Foreign News: David v. Goliath

“For the honor of Great Britain, throw the Tory Government out!”

Thus with blatancy and bombast the Liberal Party Congress was addressed at Yarmouth, last week, by David Lloyd George. Though turned 65, the bandy little Welshman seemed to tingle with the fires and fervors of his youth. As though spoiling for a fight, he rubbed his eager hands and cried:

“I am glad Sir Austen Chamberlain is restored to health,— because now I can start to criticize him! As for Lord Cushendun(t) he is just a lay figure, stuffed and wound up to play the records placed on his gramophone. The Tory foreign policy is not mere folly, it is madness!”

Two thousand Liberal Delegates cheered these extravagant phrases, mostly for three reasons. First, a Parliamentary election draws nigh, and the Liberals, with only 41 seats in Parliament, must campaign with desperate zeal against Conservatives (“Tories”) who hold 412 seats, and the Labor contingent of 157. Second, the death of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith has left David Lloyd George supreme within the Liberal Party, so that even those who dislike his theatric methods hail him as the “Man of Victory.” Lastly, the kinetic personality of Orator Lloyd George nearly always sweeps his auditors off their feet. Indeed he swept all Britain and won the election of 1918 with that preposterous slogan: “Hang the Kaiser!”

Settling to business, the Congress soon passed resolutions reaffirming the historic Free Trade policy of British Liberalism, and also re-endorsed the program of agrarian reform which Mr. Lloyd George has been developing for several years past, to catch the farmer vote. Further elaboration of the party platform proceeded monotonously and then David Lloyd George jumped up to make his promised keynote attack on Tory foreign policy. His point of savage attack was, of course, the secret Anglo-French naval agreement concluded by Sir Austen Chamberlain just before his nervous breakdown (TIME, Aug. 13).

Cried Liberalism’s David at the Tory Goliath: “This Anglo-French agreement is a renewal of the old policy of military arrangements which precipitated the World War. It is designed not to limit armaments but to increase them. It means more submarines for France and more cruisers for ourselves. It also means that France is to maintain hereafter a great force of trained reserves which will be a far mighter army than she had before the War. By this compromise we have antagonized two great friendly powers, Italy and the United States.

“It is madness to antagonize America . . . especially the great Middle West of that country, which is already suspicious of Europe. Suspicious—can you blame them?

“I do not know how much is known here about that great Middle West of America but it has got the healthiest kind of conscience to be found in the world. It was that conscience which abolished slavery and I believe it will ultimately abolish savagery of war—I hope with the aid of the British Empire.

“I repeat—For the honor of Great Britain, throw the Tories out!”

Concluding his address with a prophecy, Mr. Lloyd George declared:

“I shall make three predictions. There will be an overwhelming majority of votes recorded in condemnation of the present Government. There will be an enormous accession of strength to the Liberal poll. Whatever party may have a majority, it will not be the Socialists [Laborites]”

British political dopesters know, of course, that the most the Liberals can hope for is to be returned with enough seats in Parliament to hold the balance of power between Conservatives and Laborites. Such was their good fortune at the last election but one; and they used their balance of power to place in office the first and only British Laborite who was ever Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald (TIME, Feb. 4, 1924).

*Scarcely restored to health but convalescent on a round-the-world sea voyage is Sir Austen Chamberlain, a pillar of the Conservative (“Tory”) Cabinet in which he is Foreign Sec-retary.

(t)Acting Foreign Secretary.