Me Lloyd George last Saturday told the Trade Union delegates
at Westminster that there were no alternatives to the Government's Man-Power Bill but the raising of the military age or the sending of wounded men again and again to the battle-front. The need for more men in the Army was so urgent that the Government would be traitors to neglect it. There was no way of attaining the minimum war aims of the Allies, endorsed by the Labour Party, except by defeating the enemy. Germany had made no response to the speeches of himself and President Wilson. The Prussian military party was dominant. " You might as well stop fighting," said Mr. Lloyd George, " unless you are going to do it well." If men said that they would not serve, the soldiers in the trenches had an equal right to say that they would not go on fighting. That would bring the war to an end, but what sort of end ? The Russians tried that plan, and found that the Germans seized more territory. We too should be at the mercy of the enemy. If a Labour delegation went to Marshal von Hindenburg to ask for the evacuation of Belgium, he would simply mock thorn. " My own conviction Is this," he concluded, " the people must either go on or go under."
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