THE BRITISH PREMIER

Hokitika Guardian, 8 October 1920, Page 1

THE BRITISH PREMIER

at a SPECIAL INTERVIEW. (Per Press Association.) LIONDON, October 6. Tlie Premier, Mr Lloyd George, has given his views in a special interview for the Press. After opposing Dominion Home Pule for Ireland, he went on to refer to tlie British Labour Party He- said that their policy was not merely, the nationalisation of the mines and the railways, hut it amounted to the nationalisation eventually of the whole processes of society. He said the Liberal Party was quite rootedly opposed to this policy, and quite as much so was the Coalition Government. Perhaps it was more so.

The Liberals, he said, were accusing him of bringing back a reactionary peace from Versailles, but the peace, he had signed was the minimum peace that France would accept. He did not believe that tlie Liberals would have advocated breaking with h ranee, and the making of a separate peace with Germany. He said there would be no effective League of Nations until America and Germany joined it. Germany should he allowed in at once, that was provided that she respected the Peace Treaty obligations. He believed slip wpuld do so. Mr Lloyd George asserted he believed that America would also join the League, after the next Presidential elections.

The Premier said lie believed the temperance question should be settled not nationally, hut provincially. This was because each part of the Kingdom desired a different settlement. He did not believe that the nation

would profit by nationalising the railways and the mines. Ho was not pledged to nationalisation. He claimed that directing minds were required, in industry. Russia’s efforts to govern industry hv commissaries had become/ a fraud. Now, he said, after bloodshed land horror, the Russians were striking for a return to a saner system of industrial guidance. Mr Lloyd 'Geqnge, in conclusion, affirmed that he considered the Coalition Government still met tho nppds of the day. He could see no present alternative .to it.