The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1923. LLOYD GEORGE AS A PROGERMAN.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18031, 20 January 1923, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1923. LLOYD GEORGE AS A PROGERMAN.

Mr D. Lloyd Georg© has at last justified French animosity to the full, if the expressions contained in an article written by him, which appears in the cable news of to-day’s “Herald,” are his genuine views. Since the conferences of San Remo (April 1926, 1920), Hythe (May 15 and June 19, 1920), Boulogne, Brussels and Spa, in the same year, and the many other abortive discussions that have taken place between the Premiers and Ambassadors of the Allied Powers and Germany since the making of 1 the Versailles Treaty, _ Mi* Lloyd George, seemingly caring naught, has gone down in the estimation of the French people. As Mr J. M. Keynes, author of “Tho Economic Consequences of the Peace,” and its splendid sequel, “The Revision of the Treaty,” says: “The Conferences furnished an extra ordinary example of Mr Lloyd George’s methods. At each of them he pushed the French as far as he could (in the way oi making concessions to Germany Ed. The “T.H.”)—“but not as far as he wanted; and then came home to acclaim the settlement provisionally reached (and destined to be changed a month later) as an expression of complete accord between himself and his French colleague, as a nearly perfect embodiment of wisdom, and as a settlement which Germany would be well advised to accept as final, adding about every third time that, if she did. not, he would support the invasion of her territory. As time went on, his reputation with France was not improved.” It must he admitted that, to a certain extent, Mr Lloyd George gained his object—he seemed to he aiming at concessions—hut then, facts were implacably cn his side.

The person who imagines that France’s foolish act, as we see it in perspective from this side of the world, is going to ruin the friendship of France and England, is very much mistaken. At the outset, the vigour of the denunciations in the French Press following the rupture of the diplomatic Entente, made it appear as if France and Britain, ( blood-brofhers', Allies joined with ithe remembrance of a million dead and of a bloody war against arrogance and violence, were to depart, each his own way... But as the weeks passed it was realised, through the later views taken by France, that, while the Entente was politically dead, France and Britain were still great friends. To-day, Mr Lloyd George does more to attempt—seemingly —to disrupt, that national friendship which should endure when diplomats have gone their ultimate journeys. Germany, it must be admitted by even the most stern critic of French militarism, has failed to keep covenant, and has virtually abrogated the Treaty of Versailles (let us not now stop to consider the whys and wherefores of that Treaty!) Where Mr Lloyd George once said that he I would support the invasion of her 'territory, to-day. he is bitter against" France, from every point of view: from the financial point of view, the national point of view, and the idealist’s point of view. Where once ho would support invasion, to-day he screams to the air through the English Press of the evil of France, her bullying methods, adopted to a stricken enemy, her perfidy, her commercial ignorance, lief claim in comparison with the indemnity inflicted by Bismarck in 1870, and so on. All this is done at a critical time, at a time when Mr Bonar Law has managed to persuade France that Britain is not unfriendly, but that ( she has other things to do than [ to send her forces on a tour of j invasion financially a dead loss. :Mr Lloyd George, in a perfect frenzy of distress for poor stricken Germany, the Germany of Ruhleben, of ravaged Belgium, . and of brutality, moans Germanically.

Britain and France are still Allies. It is an insult to France, our Ally, that Mr Lloyd George should say, unashamed: Franco lias onco more jumped on tho prostrate form of Germany, with sabots, and lias, come down with a thud that sickens tho hearts of multitudes on both sidos of the Atlantic, whojso friend ship for Franco stood tho losses and griefs of four years of war. No doubt, there is somo joy for the unsportsmanlike mind in kicking a. helpless giant who onco maltreated you, and who, hnt for tho assistance of powerful neighbours would have done so a second time. The words used arc brutal: the sentiment vague. Does Mr Lloyd George (from our point of. view, a perspective of 12,000 miles) forget, German horrors in I ranee!" 1 Because Germany is appealing to the world for clemency (and it is not certain at present that she is) .Mr Lloyd George rises to tne occasion, and plays a German hand. Germany was overthrown for her own guilt; the ■ reparations, talking in generalities, are retribution. Britain is entitled to reparations also., but dacudas to

attempt to get them in a way other than by force; by waiting. Mr Lloyd George, probably, will write more hysterical articles when England decides that tho time has come for those payments. Mr Lloyd George is in such bad grace over the Eastern question that it is remarkable temerity for him. to publish sueii a pro-German, anti-French melange of platitudes as has been cabled from Home.