Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

I look like a down-and-out drunk who has been picked out of the gutter in the Strand.

Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.