TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE USUAL UNNECESSARY CRISIS.
O(INE of the saddest and most ironical facts about the -succession of crises in which Mr. Lloyd George has become involved is that they need not have happened. We fully admit that French policy is very difficult to recon- cile with British policy, or for the matter of that with American or Italian policy. We also fully admit that Mr. Lloyd George's intentions—his plan of bringing all the nations together and persuading them to make future wars impossible by forging links of partnership and common interest—are excellent. Nevertheless, the Genoa crisis need not have happened in the particular form in which it has happened, because the approaches to it created by Mr. Lloyd George would not have existed. One almost despairs of Mr. Lloyd George learning to manage his policy steadily because in the past he has continually surmounted the difficulties of his own creation by brilliant impro- visations. He almost thrives on difficulties. Why, then, should he trouble to avoid them ? Some reasoning like that may be the undesigned or unconscious tendency in his mind.
Very good illustrations of how things ought to be done and how they ought not to be done are afforded by com- paring the Washington Conference with the Genoa Con- ference. President Harding, Mr. Hughes and their colleagues had, as everyone admits now, great enthusiasm for their project. But that did not prevent them from studiously thinking things out in advance ; they took every precaution suggested by wisdom and moderation for preventing mishaps. For example, they did not let their enthusiasm run riot in such a way that they assumed good will on the part of others without any clear evidence that the good will existed. They did not hector nations into sending representatives to Washington—they knew that people who came against their inclinations would impede rather than help the Conference. Above all, they made sure that they had from the very outset one firm friend who would back them through thick and thin. They knew for certain, that is to say, that British and American aspirations were identical. That was a splendidly firm foundation upon which to build. Then, again, they did not clutter-up their agenda paper with a large number of doubtful or superfluous topics. Note the result. As France was not intimidated into sending representatives she sent them of her own accord, because she reflected that it was not desirable to be out of a world-movement. It is true that the French delegates found themselves in many respects out of sympathy with the Washington atmosphere, i but in the end, acting under the original conviction that it would not be wise to be out of the swiin, France agreed to the main objects of the Conference. Having looked at that picture, let us look at the other. Mr. Lloyd George went to Genoa without having estab- lished any firm political friendship with anybody. He therefore had no sound foundation. Quite the reverse— France was. suspicious, Russia was suspicious, Germany was suspicious (if not of us at least of France), and Italy was, to say the least of it, confused. The initial suspicion and confusion have so far become aggravated rather than reduced. If the Conference should break up with nothing settled—though we sincerely hope that this may be avoided —it would have been better that the Conference should never have been held. ' To attempt the big thing and to fail is nearly always to leave matters worse than they were before. It would not have mattered so much that Mr. Lloyd George's so-called understanding with France before the Conference was frail and ambiguous if he had had other devoted friends. He might have carried the thing through in spite of the French, just as the Americans carried their enterprise through at Washington. But, as it was, nobody was satisfied before the Conference, and when we write everybody seems to be less satisfied than ever. What in general is the cause of such a peril as this— we will not yet write of it as a failure—which is like so many other perils associated with Mr. Lloyd George's name ? In our judgment the real cause is that Mr. Lloyd George is unable to create confidence. He repeatedly etecites admiration ; he repeatedly provokes gasps of wonder at his ingenuity and quickness in untying knots_; he repeatedly brings hack for a short time under his spell men who have been previously disillusioned. But he never disseminates an atmosphere of confidence. Yet it is essential to such an undertaking as the Genoa Conference that everyone should have confidence in the prime mover. So far from disseminating confidence Mr. Lloyd George, in spite of his unique faculties, dispels it. This leads us on to ask how he manages to do this time after time. The answer, we believe, is that the defect of his great quality—his quality of negotiation—is always asserting itself. He tries to soothe everybody, and very often, till some shattering revelation is made a little- later, every- body actually is soothed. Our readers will probably remember many instances of this in politics abroad and at home and in industrial affairs. We will take only two recent instances. First, let us consider the boundary dispute in Ireland. Mr. Lloyd George soothed Sir James Craig into thinking that the Northern boundary laid down in the Act of 1920 was safe in all essential respects, and he soothed Mr. Collins into thinking that the whole subject was open to reconsideration and that the Southern Irish had a very reasonable title to a large part of the Northern area—perhaps as much as two counties. Of course, Mr. Lloyd George would declare that he never said anything of the sort to either of them. No doubt he believes that both Sir James. Craig and Mr. Collins are very unreasonable to attach their particular meanings to whatever innocent and genial words he may have used. Still, the fact remains that there is now a complete loss of confidence in Mr. Lloyd George. Both sides, whether they can produce chapter and verse or not, say that they have been misled.
