MR. LLOYD GEORGE AND SMALL NATIONS.

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 29

MR. LLOYD GEORGE AND SMALL NATIONS.

Despite all their eagerness to esteem and honor a fellow-countryman who has • risen to the position- of British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George's Welsh hosts at the St. David's Day dinner must have felt a sense of humiliation when they heard him talk of having been instrumental -in relieving small nations from tyranny (says the London Catholic Times). For what is his record with regard to a small nation which is near to the British shores and under the sway of the Government of which he is the head-a small nation which has always had the.sympathy of the Welsh people in her efforts to recover her liberty? There lias scarcely been a period of more outrageous tyranny and misgovernment in her whole history than that during which Mr. Lloyd George has occupied the post of Premier. With one voice, as it were, her people and their chief pastors cry out against the ill-treatment of Ireland. "In their insane attempts to extinguish the unquenchable fire of patriotism," says the Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, "the British Ministers have given us martial law for government and turned our country into a prison." Yet, Mr. Lloyd George, the Minister chiefly responsible for this, speaks jauntily of the part he has played in liberating small nations from tyranny ! If he feels no shame himself for his conduct towards Ireland, he might, at least, have spared the feelings of his audience.