THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1918. THREE ALLIED LEADERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17038, 20 December 1918, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1918. THREE ALLIED LEADERS.

When the Peace Congress meets to define the new Europe three personalities will shine above the lesser constellations, and three minds will stamp the impress of their ideals on the final treaty. Not only because they aro tho representatives of the three most powerful Allies will Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and Mr. Wilson carry destiny in their hands and decision on their lips. No mediocre ambassador could succeed in a conference which for brilliance and prestige will surpass

any held since the Congress oi

Vienna. No triumph of mere nationality will bo possible in a gathering of such intellectual greatness and moral grandeur as that formed by the delegates of the allied nations. The Premiers of Britain and France and the President of the United States will command homage not only because of ! the sacrifices of their countries, but because each is an idealist who has played a leading part in the political direction of the war, and will strive to give his own interpretation to the victory he has helped to win. The position of Mr. Lloyd George is familiar to all who speak the English tongue. If he receives the mandate from the electors 'that is so confidently predicted, his place among British statesmen will bo unique. Mr. Lloyd George is a leader who has risked everything, including his own career several times over, in order to secure the defeat; of German militarism. He is a man of many passions, but there is room in his heart for only one passion at a time. Social reformer as he was and is, he took a leading part in promoting the legislation which banned trade [union privileges and swept away , the most cherished rights of the I working, classes. To win the war he split the Liberal party, overcame his instinctive hatred of military compulsion, taxed the capitalist and consumer unmercifully, withdrew the right . of \ free speech, startled tire nation's equanimity by his declaration of imminent danger, and conscripted for national service the time, comfort, money, and lives of all classes. It was no easy popularity the demagogue of Limehouse now sought. War had caught him in its whirlpool, and since 1014 he has estimated -every situation and determined every action by the one test. .Always dynamic and courageous, he was exalted by his passionate hatred of all Prussia represented. He rose,to leadership . by 'pure merit and the force of achievement . He' is not only the greatest democrat and the greatest commoner of his day, but he is the greatest of British civilians. >• |

M. Clemenceau shares Mr. Lloyd George's whole-heartedness, 'and although • an ; older man is scarcely less; vigorous. • There 1 is between them this important difference, that whirean Mr. Lloyd George had lived in ■■■ the atmosphere '■*. of detachment from foreign politics which is typical oL pritish radicalism, the ', French Premier has ; consciously "-. lived and prepared himself for the war he has done so mwch to win. Ho is one of the Frenchmen who have never forgotten 1871. During the siege of Paris he was Mayor of the district of Montmartre. He was elected to the General Assembly in 1871, :■ and violently opposed the peace- which tore Alsace and Lorraine from France. ~ He is the only survivor of the members who sent a message to the Alsatians assuring them of eternal .vindication. Like most other , Frenchmen M. Clemenceau had long ago renounced a war of revenge, but he certainly never lost sight of the possibility of further German aggression, and his whole career has been influenced by. his determination that if the day came, the decision of 1871 would be reversed. A brilliant \ journalist and an implacable .controversialist, M. Clemenceau has long been known aa the stormy petrel of French politics. He has caused the fall of innumerable Ministries, and the secret of his apparent inconsistencies is probably to be found in the fact that he cared less about domestic' politics than foreign policy. He could never quite banish from his mind the thought of another war with Germany. He '7:aß often accused . of harshness, and many considered him only a destructive ( force,' although they freely admitted that much of his political criticism had been of great value to Franco. Time and the deep sense of responsibility induced by the war have cured him of his faults of temperament. He has learned to curb his tongue and moderate his judgment, and during his present term of office he has proved brilliantly constructive. -The only persons on whom he has poured all his old scorn have been the pacificists and the pro-Germans. He brought to France at the most critical stage of the war the remembrance of 1871. His spirit was as an appeal from the past, and round the grand old man whose patriotism flamed like a beacon in troubled waters the French nation gathered and carried on to glorious victory. Mr. Woodrow Wilson is a dissimilar type. Beside Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau he is cold. Academic and unemotional, he is nevertheless an idealist indeed the only fault; the allied nations have ever found in him is that he is too doctrinaire. Yet Mr. Wilson can be practical, and many < acts of his administration show ' direct commonsense. When he was i first elected to the Presidency he startled America by announcing ] that he would read his message to 1 Congress in person. Such a thing i had not been done for over a cen- < tury. and it was only when the i innovation had been made that i Americans realised how sensible it i was. Tlw tone of Mr. Wilson's i speeches in France is reassuring i

to those who feared that at. the Peace Congress he would prove a special pleader' for Germany. The President is an idealist of somewhat deliberate judgment, but he is neither blind nor unreasonable. His attitude towards Germany has been constantly hardening, and during his present visit to France he will be brought face to face with evidence of Germany's crimes which cannot fail to stiffen his resolution. As Mr. Wilson has come more and more into contact with the actualities of the war he has, become progressively sterner. As a detached neutral he made comparisons which amazed and wounded the Allies. As the hoad of a belligerent State he learned the true character of tho enemies he was fighting, until, at the crisis of the war, he propounded the doctrine of force without stint or limit to overcome force. From this fighting speech he has never receded, although he continued to draw a somewhat theoretical distinction between the Kaiser and the nation which acquiesced in wrong-doing. As Mr. Wilson visits the battlefields and learns at first hand of the enemy's methods of warfare he may find it necessary to modify his attitude still further. By the time he reaches the peace table he will probably have shed the last of his illusions, and be as severe a judge as any.