Mr. Lloyd George on Monday, on the second day of
the Conscription debate, said, in so many words, that without Russia's aid disaster for us was inevitable. His support for the Bill was, of course, welcomed ; but there is surely a time to speak and a time to hold one's peace. Part of his speech might have been taken as an open invitation to Herr Hitler to move at once. The Prime Minister had to pay the penalty for having made a gratuitous attack on Mr. Lloyd George on the previous Thursday. The latter showed that he had lost none of his power of retaliation. The House had expected Mr. Churchill to speak ; he came prepared, but was probably wise to refrain. A crowd of back-benchers was waiting to speak, and it was already obvious that, at the moment, no appeal to Labour to co-operate was likely to be effective. There has never been a time in the present Parliament when Government Members were so obviously anxious to support their Front Bench. Mr. Hare-Belisha could not be expected to repeat his triumph of the previous week, but his winding- up speech was a competent affair and full of colour, which the House enjoyed in marked contrast to Mr. W. S. Morri- son's. His was a pedestrian effort, and was shown up rather cruelly by the preceding speech of Mr. Wedgwood Benn. How indebted the Labour Opposition are to their ex- Liberals. It was a first-class occasion, and Mr. Benn rose to it. He delivered a speech, and was not content merely with uttering the series of sentences strung together which, with a few honourable exceptions, passes today for oratory.
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