THE PRIME MINISTER AND THE ARMY.
rilHE Prime Minister's speech at Manchester was character- istic in its buoyancy, its enthusiasm, and its happy choice of phrases. With all these qualities we are quite familiar, and one can well understand that Mr. Lloyd George's audience while the process of spellbinding is going on feel that there is nothing to do but cheer themselves hoarse. When, however, one reads in black and white the speeches that have produced these exhilarating results, one is bound to ask oneself plain and practical questions. Mr. Lloyd George told his audience that he was" sick of programmes, but for all that one cannot avoid asking oneself whether Mr. Lloyd George's speech was not itself a programme. Of course it was nothing else ; it was a programme, and a vague programme. He insisted that the health of the nation should be much more carefully attended to, but the friends of the proposal for creating a Ministry of Health will want to know why he has so far turned down their measure. He may have very good reasons, but at all events they would like to know more definitely what they are. One reason, for instance, may be that England, as Dr. Shadwell points out in a letter to the Times, has already done more for public health than any other country. Again, Mr. Lloyd George was certainly vague, while keeping up a verbal appearance of being very businesslike, when he compared the old party organizations to a roundabout which gives you an illusion of speed but remains on the same spot. It is easy to poke fun at the party organizations, but after all no party can possibly exist with- out a very carefully contrived organization. A business firm cannot be run without its organization ; a Government cannot administer the affairs of the country without its various Departments or organizations. It would be more useful not to condemn party• organizations out of hand, but to insist that they shall be made sweeter, less cynical, less capable of setting an example of paltry intrigue. The Prime Minister himself, when all has been said, is making a bid for a following, that is to say, for a party, and it is perfectly safe to 'prediet that if he founds a party it will no more get on without organization and offices than any other party can. There was of course a great deal that was excellent in the Prime Minister's speech. Nothing was better than his appeal for increased production after the war. Plenty and greater comfort mean increased production. If Mr. Lloyd George can convince Labour of that he will have done a splendid work, and so far as that matter goes we shall certainly be among his followers.
In commenting on Mr. Lloyd George's speech, however, we want to refer in particular to what he said about military affairs. We particularly regret to notice that he did not think fit to say any word in praise of Sir Douglas Haig, whose name was not even mentioned. Yet Sir Douglas Haig has just won one of the greatest victories of the war. His victory was the result of sound strategy—of seeking out the enemy and de- feating him where he was, and not running off to some distant point and gaining empty and temporary honours in a military vacuum. Mr. Lloyd George referred, as he has often done before—with no agreeable intonation in his voice, as we, can imagine—to the heavy casualties incurred by the British Army in previous years. But the recent successes are the results of those brave and terrible sacrifices. We regret the omission of any graceful acknowledgment of Sir Douglas Haig's services, not merely because a great soldier is receiving less encouragement than he has earned—to find a parallel for the frigidity displayed towards Sir Douglas Haig and the in- difference towards his advice we think we should have to go back to the treatment of Wellington by the Perceval Ministry during the Peninsular War—but because official praise of Sir Douglas Haig would stand in the public view for a re- cognition of the strat,egy of Westernism. The War Cabinet may not be " Easterns,' but it is already clear that there is a sufficient outbreak of the strategy of Easternism to require careful watching. The successes in Macedonia have been received by the nation with delight, and so long as the opera- tions give employment mainly to the reconstituted Serbian and Greek Armies they are of course entirely to the good. Great may the successes of those Armies be ! But nowhere, whether in Macedonia, in Palestine, in Russia, or at Baku, ought there to be commitments which will make calls upon British soldiers and British ships that cannot possibly be met.
One other military point remains to be mentioned. Mr. Lloyd George repeated his statement that when the shattering offensive was launched by the Germans on March 21st there were plenty of reserves at home. Yet, oddly enough, Sir Douglas Haig had long been asking for those reserves in order that he might train them at the front,. Moreover, Mr. Lloyd George himself stated in the House of Commons in April that he had been warned by the Chief of Staff several weeks before the offensive that the Germans meant to attack. He also said that the Chief of Staff had indicated the exact place where the attack would fall. Why then were the reserves—" hun- dreds of thousands of very fine troops," as Mr. Lloyd George called them—kept in Britain ? Why did he say that the crisis could be met only by raising the age to fifty-one ? Why did he say that Conscription for Ireland had become quite indispensable ? Why did he say that another fifty thousand miners must instantly be called up ? It would be an advan- tage if Mr. Lloyd George would explain these difficulties, which force themselves on the attention of all readers of his speeches. Sir Douglas Haig's despatch on the German offensive of the spring may throw some light on the subject. The Government are said to have had it in their possession for six weeks, and we look forward to its early publication.
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