NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18278, 20 December 1922, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE ROUND TABLE THEORY.

An arresting article on tho association between Mr. Lloyd George and the leaders of the Round Table movement has been contributed to the London Evening Standard by Captain Peter E. Wright. He men'.ions, as instances of the connection, that as sooji as Mr. Lloyd George became. Prime Minister Mr. Philip Kerr, the chief and the ablest of tho Round Tablers, became his chief private secretary. He was with Mr. Lloyd George during the whole of tho Peace Conference. Ho was succeeded by Sir Edward Grigg, another Round Tabler. When tho treaty with Ireland camo to be signed Mr. Lionel Curtis was called in to help draft it. '"But a better proof exists in reading the back numbers. Tho ideas that Mr. Lloyd George put forward in his public utterances simply re-eciio tho articles of the 'Round Table.' What are the 'Round Table' ideas? Their main idea was that the British Empire should cease to bo an Empire and become a Commonwealth— not a body of peoples all over the world dominated by one group, but an association of people. That they havo imposed their ideas -with absolute success there can be no doubt whatever. The Indian Reforms, the Independence of Egypt, the creation of the Irish Free State—these are all Round Table conceptions, and the formulae inserted in the Irish Treaty express the exact relations they think ought to exist between the different members of the Commonwealth. Once more the mperior force of ideas manifests itself. By gaining over the leading political men of action of the day this small group has carried out a sort. of revolution."

HOUND TABLE FOEEIGN POLICY. Captain Wright then reviews tho foreign policy of the Round Table. He says:—"Tho Round Tablers not only hadl ideas about the Empire which only time can justify or condemn. They had ideas about Europe, and these ideas, adopted as they -were by Mr. Lloyd George, have constituted his foreign policy; and this is why, it is hero contended, his foreign policy failed and at last brought him down. Mr. Philip Kerr, tho high priest of tho Round Tablers, has plainly expressed their ideas. As a Christian Scientist he is, naturally, an admirer of the LTnited States, where that sect grew up. Now, in the States all the races in Europe live happily together in unity and concord. They, therefore, could be made to do so in Europe. It is only the errors of statesmen that prevent them doing so. Bring their representatives together, talk things out reasonably, and aim, above all things, at establishing good feelings between them, and you •will pacify Europe. These are the principles that * have guided Mr. Lloyd George. Uenco his passion for conferences. The Round Tablers really think—and Mr. Lloyd George with them—that France and Germany, after a fierce rivalry of centuries, can wipe out the past and live happily for ever. ' Captain Wright declares that ..the defeat of the Greeks in Asia Minor set the seal on the failure of Mr. Lloyd George's foreign policy, and concludes: —"The Round Table conception of Europe is wrong. The Bohemian emigrant in America neither forms part of a solid group nor does ho remember the past; he can quite well get on with the German. In Europe he forms part of a group which remembers only its oppression by Germans. In a word, European strife cannot bo ended only by creating an 'atmosphere,' as Mr. Lloyd George ealls it, at successive conferences. The idea is noble, but erroneous. It brought him down, and, if he returns, will do so again if persisted in. For it is against the nature of things. Tho Round Tablers have Btudied the Empire, and may be right. But they are ignorant of Europe and cannot but be wrong."

THE AMERICAN INDIANS. A sharp attack upon the treatment of Indians in the United States has been made by Mr. Clyde Kelly, a member of the Indian Affairs Committee of tho House of Representatives. Writing in the Sunset Magazine, ho says:—"Two years' intensive study has convinced me that Congress has abdicated its functions and powers for many years to a bureau. 'Die result has been just what must always follow bureaucracy. For a generation it has been the express purpose of Congress to individualise the Indians, to give them homes of their own, to help them to become self-supporting, and to make them citizens of the United States. I contend that this purpose has not been carried out in good faith by the Indian Bureau. I have no hesitation in saying that, with all tho records of injustice in tho past, the blackest paa;o of our dealings with the Indians is to be found in tho Indian Bureau system of tho past 30 years. The Indian Bureau has multiplied its activities, its employees, and its expenditure manyfold in 30 years, and has actually prevented a solution of the problem. It ha* held to all the Indians under its care, and lias reached out for others who had been self-supporting and living free from its restrictions. Once corralled by the bureau, it has been almost impossible for an Indian to break loose from a system which, by its very nature, degenerated, degraded, and destroyed. Tho Indians have been kept prisoners on reservations, under arbitrary control and without personal and property rights. . . . The American Government has expended a sufficient sum to givo every Indian child a high school education. The money has been expended, but the children have not had the education. Therefore they are doomed to be incompetent, and because of that condition the guardianship of tho Indian Bureau must be continued." Mr. Kelly quotes General Pratt, founder of Carlisle School, and better acquainted with the Indian problem than any other man in America, as saying: "Lo, the poor Indian, doesn't half express it. Driven forcibly from his ancient home, corralled on a reservation, robbed of his rights, and finally reduced to a state of practical peonage, he is deliberately kept in a state of savagery and denied the privileges of citizenship and protection of the Courts of the land which originally belonged to him alone."