CURRENT LITERATURE
MY LLOYD GEORGE DIARY By Tom Clarke Since Mr. Clarke did not meet Mr. Lloyd George for the first time till 1926, when the latter's days as a primary political force were over, and since Mr. Lloyd George himself has not been pertinaciously silent in the intervening years, it is doubt- ful whether a special diary devoted to him is indispensable. But, in fact, this (Methuen, 12s. 6d.) is not a diary devoted at all exclusively to the former Premier. Though Mr. Clarke's first chapter-heading reads comprehensively " Lloyd George and Me," the real subject of the book is the second axis-partner, not the first. And quite rightly, for Mr. Clarke spent an active and interest- ing seven years as editor first of the Daily News and then of the News Chronicle, and talked in that period to a large number of people worth talking to. His diary during those years records the sayings of many persons of varying degrees of eminence besides Mr. Lloyd George, and constitutes, in fact, a normal and very interesting' autobiography, though the inclusion of a number of letters from Lady Oxford discussing how much she should be paid for her contributions hardly Seems essential to the needs of an autobiography or a Lloyd George diary; nor does it seem imperative to specify so par- ticularly what portion of Mr. Lloyd George's anatomy it was decided to smack at a News Chronicle editorial conference in October, 1932.
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