3 MAY 1940, Page 5

Mr. Lloyd George, who is in astonishingly vigorous health at

present, was, I am told, in his liveliest mood at the dinner which the Opposition Liberals, some of whom had in their time been as much opposed to him as they are to the present Govern- ment, gave him last week. Certainly if the Liberals had any amend; to make they made them handsomely. The menu was adorned with the following quotation (from Burke's speech on the taxation of the American colonies): "A great and celebrated name, a name that keeps the name of this country respected in every other in the globe. It may be truly called clarion et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostrae quid proderet urbi."

A modern statesman, set thus on the pedestal of Chatham, has not much more to ask. The ex-Premier's own mind, I under- stand, was very full of another great Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, who, he thought, had never had full justice done him by his biographers, least of all by Morley. Mr. Lloyd George, at seventy-seven, is quite capable of making good the deficiency himself.