MODERN WARS AND WAR TAXES. ITO THE EDITOR OP THE
"SPECTATOR." _I
SIR,—In your favourable review of " Modern Wars and War Taxes "—for which I thank you cordially—you raise a very important question of foreign policy on which I am sorry not to be able to agree with you. In defending Sir Edward Grey's treatment of the Morocco crisis and Mr. Lloyd George's speech on the same subject at the Mansion House you claim that both are quite in accord with my own ideal of a British foreign policy as outlined in the second chapter of my book. Then you ask, " What can have led Mr. Lavison to quarrel with his own ideal P "
I would be only too glad to think with you that my ideal had been realized in the Morocco case both by Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Lloyd George, but it seemed to me at the time, and seems still, to have been the very opposite. Instead of being "entirely satisfied with our existing share of possessions and responsibilities," Sir Edward Grey—with the consent of the Cabinet, of course—created for us new responsibilities toward Germany, which in the future may prove very em- barrassing, not to say perilous. I happened to be in Germany at the time and to have exceptional opportunities of studying the effects of our diplomacy on the average German citizen. They were bad—thoroughly and unmistakably bad. We were execrated as jealous mischief-makers and envious rivals of Germany, not in Morocco only, but wherever we had a chance.
Unreasonable as that state of mind may have been, it was a problem our Foreign Office had to deal with. The really vital question for us, then, was not Morocco ; neither was it any matter of diplomatic etiquette. It was to give as little provocation as possible to the Germans in their then state of irritation. They have passed the stage in which national differences can be settled by ordinary diplomatic methods. The idea of an ultimate appeal to arms is ever present in their minds. Every grievance they may find against us will be regarded as a challenge, and one day the supposed challenge will be suddenly taken up.
From this point of view, the natural point for any one to assume in writing on war finance, I cannot admit that either Sir Edward Grey or Mr. Lloyd George gave the Germans a minimum of provocation. Certainly the Germans did not think so, and it is they who have the deciding voice. One day a British Government may have to take the risk of giving the Germans mortal offence, but let us.hope that it will not be done without grave and adequate cause ; that it will be done not theatrically but calmly, and with a clear national conscience. These conditions were sadly wanting last year in the Morocco crisis. So far from regarding our foreign policy on that occasion as ideal I would like to see its two most characteristic incidents blotted out of our diplomatic history, namely, Mr. Lloyd George's Mansion House speech and Lord Haldane's subsequent visit to Canossa —I mean Berlin. Are the Germans wrong in regarding these two eccentric move- ments as cause and effect ?
Having said this much about the really important question raised by your reviewer, I would fain add a few words about the minor question as to there being too much Lloyd George finance in my book. Possibly there is, if we look merely to the political or domestic side of that finance ; but, however sick we may all be of the political side of it, its military side has as yet been hardly touched. Your reviewer recognizes very correctly that it is the most serious aspect of all. The
financial policy personified in Mr. Lloyd George is not only straining our peace resources, but is undermining our power to finance a great war. That truth cannot be too. often reiterated in any book on military finance.—I am, Sir, &c.,
North Finchley. W . K. LAWSON,
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