Liberalism is characterized by paradox. It is a creed with sacred books, sacred names and a sacred history, but without a universally acceptable definition. It emerged slowly, first in England, then in France, spread with difficulty, yet is fading even more slowly—if it is indeed fading at all. From time to time its tenets have seemed to attain final expression, whether in the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, or in John Stuart Mill's Liberty. Invariably these formulations have come at last to seem inadequate, and to need re-interpretation if they are to retain their reputation. Such re-interpretation has usually been forthcoming. Liberalism, to the vexation of conservatives and socialists, like a goat with exceptionally powerful digestion, finds it possible to absorb almost anything into itself, even the most trenchant criticism. Only the advocates of force for the sake of force, or of the suppression, on principle, of free thought, have been invariably rejected by the liberal consensus. Liberalism has therefore remained the creed, not of governments, but of oppositions, happiest in a critical, rather than a constructive role.

The history of mechanics’ institutes ‘is at once beautiful and terrible to read', Christopher Charles Cattell, the Birmingham radical republican, told the members of his Eclectic Institute in 1854. Contemporaries of the mechanics’ institute movement in the mid-nineteenth century were acutely aware of this terrible history. ‘The banquet was prepared for guests who did not come …,’ wrote Robert Elliott in 1861. J. W. Hudson referred to ‘The universal complaint that Mechanics’ Institutions are attended by persons of a higher rank than those for whom they were designed…’ The Westminster Review continued the lament, Samuel Smiles, Lloyd Jones and J. M. Ludlow joined the chorus, and later historians have followed the tune. E. P. Thompson, for example, writes: ‘After the mid-Twenties the tendency was general for the custom of artisans to give way to that of the lower middle class, and for orthodox political economy to come into the syllabus.

The development of government participation in the support of research is one of the most significant characteristics of nineteenth-century science. As public money became available for science, the social framework of research underwent a profound transformation. This process of transformation is not easy to define, but the response of scientific societies and institutions sometimes provides significant clues.

When Sir Llewellyn Woodward wrote his distinguished book Great Britain and the German Navy in 1935, the last volumes of Gooch and Temperley were not yet published, and the original papers were still subject to the fifty-year rule. In 1971, all of the Gooch and Temperley collection of documents has long since been available; and the archives have been open since 1965. It is therefore possible to add to what Sir Llewellyn wrote, and this article seeks to show, not differently from him, but more fully, how the naval holiday proposals unfolded and how the general tenor of Anglo-German relations remained unaltered in this most vital area. Nothing that the Haldane Mission had done, nor even the general co-operation between London and Berlin during the Balkan Wars, could change the fundamental position—despite Baron Marschall's hopes.

‘Let the past bury its dead, but for God's sake let us get down to earnest endeavour and hold this line until … the end.’ No other words can more adequately express, after four years of war, the sheer agony of the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Robert L. Borden. These words also suggest both his attitude to the war in general and his intense frustration with die supreme direction. Like Lloyd George, Borden was an exponent of total war and of victory. His proclamation that Canada was ‘fighting not for a truce but victory’, was strikingly similar to Lloyd George's own declaration that ‘the fight must be to a finish—to a knockout’. The objective, proclaimed at die conclusion of the Somme battles, seemed no less remote in the middle of 1918. Over the last two, and most critical, years of the First World War there was constant contention within Britain over how the objective was to be secured. One aspect of the contention was the direct involvement of Dominion leaders, especially Sir Robert Borden.

As a result of the Great War, the Zionist movement came of age. For the first time since its inception as a political organization, Zionism gained a backer of international and worldwide repute. The political charter which Herzl had hawked around the chancelleries of Europe found its consummation in the Balfour Declaration. The British Empire, in its moment of supreme crisis, stamped its seal of approval on the concept of a Jewish National Home in Palestine.