PREMIER'S DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 85, 7 October 1920, Page 8

PREMIER'S DEFENCE

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COEIRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABLE ABSO6IATI9N*) \ (Received October 7, 2.30 p.m.)

LONDON, 6th October.

The first issue of a monthly magazine entitled the Lloyd George Liberal. Magazine contains an interview with Mr. Lloyd George, in which he defends the Coalition Government. The only other alternative to coalition when the Armistice was signed was a reversion to the old party strife, making it impossible to 'pass as many effective measures as the Coalition had done. Take Home Rule, for instance. The position, says- Mr. Lloyd George, would have been worse than now if we had reverted to the old Liberal Government and. reintroduced Home Rule. The Unionists would have resisted it with the full power of their old hostility, and we would have been further from a settlement than we are to-day. If the Asquithian ■proposal was to give Ireland Dominion Home Rule, we must give Ireland full control of her own military and navy.

If Ireland were given control of taxation, we must expect she will not accept her share of the war debt. It would be | differentl if someone was entitled to i speak for Ireland who would bind her I to take her fair share of her obligations; : otherwise Britain would be placed.in an impossible financial position; Ireland i would become a privileged country, while j we still would be responsible for her de- '■ fence' to posterity. Whatever the merits or demerits of the dominion Irish policy, he did not believe ! the Liberals in their hearts had the smallest assurance that they could carry it, even if they had a majority in tha House of Commons. Referring to the Labour Party, he saidl its policy was not merely the nationalisation of the mines and railways, but amounted to the nationalisation of the whole processes of society. The liberal Party was quite as rootedjy opposed to this poliqy as the Coalition, perhaps more /so. The Liberals accused him of bringing back a reactionary peace from Versailles; but the peace signed was the minimum France would accept. He did not believe the, liberals would have advocated breaking with France, and making a separate peace with Germany. There Would be no effective League of _ Nations until America, and Germany joined. The latter should be allowed in once she proves she will respect the Treaty obligations. He believed she would. He believed America, also, would join after the Presidential elections. He believed the temperance question should bo settled provincially, because each part of the kingdom desired a different settlement. He did not believe the nation would profit by nationalising the railways and mines. He was not pledged to it. Directing minds were required in industry. Russia's effort by commissaries had become a perfect fraud. . - Mr. Lloyd George, in concluding, sa*id he considered the Coalition still met the needs of the day, and. he saw no present alternative.