The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : In
the Foreign Affairs debate on Monday Mr. Lloyd George spoke of the disastrous quarrel of Gaul and Teuton. " If you go through the pages of history," he said, " I do not know where the balance lies. All I know is that it is a ledger of slaughter, of war, of rapacity on both sides." It was finely said, and yet both he and Sir Austen Chamberlain, the two oldest and most distinguished Members of the House of Commons, devoted the greater part of their speeches to this arid subject. Sir Austen's intervention was particularly inopportune when it was clear, even to the most inexperienced back-bendier, from the Foreign Secretary's speech, that the Government were at the gravest pains to secure an atmosphere favourable to Herr Hitler's acceptance of the Conference proposal. Sir Austen re-told the long miserable story of how attempt after attempt had been made to reach agreement with Germany, even going back to the abortive attempts of his father to come to terms with the Kaiser at the dawn of the century. It was all true, but the cheers that usually accompany Sir Austen's solemn periods were very meagre, for there was a general feeling that this emphatically was not the time to say it. Mr. Lloyd George, while rebuking Sir Austen, tipped the balance even more roughly in favour of Germany than Sir Austen had tipped it in favour of France. He even went so far as to assert with regard to the invasion of the demilitarised zone that " if Herr Hitler had allowed that to remain without protecting his country he would have been a traitor to the Fatherland."
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