LLOYD GEORGE.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 October 1922, Page 1

LLOYD GEORGE.

URGED TO RESIGN. AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. LONDON, October 7. The “Observer” yvliich for several years has been one of Mr TJovd George's staunchest slupporters, urges him to retire. While expressing intense admiration for his statesmanship and leadership the “Observer” hatfkjoined in the chorus of the papers demanding his retirement owing to tiie muddled British policy in the Near East. The “Observer” says:—As far as the East is concerned the Government has irretrievably lost the great war. Secondly, the necessity for a fundamental change in the personnel and the system of our Government is unanswerably proved. Thirdly, the moribund Coalition is dead at last, killed by Kern a 1 as surely as the Sparrow killed Code Robin. Fourthly, Mr Lloyd George’s position lias become quite untenable with any credit to himself, or any advantage to the country. Mr Lloyd George was a great lender in the war. We shall never forget it. If he can only make up his mind, at last though late, to sacrifice office, in order to remain his influence he will be a great leader once more in due time—perhaps sooner than is thought by most people. Now his stock is low, hut for the present, liis public usefulness is exhausted. It is strange that so infinitely clever a man has made the old, stale mistake of so many oi his predecessors by lingering too long. II he endeavours to extend his tenure st II more inordinately, ho will find the ground cut from under his feet by a majority which is not now his own. and now definitely means at no distant date to have another leader. The main currents of events at home, as of abroad, have passed beyond his control. The reasons for this anti-climax are obvious. Alone of living statesmen he has been seventeen years in office. Eight of those years have been equal to more than an ordinary generation of wear and tear. No mortal man could stand it and ho as good as he was. Neither in insight for home and foreign polities, nor in any kind of consecutive directing- energy, is lie equal, or anything like equal to the man he was at his best. Ho is fundamentally fatigued in a way that makes men incapable of really fresh thought, of vital insight, of steady concentrated application. The sooner lie stands aside, the more easily will the nation ho able to extricate itself from its immediate difficulties, and the hotter chance there will he for his own future. There is no lack of alternative combinations.”