Asquith was rejected and his
followers reduced to a mere handful; Labour came back with an increased
representation, though not as great as it desired or deserved. The triumph
of the irreconcilables in Ireland was a foregone but sinister conclusion to
their activities in the War, and an ominous prelude to their subsequent
efforts to wreck the Pence. The pledges in regard to indemnities, the
treatment of the Kaiser, and conscription so lavishly given by the
Coalition Leaders caused no little misgiving at the time, and pledges, like
curses, have an awkward way of coming home to roost. Mr. Punch's views on
the Kaiser, expressed in his Christmas Epilogue, are worth recalling. Mr.
Punch did not clamour for the death penalty, or wish to hand him over to
the tender mercies of German Kultur. "The only fault he committed in German
eyes is that he lost the War, and I wouldn't have him punished for the
wrong offence--for something, indeed, which was our doing as much as his.
No, I think I would just put him out of the way of doing further harm, in
some distant penitentiary like the Devil's Island, and leave him to himself
to think it all over; as _Caponsacchi_ said of _Guido_ in 'The
Ring and the Book':
Not to die so much as slide out of life,
Pushed by the general horror and common hate
Low, lower--left o' the very edge of things.
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