MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S LATEST SPEECH. ET is becoming increasingly difficult
-in our experience to commenV on Mr. Lloyd George's speeches. The reason is 'that it is impossible to dissociate them from Mr. Lloyd- George's deeds, both of commission and omission. It seems most ungracious to quarrel' with speeches which are full of great sentiments, and yet when we come to set down, our- thoughts about them and to try to find out what the Prime Minister's words mean precisely in practice, we fuidourselves against our will returning again and again to the language of disenchantment and discontent. We suppose that if an observer, who knew nothing of Great Britain and nothing of Mr. Lloyd George, had sat with the audience in-the City Temple on Wednesday night and heard Mr. Lloyd George's latest speech, he-would have been spellbound. His heart would have leaped up to a man whose- lips seemed •to have been touched with fire. He would have revelled inthe gift of lyrical expression which wells up spontaneously from an inner spring. He would have acknowledged that the speaker was brave in appealing for more -sacrifice from a people who have shown their ability to make great sacrifices in the past. If we cannot read the speech with the feelings which that foreign visitor must have felt, it is not because we are no longer susceptible to appeals to nobility, to .glowing phrases and happy similes. Mr. Lloyd George's speech, in our opinion, was inopportune, not at all because of its essential qualities which were entirely good, but because it was the wrong speech for the moment. We seem to have heard it all before, and even while we try to admire, memory has a disagreeable habit of inserting reflections on Mr. Lloyd George's ways at the end of • every sentence. It is particularly unfortunate that this should be so in the case of a speech which appeals for simplicity in the national life, for straightforward co-operation among all classes, and for increased brotherliness. Yet it is impossible to pick up a newspaper any day of the week without finding some fresh example of tortuousness, or of cleverness so clever as to be cynical, attributed to the Government. At the moment the subject chiefly occupying public attention is the series of accusations brought against Mr. Lloyd George by the young American, Mr. Bullitt. These are not pleasant things to hear: Whatever else be untrue, there can be no doubt that Mr: Lloyd George, acting sincerely as we believe, thought at one time that it might be possible to come to some arrangement with the-Russian Bolsheviks. If on the merits of the case he believed this, why should he- have been ashamed to say so ? Apparently Colonel House agreed with him, and Colonel House, as we all blow, is a man of high integrity and great public spirit. Mr. Lloyd George, however, was either ashamed or afraid to tell the nation about his first thoughts. He could hardly have forgotten that he asked Mr. Bullitt to breakfast in order to hear all about his experiences in Russia, but the impression the House of Commons received last April was that Mr. Lloyd George had heard nothing more than vague rumours about " a young American who had been to Russia." Of course Mr. Lloyd George was perfectly right to gather all the information he possibly could on a most difficult subject. Lord Palmerston had• a habit of asking people to breakfast-in order to suck their brains in just the same way as Mr. Lloyd George invited Mr. Bullitt: Sir William Howard Russell, the famous correspondent of the- Times in the Crimean War, described in his Diary how he went to breakfast with Lord Palmerston at the famous house in Piccadilly, and how after breakfast Lord Palmerston transfixed him with the question : " Now, Mr. Russell, I want to know how you would reform the- British Army if the task was in your hands." Mr. Lloyd George very properly interviewed Mr. Bullitt, but it is impossible to understand how out of a straightforward proceeding such a series of unstraightforward explanations, denials, state- ments and counter-statements and such an atmosphere of insinuation and intrigue have- proceeded. This is only one instance out of many of Mr. Lloyd George's way. We may be living in a new world," as Mr. Lloyd George says, but some of us look back for many reasons with regret to the old world which was directed by simpler men. We think of• Lord Salisbury, for instance, who was a peace-loving man if ever there was one, though there was a ridiculous legend among his•political opponents that he was a kind of fire-eating Jingo. We even think of men who had a lesser conception of public seemliness, men like Melbourne and Palmerston. We cannot imagine any of them, though their conceptions were narrower and no doubt less moving than those of Mr. Lloyd George, allowing one incident after another to become a source of accusations of bad faith and double dealing. Surely the chief fact in the new world which Mr. Lloyd George eulogizes is that democracy is enthroned, and that - democracy is brought to the supreme test. We•all want to believe in it, and indeed we must believe in it because no other system is possible with a universally educated nation possessing a wide franchise. But what are we to say when we find the leader of democracy belying. his fine sentiments in practice ? If he scrupulously meant what he said he would. of course, be extravagantly careful in choosing his associates and in selecting for advancement and honour men who are worthy of national gratitude and esteem. Can we say that Mr. Lloyd George-is doing, or has ever this ?
As Mr. Lloyd George was speaking to a non-political audience at the City Temple, he could not, of course, talk politics. His remarks, therefore, about the evils of slums, of huge armaments, of extravagance, of ignorance, and of class-warfare were necessarily of a general kind. But there is one important subject he mentioned upon which we hope he will be able to say something• specific without delay. He once again described the national evil of drunkenness. Now we know, from what he said in 1915, that the Prime Minister believes in- the-nationalization of the liquor trade. He then had a scheme, and he has only to reproduce it. There is no doubt about the strength of his convictions on this subject. In 1917 he said : " I fear that when, demobilisation comes there will be an irresistible demand to put the trade back where it was before. That would be a national disaster." The demand is now being made. But it is not irresistible. On the contrary there is a growing army ready to support the Prime Minister's scheme. Will he turn sentiment into action I
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