W THE PRIME MINISTER'S SURVEY. HEN Mr.-Lloyd George received the Freedom
of the City of _London on Friday week he surveyed the situation in.a speech of fire and.stout-heartedness. The speech had the sovereign merit of stimulating and cheering even while -it emphasized-the_gravity of the situational which we find our- selves. :It is not an easy thing for a speaker to be a Jeremiah at many points and yet to sound the note of " Comfort ye, comfort ye," as the prevailing theme. " You arc safe if you do your duty. The issue lies in your own hands. It is with you to succeed or to fail. Let us then all to. our duty in God's name.". Those words paraphrase the spirit of the speech, -and it is Mr.. Lloyd George's natural touch of poetry and passion that enables -him to combine stimulation and very grave statements with the greatest apparent ease. There were several things in the speech at which less rhetorical minds than his must pause and ask themselves whether such assertions can be literally justified ; but we should be unfair to the whole fabric of the speech if we dwelt upon these labori- ously, for the truth is that the speech was a great and inspiring message to the Empire. In one breath it predicted the hard times ahead of us and defied the Germans to their faces. They do not understand the people they arc up against ! The chief importance of the material of the speech was that it was a kind of stock-taking. It informed us on the highest possible authority exactly where we stand. Who that has not icy blood and a stony heart can fail to be -moved to the depths whenever he -thinks of what was accomplished by the small but magnificently trained British Expeditionary Force that went to Flanders in the first days of the war ? If the Germans were capable of winning, they ought to have won the war then. There was little in front of them. But that little was invincible in spirit. All the great organization of the Germans beat in vain against our minute forces. The -Ger- mans will never have such an opportunity again. In those days they slowly spelled out their own defeat. If they had the higher moral qualities, as well as the lower moral qualities which .go to the perfecting of organization and to wonderful foresight, they would be the greatest military nation of all time. But mercifully—may we not see here the touch of a mightier directing Hand than any human being disposes ?- the higher moral qualities, which count even -more in the arts of war than in the arts of peace, have been entirely withheld from the Germans. With all the impressiveness and con- spicuousness of military trappings in their life, they are not really a nation of fighting men on a plane with the French and the British. The memory of those days when the small British force refused to be ground -to dust by the gigantic German machine was just the subject for Mr. Lloyd George's quick and generous enthusiasm:— "You remember the dark and dreary days when our gallant fellows in shattered trenches had night and day to endure the mockery of the slaughtering tongues of the German. cannon, and how they stood it. The way in which the British infantry stood-the guns of Napoleon for one day is ono of the epics of military history. Their descendants stood greater guns for days and nights and weeks and months, and never-flinched. It is one of the greatest stories M the world, how they were never broken, and it is only those who met them and talked with them who can-realize what they endured. Our gratitude goes for ever to them. And, lot me say here, our gratitude ought to -go to that brave little man who led thorn through hit those trying months under very -great difficulties, and was never beaten, -and never lost heart—Lord French."
Such-a picture as that, though it belongs to what seems. now remote- history, is necessary to point the contrast and show how far' we have travelled along the military road. The lesson-of those days could be summed up in one word —guns. .Infantry has-been called the Queen of the Battlefield, but in these very modern days the Queen comes in to reign over .a country which has been convulsed- and laid desolate by high explosive. It will always be to Mr. Lloyd George's credit that, having recognized the paramount importance of guns, he framed a gospel of artillery for popular -use, and spread- an-enthusiasm for munitions over which he ,presided Nvith notorious- success. In his speech he - described our growing superiority over the Germans on laud by simple contrasts. Before June, 1915, we lad lost eighty-four. guns and many prisoners and had captured no_ guns. Since then we have not lost-a single-gun, but-have captured four hundred guns. and-have taken ten times as many prisoners as we have lost. Another index of the growing superiority of our munitions -is the casualty-lists. • The Vimy Ridge cost the French -enormous losses, and in spite of all their gallantry and -skill . they occupied only . a part of it, which they were .unable 4o retain. ' But the other day we took the whole Ridge and two . hundred gluts with some- thing like -one-fifth -of the :Joss suffered by itltc .French. Another contrast was provided by the .first _eighteen days of the battle of the Somme and the first eighteen days of the present battle. In the first eighteen days of the-battle of the Somme we captured eleven thousand prisoners and fifty-four guns. In the first eighteen days of the battle of Arras we captured eighteen thousand prisoners and two hundred and thirty guns. We have gained four times as much ground, and our losses arc exactly one-half.
Such figures as these show that victory by land is certain, or would-be certain if we could regard the land fighting as a detached and self-contained enterprise. The inhuman- and violently illegal submarine campaign of the Germans is the most complete proof we could possibly have that the German High Command judge the military situation, as such, exactly as we do. They know that the game by land is already lost. Their only hope is to save the game—that is to say, to prevent us from winning the game—by extraneous means. Unlimited submarine warfare is their one and only chance. So strongly do they feel that, that even the intervention of the United States, which their campaign demonstrably involved, did not deter them. " Now or never! " they said to them- selves. " If we can starve Britain at all, we can do it within a year. The strength of the United States cannot be brought to bear in that time. Therefore we mist go all out' with our submarines. What may happen a year hence cannot matter in any case, as our military strength is dwindling and that of the Entente is growing." Incidentally it may dwindling said that this German argument assumes that the war must end one way or the other within a year. We do not subscribe to that opinion ourselves, as we may not have made the world a safe and habitable place again in that time; but that Germany does not contemplate the war lasting -more than another year seems to us quite certain from her line of action. _Mr. Lloyd George expressed his belief that the first and best way of ridding the world of German submarines—namely, by dis- covering means of destroying them—would be successsful. " I have never seen a human problem which is not soluble, and I do not believe that this is an exception." But of course the discovery, if it comes, may come to late. -Mr. Lloyd George wisely assumed that it would come too late, and pro- ceeded to insist on the duties of the nation in the production of food and 'in self-denial in consumption of both necessaries and non-necessaries.
