Sir William Joynnon Hicks and Mr. Ronald McNeill in speeches
delivered last Saturday both used extremely strong expressions of disapproval in referring to the speech in which Mr. Lloyd George last week derided M. Itoincare. Both pointed out that it was deplorable that. an ex-Prime Minister, while professing to be a promoter of good will, should employ injurious language about the head of a friendly. State with which we were engaged in critical negotiations. We hope it will be understood in France that Mr. Lloyd George now speaks less in the name of the British people than almost any other statesman who could be named. His remarks about M. Poineare knowing nothing about what was going on at the front at a certain early stage of the War as he was hurrying away to Bordeaux was particularly pointless, for M. Poincare was then, of course, President of the Republic. He had to do what his Ministers required him to do, and we have always understood that it was at the particular request of the military authorities that the site of Government was shifted temporarily from Paris to Bordeaux.
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