In the House of Commons on Aug. 3 Mr. Macdonald predicted that Sir Edward Grey"s statement "would not persuade a large section of the country." That prediction having been falsified, it has been necessary for the prophet to hedge. So when a recruiting meeting was held in Leicester on Sept. 11, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald wrote a letter to the Mayor expressing his regret that he could not be present, and saying:
Victory must be ours. England is not played out. Her mission is not accomplished. She can, if she would, take the place of esteemed honor among the democracies of the world, and if peace is to come with healing on her wings the democracies of Europe must be her guardians. There should be no doubt about that.... History will in due time apportion the praise and the blame, but the young men of the country must, for the moment, settle the immediate issue of victory. Let them do it in the spirit of the brave men who have crowned our country with honor in the times that are gone....
Should, an opportunity arise to enable me to appeal to the pure love of country ... I shall gladly take that opportunity. If need be, I shall make it for myself. I want the serious men of the trade union, the brotherhood, and similar movements to face their duty.
To such men it is enough to say "England has need of you."
Thus the man who is doing his best to enfeeble sympathy abroad for his country"s cause, by representing that cause as one based on hypocrisy, is at the same time exhorting his fellow-countrymen to make the hypocrisy victorious!
Clearly, when the officials of the Berlin news department described Mr.
Ramsay Macdonald as "Ramsay and Macdonald" they were not so ill-informed as at first appeared.
Though Mr. Macdonald is not two persons, he has at least two voices.