LLOYD GEORGE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 9 October 1922, Page 5

LLOYD GEORGE

RETIREMENT DEMANDED

PRESS CHORTJS.

POLICY IN THE NEAR EAST

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT

LONDON, Oct. 7. The Observer, which tor several years has be^n one of Mr. Lloyd George's staunenest supporters, expressing intense admiration for his statesmanship and leadership, had joined m the chorus oi papers demanding his retirement owing to the muddled British policy in the Near East.

The Observer says that as far as the Near East is concerned the Government has irretrievably lost the Great War; secondly, the necessity for a fundamental change in the personnel and system of our Government is unanswerably proved; thirdly, the moribund Coalition is dead at last —killed by Kemal as surely as the sparrow killed cock robin; fourthly, Mr. Lloyd George's position has become quite untenable with any credit to himself or advantage to the country. The Observer adds: "Mr. Lloyd George was a great leader in the war, and we shall never forget it. If he can only make up his mind at last, though late, to sacrifice office in order to regain his influence he will be a great leader once more in due time, perhaps sooner than thought by most people. Now h^s stock is low, but for the present his public usefulness is exhausted. It is strage that so infinitely clever a man has made the old and stale mistake of so many of his prede-1 cessors by lingering too long. If he endeavours to extend his tenure still more inordinately he will find the ground cut from under his feet by a majority which is not now his own, and now definitely means at no distant date to have another head.

"The main currents of events at home as abroad have passed beyond his control. The reasons for this anticlimax are obvious. Alone of living statesmen he has been seventeen years in office, and eight of these years have been equal to more than an ordinary generation of wear and tear. No mortal man could stand it and be as good as he was. Neither in his insight for home and foreign politics, nor in any kind of consecutive and directing energy is he equal, or anything like equal to the man he was at his best. He is fundamentally fatigued hi the way that makes men 'incapable of really fresh thought, of vital insight; and of steady, concentrated application. . The sooner he stands aside the more easily will the nation be able to ; extricate itself from its immediate difficulties and the better change there will be for own future. There is no lack of alternative men and alternative combinations."— Aus.-N.Z. Coble Assn. v