The Order of Merit is the only honour which almost everyone would like to possess. The Garter is picturesque but would be felt by some to be anachronistic and somewhat pompous. Gs, Ks, Cs, Os and Ms are handed out with the rations and can anyway probably be bought. Companions of Hon- our are respectable enough but unequivocally second eleven. The OM is tops.
For one thing, it is in the gift of the sovereign and so comes without any taint of party favour. ‘His Majesty entirely disregards the question of the political opinions of anyone who may be suitable for an honour,’ wrote Stamfordham loftily when Gilbert Murray’s candidature was in question. In fact George V crumbled ignobly when Lloyd George protested that Murray was politically unsound and a champion of conscientious objectors. Nor was he quite so far above political prejudice as Stamfordham suggested: he did not care, the King said, whether a man was a Liberal, Radical or Tory, ‘but he thinks the Order of Merit should not be given to Socialists’.
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