BRITISH ELECTIONS

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 41

BRITISH ELECTIONS

EXCERPTS FROM THE SPEECHES. DANGER OF VOLCANOES. Fbom Oub Own Cokjvespondent.) LONDON, November 10. VisconnU Gray: “I hope there will be a fresh start in foreign affairs. The recent Near Eastern crisis provided a scandalous exhibition of the strongest nations in Europe taking different sides. Had Britain not been encouraging Greece I would have laid all the blame on France for supporting Turkey, but if the British Government pursues a different policy other countries will do the same. Moderate men were driven away from the Coalition because it had too many volcanoes. makes me anxious that they should not return is that the volcanoes are not yet extinct. Mr Chamberlain and Lord Balfour, who are not volcanoes, think that by remaining round they may be able to control the volcanic energy. At present we want steady concentration on economy, steady avoidance of adventures, and a rest from volcanic energy.” WHO MUDDLED US INTO WAR? At a meeting at Finsbury Park the chairman of the meeting produced a poster, which read: “Who muddled us into war? Asquith and Gray. Never again !” Lord Grey threw the poster from the table to the platform, and Lady Grey afterwards picked it up and tore it into shreds. In his speech. Lord Grey maintained that any historian of the future who reads all the documents would be convinced that the British Government did its uttermost to work for peace up to the last moment, and that on our hands there was no blood guiltiness for the war. Why, he asked, was the name of Mr Lloyd George omitted from the poster? When people talked about war “never again” they should remember that the Coalition Government had. the other day, brought, ns to the very brink of war —a war in the Neag East singlehanded, without the support of any allies. DAZZLING BRILLIANCE Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen (a member of the late Cabinet): “It was the dazzling brilliance of certain persons in the late Cabinet which brought, us within an ace of war with Turkey last month, when the situation was only just saved by Lord Curzon and General Harrington. It was this more than anything else which made me feel the impossibility of my continuing under the existing regime.”

MR CHAMBERLAIN’S RETORT. Mr Austen Chamberlain: “It is not usual nor constitutional that a Minister or ex-Minister should give an account of what took place in Cabinet without having first obtained the permission of his Majesty. I do not know whether Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen took that precaution, but I am certain that the permission would only have been given for a truthful and accurate account, and I wish to say at once' that that account is wholly untrue. No military order was given in connection with the recent crisis in the Near East except upon the advice and in accordance with the advice of the chiefs of the three General Staffs of the three great services, acting upon information supplied by the general in command at Constantinople. And I wish to say. further, in the most explicit terms, that the policy which the late Government were pursuing was agreed to by every member of the Cabinet, including the late Minister of Agriculture. And I would remind Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, since in the turmoil of an election and in the anxious moments when he has to explain to himself, or to others, how he comes to be where he is after being what he was —I would remind him that he told me that he went to the Carlton Club meeting not having made up his mind which way he was going to vote, and that he only took his decision within that meeting in consequence of what passed there.” A SLEEPING CABINET. Lord. Birkenhead: “We are indeed to be treated m the next few years to an illustration of the policy of inaction, as the new Prime Minister quoted from Mr Disraeli a statement that what the country wanted was quiet at home and peace abroad. V T ell, I should think it probably did. I don’t know many countries or many peoples, excent perhaps the Angora Turks, who don’t. You don t make a poliev or a programme out ot talk: oi that kind What is the good when the miners, or the Triple Alliance, come and sav: ‘We are going to pull down, the whole foundations of the national .life w 1 ,f the good of saying to them No, you can * do that, because I km negative You don r. understand the policy of the lo It is negative. Go away, get ' work ’ When a million men. walking the streets, say. ‘We can’t get work have not enough to eat in spite of a t j merit have done,’ von can t turn round ana back into the streets. How dare you .interrupt the Cabinet; they, were just, going 35--S7® fi-is-f-a might have b f en t , inV i rfiy of Conhideous enme to great and B|ish°soldie r^ ., 'Btendto* « »•jrssss a brass farthing he cared sleeping sickness. The O J who knew about was that there " hc) e intended to give their own mmds an . ; ma intain effect to their own tifre G f this the ancient honoured .P^/ Ufe did j country. ... • , A me i ess anxiety, take a decision whic ’ * ]eSH regret since Jess doubt before I took W .8 I have taken it. g tjH the captain the Woolsack, but I recaptured the of my own soul. IfeJ as it out of Parliament and in Paro.S. TO THE DOMINIONS. Lord Derby: • . „ke we were on v “ W’ T oAtar regard what the brink of war. if a opeal to the dothey called therr S appe than _ a minions as being . Turkey—a war xn declaration of Nvar whh LurK which I am perfectly * - of u have had none of the gPP would country which f heir policy with regard ho* with another war, and the danger »n ot THE IRISH TREATY. Mr lkmar Law: . on the govern- “ Those who are car „ £ t j iat the new ment in Ireland may th Government is host. 1 it 9UCCess we are When we say vie . _ , d all. We not paying,h p s And they will honestly wish it success baTul find that to. us in connection with There were two * h ‘ => ; was introduced, the Treaty which after it _ esscllma.de me uidiesitatingT Tn t if tial tilings, the n _ . All-Ireland she was ever to n Uh er own free will. Parliament, must «>me h had dewithout compulsion and T o U id put aU^eir efforts into earing m f g the Provisional Government m Dublin of u ‘ his colleagues were kind enough and one of his con - h en I became to come oyer and see Prime M, n,ster The conve wm n°rTobiS? to me’ saving this; They gave in onrrYinGr out tne lrwavv i • i letter There is great disorder. R will ll' s trrent struggle. Things are going on whid/we a l abhor, but my opimon « St there is a growing feeling m Inland +ll f Ktttte Wv and there is growing* a public opinion behind the policy it. contains.” MESOPOTAMIA AND PALESTINE. Mr Bonar Law: “I daresay some of you have noticed that we are being asked to sav we will get out of Mesopotamia, and Palestine. I wish we had never gene there We will certainly examine it. We will examine it with a perfectly open mmd but. we must consider —a nation v, ith our traditions must always consider—not. merely what will pay us best at the moment, but- what obligations vie have incurred which we cannot "pay But that does not mean that I admit—l have not given it enough examination to say—that we halve obligations which keep us there. . . . “It is very’ likely 1 may have . to go to Conferences. for no Prime Minister can ever be free from responsibility for foreign affairs, and at no time can there be friction between the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister without

