MR LLOYD GEORGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 142, 18 May 1932, Page 2

MR LLOYD GEORGE

BOOK ON WAR DEBTS

Air Lloyd George evidently employed his time while a convalescent in writin a book. It is called “The Truth About Reparations and War Debts,” and judging by the adverse criticisms and leading articles in a number of newspapers there is likely to bo some controversy over the work (says a London correspondent). “Air Lloyd George seems to have written this book of his for only two reasons,” says the Morning Post, “to exalt his own wisdom and to denigrate certain statesmen, at homo and abroad, who are distasteful to him. His allusions to M. Poincare, for example, are in the worst possible taste. They are, in fact, quite inexcusable. They are not only intentionally rude; they aro beneath the dignity of public life. They make ono blush to think that a man who has played such an eminent part in the affairs of the British nation could descend so far. Al. Poincare is well able to take care of himself, though withdrawn from the scene in which ho played so memorable a part; but ho is entitled to the assurance that such attacks as Air Lloyd George lias thought fit to make upon him will in this country damage tho reputation of the assailant rather than the assailed.” The book is written in tho characteristic polemical style of the author, says the reviewer of the Post, and reveals tho practised hand of the copious contributor to the American press. The Air Lloyd George’s analysis is to incriminate the “experts” in this country for having been “vivaciously confident” of Germany’s ability to pay tens of thousands of millions in reparations, France for her “profitless bullying” of Germany and Air Baldwin for his “softness” in the conduct of the debt funding negotiations with America. DEBT-FUNDING OPERATIONS.

Air Lloyd George, on tho other hand, according to his own account, was tho man who from the first foresaw tho folly' of trying to make Germany pay impossible sums, and who, at every stage, resisted the optimistic counsels of his own advisers and the fire-eating propositions of the Continental Allies. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Air Lloyd George gives a conveniently selective survey of the historical facts.

Of the debt-funding negotiations with America, Air Lloyd George says that at that date (1922) “a business transaction between Air Mellon and Mr Baldwin was in the nature of a transaction between a weasel and its quarry.” The American Treasury officials, ho continues, “were not exactly bluffing, but they put forward their full demand as a start in the conversations and to their surprise Air Baldwin said he thought the terms were fair, and accepted them. This crude job, jocularly called a ‘settlement,’ was to have a disastrous effect upon the whole course of negotiations on international war debts.” As for the American attitude towards Britain’s war debt, incurred as and when it was incurred, Air Lloyd George’s comment is “Great Britain has had very shabby treatment,” and if the position had been reversed, I should have been a little ashamed as a Britisher if we had treated in this fashion a country so closely linked with ours in language, history and race.” NO GOOD WORD FOR FRANCE.

Air Lloyd George cannot find a single good word of any sort for France, says the Daily Telegraph critic.' He has gone right over, lock, stock and barrel, to tlie side, of Germany. She has done her best, he says, as France has, done her worst. She has played the part of the vanquished without reproach, while “tho immense • land armaments of France are a glaring and arrogant breach of the undertakings of Versailles.” His case is that France is the bully who dreads, the day of just reckoning for evil doilpf Surely it is permissible to ask whether a furious indictment of this sort is likely to lead to an understanding at Lausanne on the lines which Air Lloyd George desires 1 Tlieso sentences crystallise Air Lloyd George’s conclusions: “No measure can have a chance until you clear out of the way this rubble of war ledgers-, It is not worth while keeping afloat any part of ’ tho reparation debts. I am fully convinced that salvage operations to rescue any scrap from the deep into which it has sunk aro not worth the cost and risks.”