Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1922. THE GENOA DEBATE

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 123, 27 May 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1922. THE GENOA DEBATE

The debate in the' House of Commons on the Genoa Conference was opened, 'as it should have been, by the Prime Minister himself. It would have been an absurd and literally prepo'ster.ous procedure for the man to whose initiative the Conference was due, and to whose leadership it owed whatever success it achieved, to keep himself in reserve until his critics had had their say* The critics very properly announced that they would decline to discuss a statement which was not before them, and as this meant that unless Mr.\ Lloyd George gave way there' would be no debate at all, they carried their point. The coyness which inspired him to attempt to reverse the normal and businesslike order of debate is not easy to understand. If he had had any surprise in • store, it was not fauto seek to heighten its effect in this way, but it is now clear that he had none. There were no surprises on either side. The ground had been too thoroughly covered before by both Mr. Lloyd George and his critics to allow, of such a possibility. The result was .a tame debate on familiar lines, in which no new light was. shed upon the problems of ..the Conference, and the honours appear to have been even; The Opposition had scored in the manoeuvring for position, but there is no evidence of any further success.

In his first statement about the Genoa Conference after''his return to London Mr. Lloyd George declared that ." the plenary session had been the most remarkable history had known." "It would remain for ever," he added, " as an inspiring landmark^ on the pathway towards universal peace, although it. had not progressed as far as the most sanguine had expected." „,. In the House of Commons the Prime Minister does not appear to have reached so high a note.... There was no suggestion that the Genoa Conference had been the greatest show on earth, or that through its Peace Pact " its psychological effect upon the nations of the earth' would prove electrical." Neither Mr. Lloyd George nor any other speaker appears to have paid much attention to the Peace or Non-aggvessive Pact, though even if it did not fully justify the Premier's previous eulogy, it is surely one of the notable achievements of the Conference. It was so treated by Sir Joseph Cook in his interesting survey of the work pf the Conference,

The Peace Pact, he said, unfortunately was only temporary, but nevertheless it was valuable. It was sometimes forgotten that there were a million armed men on the Russian borders; therefore, even a. Pact for nine ov twelve months was an important step towards the world's pacification.

Sir Joseph Cook's general verdict 'on the Genoa Conference was that, though in some respects incomplete, " it was not a failure, as some of its enemies proclaimed." The incompleteness, "he said, related principally to the relations of the Powers with Russia. It was to this uncompleted task of the Conference that Mr. Lloyd George principally addressed himself. As this work is fundamental and awaits further treatment by what will be substantially a continuation of the Genoa Conference at The Hague, it very properly received a. large part of the Prime Minister's attention. But, unless the cabled report has done him an injustice, the speech was marred both in completeness and in moral effect by the/Substantial monopoly given to an issue of which the outcome is beyond calculation or probable conjecture, to exclusion of the things that have gone well, or on which the nation may be regarded as unanimous. The Peace Pact, to which we have already referred, received a bare mention. German reparations and the relations between Britain and France were mentioned only to be dismissed. Both these were vital points. It was the persistent opposition of France that delayed the meeting of the Conference, narrowed its agenda, and embarrassed its progress: at every turn. But Mr. Lloyd George may reasonably have felt that his own people needed no further enlightenment on the point, and that the estrangement of France was only likely to be increased by whatever he might say. In his reply the description -of .'the Government's critics as " always wanting to be on good terms with Fi-ance, yet always opposing the French viewpoint," was a fair retort.

In his justification of the policy of dealing with Russia at all, Mr. Lloyd George was addressing the ■irrecpneilables 'of. the Coalition— " the Bolsheviks of fchcr Right," as the Observer calls them—rather hhun the Opposition. The (Liberals and the Labour Party were ready

for negijtiating with Russia before the Government was, and as the dissentient minority iv the Coali- | tion had nothing to say, there was *no clash on this point. It would be well (if the substantial part of the Premier's argument which was addressed to the Eussian Government could be relied upon to get as good a hearing. The economic re:equipment of Russia was, he said, beyond the power of Germany. The co-operation of the whole of Europe was needed, and that could not be obtained on the basis of confiscation and the repudiation of debt. Russia will have her final chance at The Hague, but she cannot be saved against her will,, or, let us rather say, against the will of the Government in whose power she appears to be helpless. By his happy combination of diplomatic skill, patience, and pugnacity, Mr. Lloyd George has achieved some excellent results at Genoa,'and there may yet be more to come. But there was nothing in the debate to show that the stabilisation of 'the Coalition, which was regarded as one of his objects, has been secured or materially advanced.