FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1908, Page 7

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

;MR. LLOYD-GEORGE'S INDIGNANT,. DENIAL. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. ' LONDON, 19th August. ■The Chancellor of tho Exchequer, the Right Hon. D. Lloyd-George, in a mesT sage to the Daily Chronicle, indignantly repels tho Standard's accusation against Mr Churchill (President ' of the Board of Trade) and himself (that by interfering in foreign affairs they were tryingto oust Sir Edward Grey, Secretary for Foreign Affairs). He expressed admiration for and unbounded confidence in Sir Edward Grey's great capacity for dealing with the complex and difficultproblems confronting Great Britain. Some months ago, when Britain's reduction of armament proposals first caused discussion, the Neve Politische Correspondenz, a Berlin newspaper whioh is frequently the mouthpiece of official utterances of the Kaiser's Government, published a "warning to England," of which the following was the ■conclusion: — "England is a Colossus ■with feet of clay. She will do well not to* provoke too heatedly the world-his-toric decision as to whom supremacy in Europe belongs. Bl\e has brusquely repelled the friendship offered by Germany with more enthusiasm than states - • manlike wisdom, and has spnn around vs 1 a diplomatic net which already unpleasantly hampers the freedom of our If she continues in this course, tho inclination will some day possess us to tear this artificial neb ■'ruthlessly to pieces before we are hemmed in so tightly that we cannot move. J Even the entente cordiale need haveno terrors for us. If France wishes to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for' England, we phall undertake to make •the] fire plentifully hot. Germany has at present 5,500,000 soldiers, who are available not on paper, but actually. Tho French army, through MonarchicalClerical agitation on the one hand and.. Republican-Socialistic machinations on the other, has become perceptibly disorganised. . . . The field army which. Gormany will place in service on the> first day of mobilisation will' be sufficient to crush France, even if a part of it is detached for operations against" England. We wish sincerely to live m peace with France and England, but i that can only be if England henceforth, refrains from a diplomatic policy wluch sooner or later must lead to war — a war which, as we are firmly convinced, will bo the beginning of tho end of the British Empire."