21 SEPTEMBER 1918, Page 3

The Prime Minister spoke at Manchester on Thursday week in

his most epigrammatic vein about the war and its lessons. Vietory was essential to a sound peace, which must not be dictated by extreme men on either side, whether Bolsheviks or Chauvinists ; "we shall neither accept ourselvee nor impose upon our friends a Brest-Litovsk Treaty." In outlining the lessons of the war, the Prime Minister gave the first place to the need for a closer unity of the Empire, and the second place to the nation's health, for "you cannot maintain an Al Empire with a C3 population." Touching on various social problems, he declared that comfort involved plenty, and that plenty meant production. "The Bolshevik began with distribution and ended with distribution. Production did not concern him That is the surest road to national poverty." The State must encourage production, especially in agriculture and the " key " industries. "We must reconstruct," he said, "when the national limbs are supple with endeavour," and face the new facts with an open mind, without paying regard to the rusty old Party machines. We comment on the speech elsewhere