INTO GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 December 1922, Page 5

INTO GERMANY.

THREAT OF FRANCE. LLOYD GEORGE’S VIEWS. ANOTHER ARTICLE. By Telegraph .---Press Association Received Dee. 15, 9.5 p.m. London, Dec. 14. Mr, Lloyd George breaks the sequence of his series of articles in order to deal with M. Poincare s criticism of his first article. He says the breakdown of the London conference, and especially the reason for the breakdown, proves that the warning in the first article was necessary and timely. Mr. Lloyd George continues: “M, Poincare demanded the occupation of the only Coalfield left to Germany as a guarantee of carrying out impossible terms. 'My statement that a strong party existed in France which demanded the Rhine as a natural barrier provoked a storm of denial, repudiation and indignation. Some were amazed at the impudence of the calumny. I shall bear invective for where fortitude is provided it elicits denials, rendering futile international mischief. “The difficult basis on which I made the assertion was thoroughly well known to those engaged in the peace conference. The Rhine has been the background of manoeuvres for weeks and months. We knew the real struggle woujd come over rhe Rhine. 1 will recall a few proofs that there was a party which considered the Rhine the only natural frontier, with a man as spokesman who, in many ways, was the strongest man in France —Marshal Fpch, in 1919. His word on the security and destiny of France was heard with deference, which no other in France could secure, and few sentences of his public utterances are Germane.”