worse results following to the country : but it. is my intention to leave the main direction of our foreign policy td a man who, I think, has done it very well—to out present Foreign Secretary—and to do noth i tig without at least having the benefit of his advice.” A VAIN AND FOOLISH DREAM. Lord Carson : “There are still foolish people who imagine that Ulster can be driven under (he Southern Government. I think that hallucination does probably more harm than any other. It holds out vain hopes to those in your community wdio resent vour Government, and it holds out still more vain hopes to the community in the South and West who haye dreams of your conquest and of having you submit to uieir authority. No, any such idea is absolutely out of the question. “Friendly co-operation, friendly intercourse, all that can be brought about by brotherly love, 'ought to he in existence between the North and the South, but any man who dreams that Ulster is to sur render to the South dreams a vain and futile and—may I say?—a harmful and dangerous drham. Ulster was unconquerable in the »past . She is unconquerable now. She w’ill remain unconquerable in the future.” WHY THE COALITION DIED. Sir George Younger: “Last December the Conservative Central Office informed Mr Chamberlain that diffioult.ies were arising in the constituencies. In July I told the senior Conservative Ministers how impossible was his task in trying to keep the party together, and how it, appeared to me they were posting on to an inevitable split in the party, a split which would have been disastrous not only to the party but to the nation, a hat meeting in July was inconclusive. In September a week-end meeting was held at Chequers, at which two or three Conservative Ministers and two or three of Mr Lloyd George's supporters decided on the policy announced by Mr Chamberlain at Birmingham as the policy which they intended to go to the country upon and impose upon their folloxvers. I was in Scotland. and wrote:. ‘I am appalled to hear of the decision which has been taken; it will break our parry in twain if persisted in.’ “I knew perfectly well that the policy decided upon would never get a majority, or anything like it, at the election. I also knew that the party would be smashed to atoms, and I made up my mind that if there was to he a split it would be a split from the top of the party, and not from the bottom : that the leaders who had chosen a feolish and disastrous policy would he the men to go. and not the body and the tail. And we have maintained the solidarity of the partv. I care nothing for the result of the election in comparison with the vital necessity of maintaining our party intact.” “ ' DON’T WAKE THE NEW GOVERNMENT. Mr Lloyd George: “You must consider conditions, you must adapt yourselves to them. As a very shrewd man said to me: ‘When you are out on a voyage the tranquillity does not depend upon the -ship, but upon the sea.’ And if it happens to be rough you have got to bustle about. You cannot lie down on the bridge or in your cabin. The policy of tranquillity is a dangerous one in view of the situation with which we are confronted. It is really not a policy, it is a yawn. You are electing a Parliament for five years —to stretch 6n the green benches of the House of Com mans and on the red benches of the Lords, and to tneet every new problem with a gap. You cannot do that. The middle classes oome and sav : ‘Our taxes are high. We are being crushed with taxation The working classes oome and say: ‘W e are out of jabs— over a million of us. We have expended our reserves —the trade union re serves —the little reserves we hei i sa-ved up in the good times. Even the little ornaments we had have gone.’ I have heard some tales of that. “They were telling me in Scotland how the poor men’s bankers’ shops were glutted with the little things bought m the warjust enough to enable them to go on. W ith all this they come and say: ‘What are you going to do?’ and somebody says: Hush. Don’t wake the new Government. Ah. Can you really approach the future with a policy of that kind? You cannot do it GALLIPOLI GRAVES. Mr Lloyd George: , , , “Whatever happens, the flag must not be let down Sir Charles Hanngton, whose skilful and firm handling of the situation was one of the most notable features of the recent negotiations, attributed the success of the Mudania Conference to two tilings The first was the admirable behaviour oi the Bi-itish troops, and the second was the firmness shown by the Government -the way we sent reinforcements to him and showed that Great Britain was not to be bullied in either the East or the West, “No one doubts that if we had not done sr „ we should have been -swept out of Ohanak Gallipoli, with its graves, would have bien surrendered, the Straits would to” SS, m *l« "SB ' them against our ships m 1914, Uonstanu nople would have been m the hands of those who burned Smyrna and General Maui’ice said that the fires of Smyrna would oahT before what would have happened in Constantinople. War would have spread Oonstanti 1 God a l one knows where the°conflagration would have stopped lmt tne connufe admirable conduct of Z S iBrSsT and by the firm, prompt , • r i-i,„ Oovernment &t tht? time. 'N e st°ooT without France and without Italy. accepted the responsibility and we stopped the danger.