Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret
Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to
himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The
_Daily Mail_ describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of
time," which seems to come perilously near _lese-majeste!_ But then,
as a writer in the _Evening News_--another Northcliffe paper--safely
observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without
thinking."
_December, 1916_.
Rumania has unhappily given Germany the chance of a cheap and spectacular
triumph--of which, after being badly pounded on the Somme, she was sorely
in need. Here was a comparatively small nation, whom the Germans could
crush under their heel as they had crushed Belgium and Serbia. So in
Rumania they concentrated all the men they could spare from other fronts
and put them under their best generals. Their first plans were thwarted,
but eventually the big guns had their way and Bukarest fell. Then, after
the usual display of bunting and joy-bells in Berlin, was the moment to
make a noble offer of peace. The German peace overtures remind one of Mr.
Punch's correspondents of the American advertisement: "If John Robinson,
with whose wife I eloped six months ago, will take her back, all will be
forgiven."
The shadowy proposals of those who preach humanity while they practise
unrestricted frightfulness have not deceived the Allies.
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