He said that when lie became Prime Minister two hundred and fifty thousand fewer acres were under cultivation than in the previous year. In three or four months' "of rather feverish activity" his Government had brought wider cultivation a million acres of fresh land.
That means a gain of two million tons of food. It is some- thing, but it is nothing like a guarantee of safety. The Government scheme, however, will accomplish much more in 1918 than this year. Critics of the Corn Production Bill pretend that its only justification is as a war measure, and that in so far as it looks beyond tho immediate need it asks for support on false. grounds. It ought, they say, to be treated as what it is—an extremely controversial measure affecting the times of peace but wrongly introduced in time of war. We do not take this view of the Bill, as we are convinced that our national security requires a deliberate reconstruction of agriculture ; but even if we are wrong, it is still worth while to consider whether the Corn Production Bill does not address to Germany an argument of huge moral value. ' We are sure that it does. It says in effect ; " Your only chance now is- to starve us out. But we have framed a scheme for in- creasing our food production over a longer stretch of years than you can conceivably expect the war to last. Therefore, unless you can starve us before the stimulus -provided in the Bill becomes operative—that is to say, this year—you may as well recognize that you have finally failed. The longer you go on, the more certain your failure will -be, as it is our intention year by year to come nearer to the ideal of producing enough fond at home to put ourselves beyond the reach of danger." A measure which can be read by the enemy only in such a sense as that is bound to discourage him. An agricul- tural expedient applicable only to the needs Of this year would leave Germany hoping that our agricultural spurt would die down next year. As regards imports, Mr. Lloyd George said that they were cut down last year by .a million and a half tons, but that this year they would be cut down by between ten and eleven million tons without interfering with any essential industry. He went on to make the very interesting statement -that in 'Canada there was a surplus of wheat—" they have got eightv.fivo million bushels of wheat there now "—and that this would -be secured. All this passage about the previous failure to reduce imports reads to us rather oddly. It was no doubt a blunder not to raise much more iron ore in this country earlier in the war, and thus save the tonnage of merchant vessels, but after all Mr. Lloyd George was a member of the Government that failed. As Minister of Munitions he could pre- sumably have insisted on raising the iron ore and adapting the blastfurnaces. He could have raised his voice for buying the eurplus wheat in Canada at a time when a much less convenient arrangement was being made to bring wheat from the Anti- podes. " If," he said, " eleven million tons of imports had been saved a year ago, you would have had twelve months' store of wheat in this country now." We doubt whether the figures work out quite accurately, but at all events we most heartily agree with the sentiment. Yet the odd thing is that though Mr. Lloyd George blames the old Government now, he never insisted in a single public speech, so far as we can re- member, that a store of food should be laid up in this country. When the Spectator repeatedly asked in times of comparative abundance that a Grand Victualler should be appointed for the sole purpose of stocking the country with food, we should have been delighted to have Mr. Lloyd George's very powerful support. We sighed for it, or for any other influential support, quite in vain. However, we do not wish to criticize. We are well content to accept some inconsequence as one of the temperamental defects of Mr. Lloyd George's tremendous buoyancy. Buoyancy is wanted now, and the Prime Minister supplies it most handsomely. If sometimes we are reminded that there is a little price to pay, we can still say with con- fidence that it is worth it. Mr. Lloyd George next promised that three times as many merchantmen would be built this year as last year. This fact may not impress us much, as the figure last year was very low, but it is distinctly reassuring to be told that even if we continue to lose ships at the present rate we shall be able to bring more cargo tonnage into our ports in July than was brought in March. The sentences in which Mr. Lloyd George emphasized the desirability of treating the nation frankly and telling it the whole truth about losses from submarines were admirable. We heartily agree with every word. British men fight better and endure better when nothing is kept from them. They are not children. They thrive on awkward facts. Some people do not, but Englishmen do. But if Mr. Lloyd George thinks that the weekly returns of losses from submarines really convey all the truth to the people, he is mistaken. They may have that intention—" Wo are concealing nothing," he said—but there is a failure in that case to express what is meant.
We need say nothing here as to Mr. Lloyd George's state- ments on Imperial Preference and Ireland. We have men- tioned them elsewhere, and our object in this article has been only to examine his survey of the military and naval situation. That survey is as full of encouragement as it is of warning. Mr. Lloyd George dares boldly to snap his fingers at Germany because he knows the quality and temper of his countrymen. On the other hand, he does not forbear to speak of the bitter deprivations yet to be suffered. It is going to be what the Duke of Wellington would have called " a d—d near-run thing "—so near that it is almost incredible that Mr. Lloyd George should not have told his audience that the strain could be somewhat relaxed, and the balance might conceivably just be turned in our favour, by using as food the malt that could be made into bread and biscuits, but is going to be turned into beer. The almost incredible thing happened. To be frank, such episodes are no longer incredible to us. We fear that we rather expect them. But with scarcely more than that reservation, we can congratulate Mr. Lloyd George on one of the best and most useful speeches—full of good cheer and good sense—that he has ever made.
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