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APPENDIX I. OPENING SPEECHES. 20th June, 1921. OPENING SPEECH BY MR. LLOYD GEORGE. Mr. Lloyd George : Gentlemen, I bid you all a hearty welcome to Great Britain and to Downing Street. It was only with great unwillingness that I asked you to postpone our first meeting until to-day, and I hope it has not caused any serious inconvenience to any one. lam deeply grateful to you for meeting my own personal difficulty by postponing the Conference for a few days. Since we last met, there are some notable gaps in the British Empire Delegation Our last meetings, I think, were held in Paris at the famous Peace Conference. My old friend Sir Robert Borden has laid down the cares of office, after long and sterling service throughout the war and throughout the making of peace, both to his own great Dominion and to the Empire. I relied a great deal upon his sane and ripe judgment. I am glad to hear his health is much restored, and I am sure we can count on him still for many years of valuable service in any work which he decides to undertake. In his place we welcome his successor, Mr. Meighen, who is no stranger to our counsels, because he was with us at the meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet in the summer of 1918, though this is his first appearance as Prime Minister. By General Botha's death the whole Empire has sustained a heavy loss. He was a king of men —one of the greatest and most striking figures of our time —and I feel certain that history will endorse our high contemporary esteem of his breadth of vision and nobility of character. South Africa and the Empire are fortunate in that his mantle has fallen on his distinguished colleague General Smuts, who has already played a great part in Imperial Councils during the war and in the making of the peace. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Massey are very old friends. I believe that we three enjoy the unenviable distinction of being the only Prime Ministers who took part in the war and who, so far, have survived the troublesome years of peace, and I am rejoiced to see both of them looking as young and fit as ever. Let me also extend a most cordial greeting to His Highness the Maharao of Cutch and to Mr. Sastri, who have come here as representatives of the Indian Empire. We shall, I know, find them wise and cogent interpreters of the Indian point of view in the great questions which we have to discuss. May I also express our regret that the Premier of Newfoundland has not found it possible to be present at our deliberations. General Condition of Unrest throughout the World. The Conference falls at a time of great stress in this country and of serious trouble in many parts of the world. It was inevitable that the nations which had put forth such colossal efforts and sustained such unparalleled losses of life, limb, and treasure during the war should feel all the consequences of overstrain and exhaustion. The systems which perplex the statesmen of all the belligerent countries at the present time are due to the condition in which the nations of the world have been left by the Great War. The nerve exhaustion and heart-strain which characterize such cases produce a feverish restlessness and a disinclination to steady labour which aggravate the disease and retard recovery. Never did statesmanship in all lands demand more patience and wisdom. The years that followed the Napoleonic wars produced similar or even worse experiences. In this country the distress amongst the population was very much greater after the Napoleonic wars than it is at the present moment. As a matter of fact, in spite of great unemployment and a good deal of labour unrest, there is no actual privation amongst the population, and I attribute that very largely to the self-sacrifices made by the more well-to-do of all classes in order to share their better luck with