had been landed near Aberdeen and were 

 being sent down by night to Southampton, thence to 

 be shipped to Belgium. Journalists averred that an 

 Under Secretary of War, secretly despatched to 

 Petrograd, had there arranged for a consignment of 

 troops. Witnesses had observed them at the station, 

 some had heard the Russian language, others had 

 seen Russian coins paid out for refreshments; at 

 Oxford train after train had thundered by at night. 

 Only two men I met seemed wholly skeptical. Baron 

 Korff declared that the exodus from Archangel would 

 be physically impossible, and McDonell apparently 

 doubted its inherent probability. Afterward it tran- 

 spired that the whole thing was based on the transfer 

 to Southampton of a detachment from Scotland. 



During this period I often took luncheon at the 

 National Liberal Club, most frequently in company 

 with Burns and John M. Robertson, Parliamentary 

 secretary to the Board of Trade. The latter, though 

 strongly against entering a Continental war, was still 

 more opposed to Prussian theory and method. This 

 attitude he vigorously set forth in " War and Civiliza- 

 tion" and other books and essays. Another interest- 

 ing man I often met at the club was Samuel K. Rat- 

 cliffe, an author and lecturer of pronounced Liberal 

 tendencies. 



One day I had a discussion there with Harry Jones, 

 then assistant editor of the Chronicle, on the subject 

 of making war without the consent of the people. 

 Price Collier had asserted in "Germany and the Ger- 

 mans" that the "Kaiser had only to press the button 

 to bring on war; the people would have nothing more 

 to do about it than either you or I." Jones admitted 

 that to be true in Germany, and in Russia as well, 

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