MR. LLOYD GEORGE AND RUSSIA. T HE Debate and the Divisions
on Monday, as we show in the article which precedes this, have brought home the fact that Mr. Lloyd George's politiml untrustworthiness and instability are destroying his hold on the Unionist Party and bringing the Coalition to ruin. The same want of trust is ruining his proposals in regard to Russia. If the country felt they could trust him whole- heartedly to negotiate with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, we believe that good might very possibly come from Mr. Lloyd George's specific schemes. At any rate, there would be a general consensus of opinion amongst reasonable people that the attempt to open up Russia and Russian trade should be made. As it is, however, the world thinks, and we think so too, that there is a fatal obstacle to making this experiment. One cannot trust Mr. Lloyd George. In a matter of such difficulty, and one also which may require great self-sacrifice for its accomplish- ment, he has not the requisite qualities of heart or head. To put it with the plainness which the importance of the subject demands, we cannot feel sure that when Mr. Lloyd George begins to negotiate with Russia he will strive for a sound policy, rather than for a policy which will look well at a General Election. What people fear and expect is that when he gets to Genoa " the Conference habit " will once more master him. The temptation to pro- duce some spectacular scheme for the improvement of trade, and especially for developing business with Russia, will be too much for him. Ho will be on fire before these plans can be tested or even properly considered. He will be scheming to go to the country with the naively disingenuous cry : " Do you want peace and prosperity or danger and depres- sion ? If you want peace and prosperity, vote for the Premier's policy. He can give you these blessings, and no- body else. By supporting him you do not turn yourself into a Unionist or a Conservative, or a Tory, or anything else. You can perfectly well remain a good Liberal while voting for candidates pledged to him and his policy. Is he not himself a Liberal at heart ? "
But negotiations fraught with such possibilities for gcod or evil as the Russian negotiations cannot be entered upon in that spirit. No reasonable man will object to Mr. Lloyd George hoping to further his personal ambitions by a successful coup. We do not expect our politicians to be saints. We know that personal ambition is bound to play its part in politics, and on the whole a useful part. What we object to in Mr. Lloyd George is not his ambition but the levity, the recklessness with which, when he gets possessed by an idea, whether- in home or foreign politics, that idea is pressed home. Frankly, he is not to be trusted out alone with the statesmen of Europe, especially when they include men. from Moscow. Of course, we know that Mr. Lloyd George is not physically going alone. The Treasury will have to support a- Delegation of about a hundred persons, all beaming with pleasure at the thought of " one sweet month of springtime on the dear Ligurian shore." We are also aware that he has promised not to commit the Cabinet, and so Parliament, irrevocably without consulting them. We venture to say, however, that, though we do not for a moment accuse Mr. Lloyd George of a deliberate intention to break faith with his colleagues or the House of Commons, these promises are worth nothing in the case of so impulsive a politician. If Mr. Lloyd George sees what he imagines to be the chance of making a great coup, he will forget all the limitations with which he goes to Genoa. As for the restraining influences of Lord Curzon and Sir Robert Horne, they will avail nothing. The Prime Minister will think no more of the injunctions that he received at home than does the schoolboy who promises his parents that if he is allowed a day out with the hounds he will not take any dangerous fences, or do anything rash, and will bring home his mount in good condition. When once the ardour of the chase is upon him he will set his pony at a windmill. As our readers know, we have been willing to give an intellectual assent to the policy of trying to come to an agreement with Lenin and Trotsky. Considering the murders and other horrors which we have agreed to over- look and in effect condone in Ireland, why should we refuse to overlook and condone them in Russia ? But, though we are not inclined to follow our new Burkes in a campaign against a regicide peace, we must not forget that the Government in Russia has not gone nearly as far in the way of establishing a normal state of society and a responsible and stable form of government as had the Directory in France when Pitt proposed to treat with them. To get an exact analogy we should have to see the present rulers of Russia overthrown by a genuine counter- revolutionary movement from within Russia. Though Robespierre and the Terrorists were replaced by men who had been extremists in word and deed, it was clear that the new rulers had learned their lesson and given up the idea of trying to convert the rest of Europe to Jacobin ideals by force of arms. It was far safer to treat with the men who had destroyed Robespierre than it would have been to have treated with Robespierre and Saint-Just. One can imagine those bloodstained ideologues cynically saying that their policy had been a failure, and that till they could get better opportunities for carrying it out they were willing to take help from and so make use of older political systems. To sum up, the proposed Russian policy, even if good in itself, is not the kind of policy that any man who cares for the safety and welfare of his country can regard as likely to bear good results if carried out by. Mr. Lloyd George. This sense of distrust is increased by the fact that the present Prime Minister is the Autocrat of the Cabinet. For some inexplicable reason the Ministry apparently does not contain anyone who is willing to stand up to him and restrain him when the reckless fit is in the ascendant. Instead of Mr. Lloyd George being ".the prisoner of Party," as Mr. Clyne so infelicitously described him, he is a skilful hunter who has " corralled " the greater section of the Coalitionists, and corralled them in such a way that they dare not break out.
For ourselves we are, alas ! bound to take a gloomy view of the situation as a whole. If Sir George Younger had been accustomed to take a more leading part in Parliament, we believe that he could quite well, as the Americans say, " call down " Mr. Lloyd George, and that he would ultimately receive the thanks of the Unionist Party for doing so. If he could do that, and a Unionist Government of Affairs could be formed in order to make a beginning at the essential work of putting our finances in order, and if—say, next November—an appeal were made to the country, we believe that the. voters would give the Unionists a substantial majority and leave to them the duty of com- pleting the work of national reconstruction. But, un- fortunately, there is no chance of Sir George or, indeed, of anyone undertaking this task. Therefore we shall go to the country a distracted, disunited and already beaten Party. The voters will in reality be in sympathy with the central portion of the Unionist Party. Yet the issues will be so confised that however determined they may be to vote for a Conservative and Constitutional system, they will probably contrive to send back a Parlia- ment in which the Labour Party will hold the balance of Power, amid a welter of warring and unsteady groups. That, we admit, is a dark prospect. Yet our lucky star has so often saved us in spite of ourselves that we are superstitious enough to believe that the Fortune that waits in the dark for the British people will after all prove a favourable and not a hostile deity. A fond hope ? Perhaps, but all the same we mean to cherish it. It is better to perish with a smile than with a groan I
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