BRITISH COALITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17596, 8 October 1920, Page 5

BRITISH COALITION.

DEFENCE BY PREMIER. NO PRESENT ALTERNATIVE. REPLY TO MR. ASQUITH. By Telegraph— Association—Copyright. A. and N.Z v LONDON, Oct. 6. The first issue of a monthly magazine, entitled Lloyd George's Liberal Magazine, contains an interview with Mr. Lloyd George, wherein he defends the Coalition. The only alternative to the Coalition When the armistice was signed," he says, was reversion to the old party strife, making it impossible to pass many effective measures, such as the Coalition has done. Take Irish Home Rule, for instance, the position would have been worse than now. If we had reverted to the old Liberal government and reintroduced Home Rule, Unionists would have resisted with the full power of their bid hostility, and we should have been further from settlement than to-day. If Mr. Asquith's proposal to give Ireland Dominion Home Rule is adopted, we must give Ireland full control of her own military and navy."

If Ireland is given control of taxation, proceeds Mr. Lloyd George, one must expect that she will not accept her share of the war debt. There are businesses in Great Britain that can be trusted to pay 6s in the £ income tax, while businesses in Belfast would pay 2s. Workmen in England would pay 8s a lb. on "tobacco against the Irishman's 3s 6d. It would be different if someone were entitled to speak for Ireland, who could bind her to take a fair share of these obligations, otherwise Britain would be placed in an impossible financial position. Ireland would become a privileged country, while we should still be responsible for her defence to posterity.

Whatever the merits or demerits of a Dominion Irish policy, he does not believe, says Mr. Lloyd George, that the Liberals in their hearts have the smallest assurance that they could carry on, even if they had a majority in the House of Commons.

Referring to the Labour Party, Mr. Lloyd George says that its policy is not merely the nationalisation of mines and railways, but amounts to nationalisation

of the whole processes of society. The Liberal Party is quite as rootedly opposed to this policy as the Coalition, perhaps more so. Liberals had accused him of bringing back a reactionary peace from Versailles, but the peace signed was the minimum France would accept. He did not believe the Liberals would have advocated breaking with France and making a separate peace with Germany. There would be no effective League of Nations, he adds, until the United States and Germany joined. The latter should be allowed to enter once she proved that she would respect treaty obligations. He Believed thai Germany would, and he believed that the United State would also join the League after the Presidential elections.

4 Referring to the temperance question, Mr. Lloyd George says that it should be settled provincially, because each part of the Kingdom desires a different settlement.

He does not believe the nation would profit by nationalising the railways and mines. He was not pledged to it. Directing minds were required in industry. Russia's effort by her commissaries had become a perfect fraud. Now after bloodshed and horror she was striving to return to a saner system of industrial guidance.

Mr. Lloyd George, concluding, says that he considers that the Coalition still faects the needs of the days and he sees no present alternative.