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Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1922, Page 2

It not infrequently happens that a statesman is eventually taken to the bosom of those who were formerly his bitterest critics, but never has the reversal of attitude been so marked as in the ease of the Prime Minister of England. When Mr Lloyd George first liegan to he a force in public affairs his political opponents were disdainful rather than hostile. He was “the little Welsh Attorney” from whom better things were hardly'to he expected. Hut his condemnation of the South African war sharpened the antagonism of the Conservatives, and when he became Air Asquith’s lieutenant his assaults upon* vested interest and privilege made them regard him as an emissary of the evil one himself. It must be admitted that- Mr Lloyd George did not display a conciliatory spirit. He throve on unpopularity, and his public utterances of the “Limehouse” era were deliberately and intentionally provocative. Hut with the war ho leaped to the heights of a popularity which still endures. His most inveterate critics are now those who formerly acclaimed him, and Press vendettas and intrigues have been unable to shako liis position. All these changes, as a reviewer, are reflected in a volume of cartoons from “Punch” of which Mr Lloyd George has been subject. Mr Punch was originally anything hut an admirer of Mr Llovd George, its politics were those of the party against which lie directed his most vehement attacks, His dialectical methods were not' those of which Mr Pupfik approved, np.(l consequently Jfl-

{Punch often felt called upon to administer a rebuke to this volatile Minister. But the cartoons in which Mr Lloyd George is allotted the role of political villain belong to more than a decade ago. Since 1914 Mr Punch lias been able in general to see eye to eye with Mr Loyd George in most important points of policy, and the Prime Minister now fills the part of the hero. But it is noteworthy that even when Mr Punch disagreed most profoundly with Mr Lloyd George the former lost none of his urbanity, nor did be ever in. dulge in pictorial abuse. Mr Punch has very definite ideas ns to What constitutes good taste and his polemics never degenerate into vituperation. Genial banter, not Billingsgate, is his Weapon. It is sometimes said that Air Punch’s cartoons are altogether too restrained and “gentlemanly.” But, as this volume shows, satire is none the less effective because it is not embittered and restraint is by no means incompatible with forcefulness.