THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1922. THE GENOA DEBATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18101, 27 May 1922, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1922. THE GENOA DEBATE.

A personal triumph is almost invariably credited to Mr. Lloyd George ivhen any policy he has mado peculiarly his own is attacked in the House of Commons. The Genoa debate provided no exception to this rule. Once again the Primo Minister demonstrated his extraordinary agility in argument, his knack of turning his opponents' front, and his capacity for picturesque and homely illustration. If tho cabled report does equal justice to all the principal speakers, Mr. Lloyd George finished up by placing the Opposition on the , defensive. »Yet, as not infrequently happens, his argument is not as sound as his repartee. Mr. Lloyd George took different ground from his lieutenant, Sir L, Worthington Evans. While the latter called for the alleviation of Russia's sufferings as a matter of humanity, the Prime Minister made an appeal to self-interest. His argument was that however unworthy Russia might be, it was necessary to save her because her collapse would threaten the ruin of Europe. The least convincing portion of his speech was that in which he temporarily abandoned this argument to suggest that, after all, Russia was not an economic outcast, It is probably true, as he said, that the Russians are not Communists at heart and that the peasants arc as individualistic as any other people. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister's inference is in no sense permissible. As long as the international organisation presumes the responsibility of a people for their government it is necessary to consider Russia as composed of Lenins and Trotzkys, and not of peasants with an instinct for the freehold. In the end, therefore, Mr. Lloyd George's plea comes back to this, that it is safer to rescue Russia than to allow her to perish. That argument has its limits. If it presumes that a restored Russia will not threaten the economic system of other countries, either by arms or propaganda, it may be accepted. If there is no such guarantee the would-be benefactors of Russia must consider in which direction s6lf-interest really lies. This is the critical test of Mr. Lloyd George's policy, and it is on this point his arguments are least convincing. He has quoted Pitt's overtures to the Directory in 1796-97, based on Pitt's conviction that "violent and odious" as was the French Republican Government, peace on fair terms was anxiously to be sought. The parallel is not exact. The rulers of Russia have not moved nearly as far toward a responsible form of government as had the Directory in France when Pitt proposed to deal with it. To complete the analogy it would be necessary for a counter-revolution in Russia to sweep away the Soviet leaders, and of that there is no immediate prospect. In other words, France had given trustworthy evidence of a change of front; Russia has not. The men who are responsible for her misery are still in power, they are still professod Communists, and though they have, as a matter 1 of expediency, compromised with capitalism, no one supposes they will not seize the first opportunity to re-embody their theories in practice. As for any pledge they may give that they will not plot against the social and economic stability of other countries, experience has shown the folly of trusting a Bolshevik promise. The leaders d f Russia have barefacedly broken their word more than once, and they may do so again. Unless material guarantees are received —and it is difficult to see how they can be made effective—the restoration of Bolshevik Russia must be something of a gamble. It may therefore logically be opposed not merely because it represents a regicide

peace, but because it is opposed to the self-interest to which Mr. Lloyd George appeals. In truth there are risks both ways, but in balancing one against the other most Englishmen are content to follow the path of humanity and trust that virtue will not fail of its reward. It is for this reason the House of Commons was more critical of the results of the Genoa Conference than of its objects. . Mr. Asquith complained that the conference had been barren, and Mr. Clynes that it 3 limits had been too narrow. To each of these criticisms Mr. Lloyd George supplied a ready answer. If tho scope of the conference was circumscribed, blame must be laid, not against British policy, but against the nations which specifically refused to reopen treaties for discussion or reparation arrangements for revision. If the results were small the same restrictions can be pleaded. It is more than probable, as Mr. Asquith suggests, that the real re-cstablishment of credit will be found to depend upon the regulation of debts and the generous remission of Britain's claims. But it would have been altogether premature for Britain to have gone to the Genoa Conference and released her debtors unconditionally. As a debtor nation she is prepared to meet ail the claims upon her; as a creditor nation she must try to carry the other great creditor nation with hor. Mr. Asquith would challenge American idealism by a spontaneous act of renunciation. Mr. Lloyd George prefers to bring America into contact with European problems and lot her judge for herself whether it is practicable to collect huge debts from Europe. Without derogation of a moral and well-disposed people it may be suggested that the Prime Minister's is the safer plan. The weakness of Mr. Asquith's is that it appeals also to American cupidity by giving the United States first and sole claim upon Europe's resources and so enhancing the security of her loans.