NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20257, 17 May 1929, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MR, LLOYD GEORGE. "Mr. Lloyd George's stock is rising." says Time and Tide. "He is still the biggest political personality in the country. All he lacks now is a' crisis. He is trying to persuade the country that unemployment is that crisis. He may succeed. He may persuade a people which every year grows more sophisticated in economic matters that a Government headed by the man who 'won the war' can cure unemployment by a wave of the magic political wand. . . He is relatively young in years and ardently young in spirit, and yet he emerges from the political picture as the 'old man of politics.' Barring Sir Herbert Samuel, ho alone remains of that old ruling Liberal group, and of all the great figures who saw the war through in the Allied and enemy countries and made the peace (such as it is) he alone remains, active and hopeful, indefatigably pulling out new stops in his incomparable organ—under whose resounding notes, however, one detects that old, familiar music which never fails to remind us of days which arc past and will never return. . . He sees beyond party forms to the underlying human realities. And it is possible that ho sees beyond the immcdiato prospect of a Labour-Liberal coalition to the emergence* of a centro group, anti-Socialist, but not anti-Labour, gathering to itself all the elements who fret in the respective Conservative and Labour camps, all the youth, energy, adventure and hope of a nation tiring of old party lines which no longer mean what they used to mean. He would like such a group to crystallise round himself. If only there would arise a crisis to shatter the cement which binds parties!" CAVALRY NOT OBSOLETE. The view that cavalry is the only arm capable of carrying out the duties of reconnaissance with certainty and completeness is maintained by General Sir George Barrow in a recent issue of the Cavalry Journal. It was thought that aircraft would supplant the mounted arm in the field of reconnaissance. General Barrow declares that that anticipation has not been fulfilled. Aircraft observation fails in fog and mist. How blind a fog or mist, can mako airmen was proved during manoeuvres in Hampshire in 1926. A large force of aircraft was to have been employed for reconnaissance, but owing to a mist the machines did not leave the ground. Without in the least intending to under-rate the value of tho mechanised force, General Barrow emphasises one or two important facts in favour of tho horse. When it is a question of employing tho most powerful of all weapons—surprise—ho maintains that cavalry remains unequalled as an instrument for that purpose. Tho mounted man, too, can take his horso over difficult arid enclosed country, and exploit it bettor than his iron equivalent. Further, horses can exist on half, or even quarter, rations for a time, and can live on tho country over which they are operating. "The mechanised vehicle," General Barrow points out, "comes to a dead stop when once its fuel is exhausted, and nothing will coax it to move another inch."