MUTUAL DISTRUST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 97, 3 February 1934, Page 5

MUTUAL DISTRUST.

ARMY AND POLITICIANS. LLOYD GEORGE'S MISTAKE. (United Press Association—Copyright). LONDON, February 2. Mr Alfred Duff Cooper, M.P., in his recently published biography of FieldMarshal Earl Haig, urged the necessity for the cessation of the mutual distrust between soldiers and politicians. Mr Cooper says that immediately the politician loses faith in the soldier he should resign or dismiss the soldier. Mr Lloyd George's mistake was distrusting Haig, while lacking the courage to dismiss him, and at the same time doing his utmost to undermine Haig among his fellow-countrymen and bis allies, which was unpardonable. For that reason the name of the politician stank in the nostrils of the Army.

Nevertheless, says Mr Cooper, the soldier should acquire the politician's "gift of the gab." The politicians always won, though they were not always in the right.

The German soldiers were wrong over Nurse Cavell. She was justly executed according t« the rules of warfare, says Mr Cooper, who points out that any politician could have told them that executing one woman would arm 100,000 men against Germany.

Mr Cooper concludes his remarks by saying: "We should all be soldiers and politicians."