1 JUNE 1934, Page 6

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

YOU may agree with Mr. Lloyd George or disagree with him, but it is very difficult not to be interested in what he says. A sentence or two that he used last Monday suggests a good deal more than it actually explains—if the only reports I have seen are complete.

In my judgement," he is reported- to have declared, " there is only the British Empire that can save civiliza- tion from a worse catastrophe than 1914. We have the might, we have the resources, we have the influence, we have the achievement behind us that will enable. us to go there [? Geneva] and cry ' Halt ' and insist on peace." That suggests definite and decisive action. But what does Mr. Lloyd George mean How are we to insist ? It is a little difficult in any case to imagine the present Foreign Secretary striking this heroic attitude, but apart from that, how is the claim that the British Empire can insist on peace to be made good ? If it can do it and does not do it, the failure is the greatest tragedy and the greatest crime in history. Mr. Lloyd George owes it to humanity to be explicit.