From ‘The Russian awakening’, 6 July 1917: M. Kerensky, the Russian Minister of War, has kept his word. He promised his Western Allies an early military Offensive and on Monday he was able to telegraph to his Prime Minister, Prince Lvoff: ‘On July 1st the Army of Revolutionary Russia took the offensive with great enthusiasm.’
From ‘Our friends the vegetables’, 9 June 1917. The food shortage, and the consequent necessity of planting every available space with vegetables, have multiplied the amateur gardener many times over… If the spirit that inspires them is utilitarian, it is not surprising, for the kitchen garden is regarded by most people as above all things prosaic.
From ‘News of the week’, The Spectator, 2 June 1917: There has been a lull on the Western front. It is sure to be succeeded by another storm, but this week there is little to record measured by the standards with which the titanic fighting in France has made us familiar. One fact, however, must
From ‘The New Reform Bill’, The Spectator, 19 May 1917: Though we used to be opposed to the suffrage for women, and have only accepted it in view of the great upheaval of the war, we feel most strongly that it had better be ‘a clean cut’ and a generous cut. Just as we opposed it
From ‘Schoolboy labour’, The Spectator, 12 May 1917: Work on the land, even though the time be stolen from books, will have a distinct educative value, because Public School boys are less handy than boys of the same age in a poorer class. Take boys of 15 in an agricultural district who work regularly on
From ‘What ails the House of Commons?’, 21 April 1917: Theoretically no horses kept for pleasure or sport ought to be allowed to be fed with oats at the present time. Such food as can be spared should be kept for ploughhorses and horses used for necessary transport. We are told, of course, that the
From ‘The golden opportunity’, 31 March 1917: The proposal not to give women votes till they are 26 might well be modified by making all persons come of age politically at 26, but with the proviso that any man who had served in His Majesty’s Forces, naval or military, during the war should be given a vote whatever
From ‘The Russian revolution’, 24 March 1917: Even now, though the Revolution is young, the Russians have proved that they are fit and worthy to exercise the full benefits of self-government. In the highest spheres of government they had hitherto been always thwarted, but no one who has watched the progress and expanding influence of the Zemstvos
From ‘The Dardanelles report’, 17 March 1917: The plan of the government in the case of the Dardanelles Expedition had the worst fault which any naval or military plan, or naval and military plan combined, can have. It had no real objective… or rather, to put it in another way, it only had a vague
From ‘The revelation of Germany to the United States’, 10 March 1917: Even if Mr Wilson stops short at his present stage, he has undeniably pulled the tiger’s tail. It cannot be expected that the tiger will forget this… if we were Americans we should be very much alarmed. We think we should want to make
From ‘Sir Thomas Acland’s example’, The Spectator, 3 March 1917: In 1912 we discussed the idea — a favourite dream of ours — that some characteristic English village, perfect of its kind but likely to lose its quality in the hugger-mugger expansions of modern enterprise, might be acquired by the National Trust to be kept forever as
From ‘What will the United States do?’, The Spectator, 24 February 1917: It may be that the congestion of American shipping may force Mr Wilson’s hand, for a partial paralysis in the docks is temporary evidence that Germany can intimidate the greatest of neutrals. But, on the whole, we expect that some more sudden and
From ‘The confiscation of enemy property’, The Spectator, 17 February 1917: It is perfectly possible to remove German influences without confiscating German property. This, as far as can be gathered, is the policy which the French have followed, and in their interest as well as in our own we ought also to follow it. The
From ‘The United States and Britain’, The Spectator, 10 February 1917: It would be easy to write down a hundred reasons why unclouded friendship and moral co-operation between the United States and Britain are a benefit to the world, and why an interruption of such relations is a detriment to progress and a disease world-wide
From ‘Lenders and taxpayers’, The Spectator, 3 February 1917: As to the general financial soundness of the country there can be no question… Indeed, one of our worst economic troubles at the present moment is that many classes of people are in possession of more money than they have ever handled before, and cannot resist the
From ‘Raiders, submarines and some naval problems’, The Spectator, 20 January 1917: At the moment the enemy’s fleet is compelled to remain in its own ports and to challenge us from safe retreats, sometimes behind lock-gates and always behind well-sown minefields. Still, the fact remains that the enemy can come out if they like, though we
From ‘The Rome conference and bonds of alliance’, The Spectator, 13 January 1917: There may be the greatest possible good, nay, even salvation, in partnership or alliance; but the fact that partnerships and alliances do involve loss of free will, and that a man cannot when he is in partnership be wholly master in his
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 6 January 1917: The war has been crowded with romantic adventures by sea and land in every part of the world, but perhaps nothing is more sensational, more reminiscent of blue lights and the accents of warning and suspense from the orchestra, than the murder of the monk
From ‘Engage the enemy more closely!’, The Spectator, 30 December 1916: Britain was never more vigorous than she is now: She has renewed her youth, and we may look forward to many years, possibly to many generations, of potent life. Still, we cannot conceal from ourselves that the destiny of these little islands in the
From a letter published under the heading ‘The religion of the ordinary soldier’, The Spectator, 23 December 1916: During a discharge of gas at the beginning of July along our front, one of the cylinders was displaced by the near bursting of an enemy shell. It turned the nozzle round, and the gas began to pour
