British Politics.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 January 1922, Page 3

British Politics.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. BRITISH LIBERALS. MR ASQUITH’S SPEECH. LONDON, January 23. Rt. Hon. H. A. Asquith and Viscount Grey were the chief speakers at a demonstration in the Central Hall at Westminster. . Mr Asquith declared that Viscount Grey, for a decade, in the precarious and ever-increasing international situation before the war, had been responsible (for the maintenance of peace in Europe. His return to politics was the restoration of an incalculable national asset. The Coalition, he said, had dropped its imemdiate election policy, because it would split the Coalition into fragments. The Coalition now claimed they had become ruthless economists, though, before the war, they had indulged in the costliest of futile adventures. Mr Asquith said: “The Liberal principles have not changed, I have not changed. Yet the Prime Minister on Saturday, thought it seemly to indulge in a number of personal gibes directed at mo. They are the sort of stuff which appeared in the lea filets and hfload-sheetjs of .the less Isorupulous Tory candidates at the general election of 1910. These stale jocularities, which my old cdlloaiguo and! fellow fighter has brought to life, were received with 1 appreciative laughter by eo-called Liberal delegates. I am sorry for my old friend, butt I am too old, perhaps, too disillusioned, to look for gratitude in politics; nor unhappily, is it passible to teach borne pdople good tastes and good manners.” .

BRITISH POLITICS. (Received This Day at 8 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 23. At the Central Hall demonstration, Lord Grey said he had returned to public life because since the last election, the House of Commons had allowed any apparent scandal to remain unexposed and had allowed policies however extravagant, to continue unchecked, and had allowed inconsistencies, however flagrant, to occur without calling the Government to and because we have had a Government which has taken full advantage of the license allowed by the Commons. It was absolutely essential to restore wholesome straightforward politics. The first was that the Coalition should be brought to an end. Hon Lloyd George seemed to think that he invented the method of transacting foreign affairs by conferences. That was practised before the war and would have been practised even during the war if our advice had been taken.