The second example which we shall mention was discussed recently in the House of Commons. During the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919 Mr. Sisley Huddle- ston, the Paris correspondent of the Westminster Gazette, attributed to Mr. Lloyd George sentiments about repara- tions which were unexpectedly indulgent towards Germany. Some 300 Members of Parliament, who at that time believed that Germany would be able to pay enormous sums, took alarm and telegraphed a protest to Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Lloyd George replied that there was no foundation whatever for the report that he was contemplating letting Germany down more easily. The Members of Parliament were reassured and the incident ended. But a few months ago Signor Nitti published a book in which he quoted textually a memorandum about reparations drawn up by Mr. Lloyd George in 1919. Anyone who cares to go into the matter will find that this memorandum was quite fairly and accurately summarized- by Mr. Hud- dleston in the message which caused such alarm in 1919. In the House of Commons the other day Mr. Lloyd George, when asked for an explanation, said that he was not referring to Mr. Huddleston's message at all. Apparently_ it was something said by Lord Northcliffe to which he had referred. No doubt Mr. Lloyd George's explanation was " all right "—his explanations are always " all right " ; probably the policy of the 1919 memorandum was not that which many of his critics, whether Lord Northcliffe or somebody else, supposed it to be. But the fact remains that most people had in their minds the message in the Westminster Gazette which was the subject of eneral discussion at the time, and that Mr. Lloyd George's repudiation was regarded as referring to that message. Now we find that the message was completely justified. Moreover, there was no reason why Mr. Lloyd George should even have appeared to repudiate the memorandum. It was full of good sense. He always prefers the circuitous to the straight route. Thus confidence is annihilated. While we are writing about Mr. Lloyd George and the Press we should like to say that in our judgment he pays far too much formal attention to it. Of course, the Press would be useless if responsible persons did not read it and consider its criticisms. But it is quite another matter for Ministers both to feed their favourite organs with infor- mation and opinions and to enter into public disputation with those newspapers which they dislike. A rather ridiculous example of the wrong attitude for a Prime Minister to take towards the Press is Mr. Lloyd George's denunciation of the Times and the Daily Mail. We are not defending the Times and the Daily Mail, which in some respects seem to us to have been a good deal leas than fair to Mr. Lloyd George's aim in foreign policy, when we say that it is futile to pretend that these papers are wrecking the Genoa Conference. If the Conference should be wrecked the wreckers would not be the Times and the Daily Mail. They may be very powerful, but they are not so powerful as all that. Dr. Johnson said that no man can be written down except by himself, and the same thing is true of politicians. When political schemes come to naught or bring about disaster, the real authors of the trouble are those who framed or carried out the policy. The policy may have been injurious in itself, or it may have been a good policy very badly handled. The second of these causes of failure seems to be true of Genoa.
We hope that if Mr. Lloyd George does not convince his followers that Lord Northcliffe has wrecked the Genoa Conference he will not, as an alternative, try to persuade them that the failure is entirely due to France. What is needed now is that the British Government should go forward with a policy of appeasement and reconciliation in a steady manner. We know that in this matter France is unsympathetic and obstructive, and we deeply regret it. But exaggeration, either of the -wrongheadedness of France or of her justification, will not help us at all. The disservices of those who virtually urge France to take up arms again against Germany are almost matched by the disservices of our wonderful pacifists, who have now reached the point of saying in effect to the Government, " If you do not knock France down and teach her a lesson, you are no friend of peace." We ought no more to be harsh and unhelpful to Germany in order to please France than we ought to forget that France stands in history as by far the greatest sufferer from German aggression.
M. Poincare is, of course, in an exceedingly diffi- cult position. We ought to remember that the vast majority of French peasants have some savings in the Russian loans, and when M. Poincare says that France insists on collecting all the money that is due to her, whether from Russia or from Germany, he is speaking on behalf of millions. All the same, though the French people naturally want their money, and though the habit of investing in Government loans is more widely spread throughout the French population than in any other country, the mass of the French people are not militaristic at heart. There may be many things that they want, but they want peace—the opportunity to stay at home and to till their small lands and carry on their trades—more than anything else in the world. M. Poincare is not immortal ; his Premiership will come to an end ; but the sentiments of the French people as a whole will remain what they are now and what they have been for generations. If we were to say anything in criticism of the French people altogether, we would express the hope that they will not indefinitely allow militaristic politicians to deflect their splendid industry and their fine tenacity of purpose or to override their abiding desire for peace.
To sum up, our need is that our foreign policy should be conducted quietly and steadily and in such a way as -to create confidence. That is our only hope. We trust Mr. Lloyd George will remember that the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service have men of special training and experience, who are anxious to be used. They at least—for it is not their way—would not throw the French people into frenzies of suspicion. There is no conceivable reason why even now France and Great Britain should not be brought near together again. France, as she proved at Washington, does not want to be morally isolated. In the final analysis her wisest men recognize that if Germany is bled white, not only would a general recovery be delayed or prevented, but Great Britain in those circumstances would be bound to ask that a_share of the money received from Germany should be spent in paying back the money we lent to our European allies. Whatever we might receive would have to be passed on to America. These are " carnal thoughts," and we would not dwell upon them, though they are perhaps just worth mentioning as factors in the problem. The .really important thing at the moment is that Mr. Lloyd George should be brought by his friends to see the necessity of creating confidence. He seems hardly to know how to do it, but if he gave the matter serious thought his resource and adaptability might be equal even to this.
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