BRITISH POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1922, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS.

NEW THRUST AT PREMIER. RETIREMENT URGED. ..i ERIEND TURNS ENEMY. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Oct. 8, 5.5 p.m. London, Oct. 7. The Observer, which for several years has been one of Mr. Lloyd George’s (staunchest supporters, expressing intense admiration for his statesmanship and leadership, has joined in the chorus of papers demanding his retirement owing to the muddled British policy in the Near East. The Observer says that as far as the Near East is concerned the Government has irretrievably lost the Great War; secondly, the necessity for a fundamental change in the personnel and system of our Government is unanswerably proved; thirdly, the moribund Coalition is dead at last—killed by Kemal as surely as the sparrow killed cock robin; fourthly, Mr. Lloyd George’s position has become quite untenable with any credit to himself or advantage to the country. The Observer adds: “Mr. Lloyd GeorgS* was a great leader in the war, and we shall never forget it. If he can only make up his mind at last, though late, to sacrifice office in order to regain his influence he will be a great leader once more in due time, perhaps sooner than thought by most people. Now his stock is low, but for the present his public usefulness is exhausted. It is strange that so infinitely clever a man has made the old and stale mistake of so many of his predecessors by lingering too long. If he endeavors to extend his tenure still more inordinately he will Tmcl 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 head. “The main currents of events at Home, as abroad, have passed beyond his control. The reasons for this anticlimax are obvious. Alone of living statesmen he has been seventeen years in office, and eight of these years have been equal to more than an ordinary generation of wear and tear. No mortal man could stand it and be as good as he was. Neither in his insight for home and foreign politics, nor in any kind of consecutive and directing energy is he equal, or anything like equal, to the man he was at his best. He is fundamentally fatigued in the way that makes men incapable of really fresh thought, of vital insight, and of steady, concentrated application. “The sooner he stands aside the more easily will the nation be able to extricate itself from its immediate difficulties and the better chance there will be for his own future. There is no lack of alternative men and alternative com-binations.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

H. G. WELLS STANDS FOR LABOR. LONDON UNIVERSITY CANDIDATE. Received Oct. 8, 5.5 p.m. London, Oct. 7. Mr. H. G. Wells, in acknowledging selection as Parliamentary Labor candidate for London University at the general election, which Mr. Sidney Webb unsuccessfully contested as Labor candidate in 1918, said the Labor Party was meant not merely for the working classes, but for every sort of productive effort and service. The university representative should make it his duty to see that education was not cheapened or sweated. He never saw a guardsman dressed in his finery without feeling he was dressed in the stolen pens and stationery and the impaired mental health of poor kiddies. We wanted the nation’s affairs managed not by whispers in bankers’ parlors, but by plain speeches in the professorial chair. LIBERALS AND FOREIGN POLICY. Received Oct. 7, 5.5 p.m. London, Oct. 6. Mr. H. H. Asquith and Sir Donald Maclean addressed a Scottish Liberals’ conference at Dumfries, which adopted a resolution that Britain’s foreign policy should aim at reconciliation with late enemy countries and the establishment of friendly relations with all peoples, and an amendment of the so-called Peace Treaty to conform to these ends. The conference also affirmed its belief in the League of Nations as a safeguard against. future wars and a means of fostering international goodwill.