FASHIONING THE NEW ENGLAND.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 253, 23 February 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

FASHIONING THE NEW ENGLAND.

The following article was a telegram which was r>cnt to nearly one thousand United States, Canadian, Australasian, trench, Italian .South American, and other journals. BY LORD NORTHCLIFFE.

Y\TE have boon making history in " London during tho last week. We aro fashioning a new England, an England that "is well worth watching. The silver lining to the cloud of war is the fact that more social reforms have been accomplished in Great .Britain in tho two years and a half struggle than in the previous hundred years of peace. The burden of taxation h?s been increased on the shoulders best able to bear it—tho very rich. Our railways have come under Government control. Tho sale of alcohol i< becoming more and more regulated. The youth of the nation is being trainod in he.ilthy military exercise with effects observable by everyone. Labour is taking its proper place in Government councils. Workers are being better nmunriraled. I could name a dozen other reforms, but chiefest of all is the linking up of our far-Hung sister Statrs into a United Empire. I am asked by insistent cables from various parts of the world to explain in simple phrases the character and position of Mr. Lloyd George, of whom during this crisis I have been a friendly supporter and also a critic. I am especially asked to do so by American newspapers, and, while dictating this cable'for the United Press, with its 800 journals, I am also communicating ix. to the United Cable -Service of Australasia, and" to the "Aiatin," of Paris, and its Italian connexions.

As a personality David Lloyd George is, tor many reasons, interesting and important to the United States. He is one of the few British statesmen who understand that very difficult intangible psychology —the American temperament.

He is important to Americans for another reason. He is now at the head of the five British nations engaged at the war —Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, together with India. The winning of the war now primarily devolves upon these nations. If they and their Allies are beaten it will be America's turn next, for Germany's plans in South America and Germany' 9 hatred of the United States should bo known to all of you, and are known to every American who takes the trouble to read the antiAmerican hate propaganda of the German Government.

David Lloyd George k Interesting to your hundred millions because his life lias been very much like the life of many of you. He began humbly, with no other assets in life than a good father and mother. He had the same kind of education that the American boy gets. Thero are millions of American homes like the little homo in Wales where ho spent nis early childhood. His father was a teacher at a school in Liverpool, managed by a committee of Unitarians; which included no less a figure than Dr. Henry Martineau. His mother was the daughter of a Baptist minister in the Welsh village df Llanystumdwy. I have a picture in front of mo of this lady—a typical last-century figure with lace ca.p and fichu, and tho inevitable cameo brooon. • • • I do not know Mr. Lloyd George in private life. lam not in agreement with him in many public affairs. W* have been antagonistic in many political matters for twenty years. Ho adopted a line in the Boer War which was, from my point of view, detestable, and which incurred the hatred and even contempt of millions of his fellow subjects. But, however wrong, it was a bravo attitude, for it demanded more courage to be on the side of the minority who opposed the war than to shout with the majority who supported it. Since then Mr. Lloyd George has led all sorts of movements at variance with tho tenets of the political party to which I belong. Sometimes hj? has been right, and proved right. Sometimes ho has been wrong, and proved wrong. But in all that he has undertaken he has evinced the same courage that he has shown throughout this, one of the most momentous weeks in the history oi the. British ncoplcs. • • • i The fear of helping German propaganda in the United States ha-s prevented English writers in 'foreign journals from saying how dissatisfied the British people have beon with the politicians who have mismanaged our share of the war since. August, 1914. For a lung time the facts were hidden from tho people in theso islnnds by a cunning Censorship; by the minimising of defeats and by downright lying as to impending victories, such as the boast that wo were, on tho immediate eve of a groat victory in the Dardanelles. The true history of that disastrous gamble is not known even yot in th's country, though it has been published in the I'lulod States. Even now many of our people do not realise tho story of tnis co'ossad blunder, with its two hundred thousand casualties: its sacrifice of tho splendid youth' of Great Britain, Anstralasa, and Franco. In August, 1914, Mr. Lloyd Georgo was a member (if our Government which, alter some days' haggling, realised that if we wore to remain a nation at all wo must atlompt to save the life of little Belgium, which we were under contract to protect. Sinco that time wilh the exception of Sir Edward Carson who loft tho Government because of 'its shuffling

