23 FEBRUARY 1918, Page 2

Mr. .Asquith, who followed, expressed the general feeling that Mr.

Lloyd George might have made his speech a week earlier, end thus answered the questions as to the Versailles Council and Sir William Robertson which he evaded on the first night of the Session. Mr. Asquith reminded the House that he had been denounced as a sort of Bolo by the Government organs in the Press for putting these questions, to which the Prime Minister had now replied with a welcome increase of explicitness and lucidity. Mr. Asquith also recalled the fact that Mr. Lloyd George had left the House under the impression that Sir William Robertson and the Army Council concurred in the new polioy. Be obtained Mr. Lloyd George's confirmation of the unofficial statement that America would not participate in the political conferences at Versailles, except through an observer who would report the proceedings to Washington. The question as to the best way of representing us at the Supreme War Council .was, Mr. Asquith said, one of military efficiency, of which the soldiers were better judges than the poli- ticians. We ought not to have "two Kings of Brentford, with a nebulous indeterminate line of demarcation between their respective functions and authorities." If the Chief of the General Staff must be the supreme military adviser to the Government, as Mr. Lloyd George had admitted, then the British Military Adviser at Versailles should be his subordinate and his deputy.