The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1922. LLOYD GEORGE AND FRANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 18101, 17 October 1922, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1922. LLOYD GEORGE AND FRANCE.

It la increasingly evident that Mr Lloyd ! George will go to the country before the ; end of the year with a hostile Press. ' The comments being passed on his Mancheater speech are unusually nncompromis- : ing, and are, moreover, pointed with a personal barb fortunately rare in the discussion of politics. Following pn the ‘ Observer's ’ suggestion of ten days ago, that the Prime Minister’s public usefulness is exhausted, and that the main currents of events both at home and abroad have passed beyond his control because et his incapacity for fresh thought, vital inflight, or concentrated application, there now comes quite a chorus in similar vein. The most arresting is the * Morning Poet’s’ declaration that “Mr Lloyd George is temperamentally incapable of understanding the elements of statesmanship.” Criticism like this on a politician with thirty-two years of public life behind him. of which the last seventeen have been in office, cannot be prompted by any trivial cause such as resentment to the references to the Press made both by the Prime Minister and Dame Lloyd George, lone speaking of the “queer people lot loose in the Press to-day *’ and fhe other of “ unscrupulous scribblers.” Party feeling has admittedly binned up with exceptional heat, but it does not altogether ac- ) count for , the peculiar personal torpji

is so noticeable. The plain fact appears to be that there is a conviction that tho pilot has not so much lost hie bearings as lost his head or tho use of his faculties in making a dangerous passage—that the position Lb similar to that which caused the wreck of the P. and 0. liner Australia when entering Port Phillip Heads, an old and experienced pilot being afterwards found to have broken down unknown to those about him.

As we stated yesterday, Mr Lloyd George’s speech at Manchester showed no sign of his failing in vigor. He has always been peculiarly sensitive to criticism, and has boon exceptionally gifted by Nature in tho ability to take his own part. But tho heart of the complaint now levelled against him is that by the lino of defence he is adopting he sees only personal considerations and shuts his eyes to national ami international ones. As M. Tardier! writes in the ‘ Echo de Nation,' he is seeking election advantages at the expense of European peace. One of tho deplorable features of the business is tho antagonism of tho French Press to the British Prime v Minister. It is of fairly long standing, for many writers in Paris have been engaged in convincing their countrymen that Mr Lloyd Georgo has for the past couple of years been steadily undermining the Entente with a view to its ultimate ending. When it has been explained to them that the great bulk of the British people earnestly desire the continuance of the Entente, their reply. has been to ask why tho British people do not rid themselves of a Government which misrepresents them on a cardinal question of foreign policy. It is regrettable that in his speech at Manchester Mr Lloyd George added fresh fuel to French grievance's and French mistrust. It appears likely that there may be a brief and bitter three weeks’ campaign before a General Election, the date of which is placed by cno lobbyist as early as November 6. It is sincerely to be hoped that during that interval every effort will be made not to further strain the relations with France into which Britain, or rather the British Government, has drifted. It is possibly too much to hope, since it seems as though this will be ono of the main issues on which the election will he fought.