and indecision, -«.r, Lloyd George has courage to exhibit discontent wth our feeblo and vacillating conduct of tlie war. Now and then, in Parliamont and on tho public platform, lie attempted to toll the people a little of the truth. But on these occasions ho was always I howled clown by members of his party | and their newspapers as being unpatrxI otic; as giving comfort to the enemy ' and the rest of the hido-the-truth tacl tics common to politicians in war timo when endeavouring to cover up their blunders. Sir Edward Carson left the Govern--1 ment last year, and if Mr. Lloyd j George had gone with him then the ! war would have been greatly advanced, j Ho was prevailed upon to icmain, but ; eventually, at the end of last week, he I found the state of torpidity and self- ' satisfaction of his colleagues in tho face of repeated setbacks impossible to a j man of his vision and patriotism. Of ' these colleagues, writing as I am an article which will appear in foreign newspapers, 1 prefer only to say that , they were men who would not believe that the war was coming, and, when it ' did come, had no idea of its tremendous portent for our race. In my own newspapers at home I have spoken much more plainly—so plainly, indeed, 'as to find myself from timo to time tho best-abused man in tho country. | When, la.st week, Mr. Lloyd George • decided to smash tho party machine in which he was entangled, he took his J courage in l>oth bands. I do not bc- ' lievc that he had any personal ambition in tho matter. Events have made him Prime Minister—a position almost is powerful as that of your President; but • i: was his desire that the distinction ■ should be conferred on another, and, I indeed, for somo hours it looked as I thovgh our m w Prime Minister would be a Scotsman —Mr. Bonar Law — rather than a Welshman, j Mr. Lloyd George went out into the i wilderness alone so far as his own party ' vas concerned. He bad with him a supporter (Mr. bonar Law) previously opposed to him in practically every ' phaSti of politics, and an outside helper in Sir Edward Carson whoso Irish policy is diametrically opposite to that of I Mr. Lloyd George, 'those three men, v ith Lord Derby, lmvcv produced a mir--1 acle of which all the world is- talking. | They have, in few days, formed a Govi eminent, marred, it is true, by the in- ' elusion of some notable former failures, but enriched by the brains of Lusinesg men, Labour men, and new politician;. i * I Tho greater part of the work has been done by Mr. Lloyd George himself. He is constantly referred to hex© as * tho little Welshman," but ho is not | r.fc all bttle. You probably have his portrait before you as you read these lines. The. head is not that of a little man, mentally or physically. It is the head of a man with a sparkie of genius, combined with Celtic energy and in- ' tense industry. For the greater part of this week he has been at the War Office, of which he was the bead, till three, in the morning, returning to bis i difficult task of making a composite j national Government six hours later. Ido not often see him. Ido not suppose that I have seen him a dozen times altogether during our acquaintance, but I saw him just before he made bis decision, and he appeared a tired man, looking much older than his fifty-three yours. Within a few hours of his telling Mr. Asquith that ho could no longer unconditionally servo under him, Mr. Loyd Goorgo looked ten years younger. I have seen him at two other crises of tho war. The first, when ho got the. shells that tho Government and the i Army had forgotten to provide; tho second, when he nearly—oh, so nearly —accomplished the unification of Ireland. On each of these occasions, as during this week, the man revealed fiimsolf as a human dynamo. Every ounce of energy is focussed on the immediate task in hand. He combines the persuasiveness of the Irishman with tho concentration of the American and tho thoroughness of the Englishman. j His critics say ho tires too quickly of his task. That Ido not believe. He gives every ounce of attention to the achievement of the particular object in hand and then passes on to the next important effort. Some of his habits of concentration are a little trying to his co-workers. When involved in a scheme he is a very bad keeper of appointments and an impossible correspondent. The letters that he writes are just the absolutely essential communications of the moment. He seems to have no settled hours for meals at these times. As far ftit I can gather, during the past week his diet seemed to consist principally of cigars and tea, but I believe that he takes breakfast and usually adds to the meal tho winning over of one or other difficult but nceese-iry human unit in tho proposition with which bo is dealing. He has the unusual gift of genius of getting other people to do things for . him, and often getting the right, peoiilc ' —but not always. Making a Government is, 1 Mipposr'. the same all the world over. Making a real War Govoninient, such as we are making, is not quite ns easy a task as handinj.-; out places to hungry poliIticiam in peace time. Mr. I,loyd (ieorgo has tried to the best of his ability ti> gather around him reprcsenta- ■ lives of all that ii best in British life. Distance and circumstance alone have

'prevented tlie invitations to men like laid Sliaughnessy, of Montreal, and Mr. Hughes, tho Prime Minister of Australia. He lias had to do his picking and choosing ith lightning rapidity, because in war tho value of time is quintupled. The Government he has got together will last, but it needs pruning. It contains too many of what aro known in the United States a* has beens," and is cumbered by too many fossils representative of a "past age. No one knows exactly how they got there, but I think I know the reason. This quick, determined, energetio Welshman is just a. little too kindhearted. Nevertheless, he has formed a Government which is the cause of rejoicing throughout the Empire, and especially to our soldiers facing theit third winter in tho trenches.

His political opponents, who at tho beginning of the week thought that he would not ho al>!o to mako a Government, now affect to believe that his Government will not last. T hold different opinions. I believe tli it he will be at tho head of tho Government that wins the war; that brings about a settlement of the Irish question and maintains that essential factor —good will between tho people of the, Englishspeaking nations of the British Empire and the people of the United States.