GROWS STRONGER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 120, 24 May 1933, Page 9

GROWS STRONGER

WAR MACHINERY

( LLOYD GEORGE'S FEARS

"NEED M M ARMS PLAN

"The economic system is waterlogged j f, and labouring very heavily after the ' / rough experience of tho Great War. Statesmen and economists in every part : of the world have been attempting ■pumping operations. The seas are stiil tumultuous and tho plates oi! the yes- j , sel have been loosened in tho great hurricane, and the water is seeping through. I doubt myself whether it will ever recover until that system is comwletely overhauled," said Mr. Lloyd George in. an address at -the annual "iiritiah Universities' Congress. ' "The international trado of the ■world is half what it was threo or four years ago; there is hardly _ a 'country that is. solvent as far as its national Budget is concerned, and currencies are in a state of complete | confusion and chaos. Millions of tons ■ of shipping aro lying idle, and ships that are still plying between countries are carrying half-cargoes." | , Asking what was responsible for tfiat condition, Mr. Lloyd George said that the first answer that leapt to ; the mind was the Great War. There was no doubt that to avert such great catastrophes they must take definite means to prevent war (reports the "Manchester Guardian"). "I am not expressing any opinion as to methods," ho said, "or as to resolutions passed by young men who say they are not going to fight under any conditions. "Yon will forgive mo as vone who is no longer a young man if I say 10 you that I wish I could attach more importance to them, except as an indication of the growing hostility to the .idea of war in the abstract. If there is a great gust of popular feeling, my experience teaches me that no pacifist; resolutions or convictions stand against it. ! "A week before war was declared there was not a responsible man mi England who had any notion that we should be ia a great war. It was so abhorrent to all our ideas. ; Wc were so convinced that it was impossible that such a catastrophe could take place that wo came to the conclusion that certainly some'reasonable method would spring up to' avert it." WHEN PASSIONS ABE BOUSED. Mr. Lloyd George said there were parts of the country at that time where pacifist feelings were specially strong. In those areas where Radicalism and Socialism were supreme —the two parLies that were regarded at that time as being more or less pacifist parties —when, war was declared the recruiting was higher -in those areas than in others. The gust of. feeling swept men of all convictions into tho conflict, and if you aro going to stop war you mu&fc find some other means of doing it. "If you ask men in. cold blood, 'Are you for war?' they would say 'No.' But when passions are roused all reason is swept away. Therefore yen must find some other, better organised, more deeply-rooted method of averting causes that lead to war." Tho first thing they had to do was lo reduce armaments, and the second co strengthen tho machinery of peace. "What aro tho facts?", he asked. "The machinery of war is getting stronger * year by year, tlio machinery for peace is getting weaker and losing influence »' and prestige. "After each and all of the solemn pacts signed by the civilised nations at lhe world, outlawing war as * means i of settling disputes, armaments have increased in virtually every country that signed the pacts. _ "What mado war very largely m 1914 was not that the statesmen of the world wanted it. I only know one who ' wanted it, and I shall tell that story in the course of tho next foiv weeks. Only one. Ho was not in this country, he was not in France, he was not in Germany, he was not in Russia. "To my knowledge there is only one man who luid his mind on war, and in spite of that all the tulpts of the earth declared war. Why? Annies began to march. Millions. It was .lust like stopping an avalanche after it had started downhill. No one could do it. ' Those great armaments arc a guarantee of war, and unless you have a disarmament which goes to the extent of simply reducing those forces to dimensions that will, only make- them practically police forces to keep law and order in their own country, you will get war again in "the future. THE NEXT STEP. "The next tiling is you have to streugthen the machinery of peace. It has proved futile in tho course of the very last ■ difficulty which wo encountered. Here you have practically every I country on earth condemning actions taken by another .country. It ends in nothing. War proceeds in exactly tho [ same way. You have to weaken, the means oJ: war and make moro potent the machinery of peace. i "Undoubtedly the war is responsible for the present economic chaos in tho , world, but not altogether! If you were , to go away with tho idea that disarma* ment would solve all tho economic problems of tho world you would be on. tho wrong tack. "There is a great deal of talk about the excessive nationalism which is impeding the operations, of commerce between nation and nation., There is a real danger that because of the evils of extravagant nationalism wo may condemn nationalism altogether. Nationalism was not created by the war.. As a matter, of fact it was part of the- equipment Of European Liberalism'during practically tho whole of the nincteeritfi 'century, nnd: in the twentieth, century 'to flight for tho liberation of oppressed nationalities. Nationalism is bound to be- ;a fruitful cause of war as long as any nation remains oppressed." : Referring to the TrtSaty of Versailles, Mr. Lloyd George said: "You might imagine from the criticism passed-upon, us that the Treaty of Versailles for the first time created now nations, and that this trouble is due to that. President Wilson, Clemenceau, and myself—wo did not create Czechoslovakia. Wo arc not responsible for bringing into existence Poland and v Transylvania, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, or Mesopotamia. We simply recognised facts, f We found the- fact that nationalities s had been oppressed had been a fruitful cause of wars. The liberal sentiment of tho world was in favour of emancipation. Wo gave expression to that. BEEN DONE BEFORE. "If nations abuso the- liberty given to them they are- only doing what individuals httvo done before and what mankind will do to the* end of its dreary and sad chapter. Wo are not responsible' for the fact that these buried nationalities, coming out of their mausoleums in. their grave-clothes, cast them off and put on armour. We would have infinitely preferred if they had dressed themselves in more civilian attire, and attended to tho ordinary functions of cultivation and of enrichment and of improving the conditions of life of their own people." Mr. Lloyd George said that since the war nations became conscious of certain dangers. The first was the danger of being insufficiently armed against aggressive neighbours. Most of the trouble (had'been that the nations were in a thought and wood'to which they had' been, driven by the lash, scourge,

and fury of war, and were therefore unbalanced. You must reason with the world and you must give the world the security thut is necessary so that you feel that it can depend., upon , international goodwill." "If we had not had'a'great war, if wo had gone on as we wero going, I am sure that sooner or later wo would' have" been confronted with something approximately like the present chaos. There must be something fundamentally wrong with our economic system, because abundance produces scarcity and science saves labour. " "It is no use blaming the older generation altogether for tho muddle that you have inherited. They did their bit i according to their lights and_ to their j opportunities. They gave science its chance. Now it is your task. Do not pay, too much attention to your parties. I am out of them all' at the present moment and I feel a free. man. Do not trust to jargon; leave all that chatter to theologians, economists, and, I respectfully say, politicians. Get on with tho facts. It is a time for adventure. "We have a very .youthful House of Commons, and I thought, when I first saw the young people, we would get something out of them. Well, I hope I was not wrong, but I have not seen anything very encouraging up to' the present.. It seems they aro too frightened of tho frowns of grizzled authority." ' ■