Peace and Rhetoric.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19142, 27 October 1927, Page 8

Peace and Rhetoric.

Mr Lloyd George, according to yesterday's cable news, regards the League of. Nations as "a sham" because it avoids inconvenient questions. On precisely the same grounds Mr Lloyd George might be called " a sham," for, haying appealed to the nations "to "seek justice for the protection of " established right and not force," lie conveniently evades the question of how this is to be done. The criticisms Mr Lloyd George directs against the League are perfectly obvious to, all intelligent people, and no man of his standing has any justification for repbating them in public unless he has some better remedy to offer than vague exhortations that take 110 account of practical difficulties. The impasse over the Geneva Protocol has demonstrated clearly enough to all of us where the League's difficulties lie, and what we want is not tiresome surveys of a situation we are well aware of, but thoughtful suggestions for relieving it. The latest issue of the New Statesman, which is more radical in its opinions' thari. Mr Lloyd George, and always adopts a pacifist tone, contains a significant protest against this vague talk, of outlawing war and the quite impossible schemes that have been advanced at Geneva for promoting world peace. This journal describes Poland's " non-aggression pact," of which ,we heard so much a few weeks ago, as " nothing but a pious resolution " and "barely worth the paper it is written '' on until practical methods) are found " for implementing it," and then goes on to criticise Mr Ramsay MncDonald for using his influence to try to revive the Protocol after it has clearly been shown to be unworkable. It is refreshing to find a paper of such " ail- " vanced " views with such a clear conception of the difference between idealism and c-rying for the moon.