NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Shannon News, 13 April 1923, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

OUT OF OFFICE. MR. LLOYD GEORGE IN THE BACKGROUND. The politician serves a queer public. So long as he satisfies the taste of the moment, his position is assured, says Mr. Philip Guedalla in the ” Daily Mail.” The fierce light that beats on thrones and prize-fighters is dim compand w.lh the glories of his publicity. Put when the change comes, when the bottom drops out of his market and the -world goes past him, the vo'ev. that, was once so sonorous when it was " the organ-voice of England " is left twittering in solitude, and its master is marooned in obscurity. With in a year one has seen a Prime Minister fade out of power into a repose which is not even interrupted by the leisured dignity of leading the Opposition. The old activities of Downing Street seem half a century away from Mr. Lloyd George. The crowding deputations,, the smiling conferr

enees that used to face the camera, (on garden seats) and astonish the world with reiterations of that perfect too perfect, Allied unaniihity, belong to the history books. The central figure, which was once so near and cast so broad a shadow, seems to have receded into the long perspective of history. Perhaps a little damped, perhaps (who knows) slightly relieved. Mr. Lloyd George survives into the new era. Once the richest, the most rococo ornament of his pertod, he ! seems now an odd survival of an oldstyle. He has still his peregrinations about Europe, “in the fearless old fashion.” -But he is writing his memoirs. He is even writing for the newspapers—and that, for a politician, Is the equivalent of acting on the films for a lady of fashion. Yet the little figure is not quite still; Perhaps his retirement of 1022 Is no more final than Mr, Gladstone's of 1878, Nobody—least of all himself—can tell,