The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-30

The prime minister addressed at the :, Leeds coliseum on Saturday morning an audience of between 5000 and 4O00. which gave him an enthusiastic reception. Lord Airedale, president of the Leeds Liberal federation, who presided described the prime minister as the man who helped to turn defeat into victory, and who {, savedz not only Europe, but civilization.
 Mr.~Lloyd George said;
 Tt is two years to this very day when I was summoned by the sovereign of this country to. form an administration for the purpose of conducting the war. This is not an inopportune moment to in vite my fellow eountrymen to cast their eyes back to the condition of things which
 my colleagues and were called upon to deal with. It was a grave condition of things Things were not going well. Three of our allies had been overwhelmed by the 1egions of the foe--Belgium, Ser bia and Rumania-sman nations, but counties which had in the aggregate an army of 100000 men. The Kings of two of those countries were exiles and fugi- gtives in other lands. The third country ihad almost entirely been occupied by the foe, and there was nothing left in any of those three cases except broken Ayemnant of what at one time had been formidable armies. Russia, beaten and driven back, scores of thousands of square miles of her territory occupied, was on the eve of complete collapse. At the end of each year 1914, 1915, 1916, Germany found herself with more allied territory iE her possession than when she began .J.x. ,as.~ TI,<,f aboutzBritain? Britain had sustained two humiliating defeats from the least for midable and most despicable of her foes. Turkey. One of her armies had, after prolonged conflict, been driven out of Gallipoli, another British army had sur rendered to the Turks in the east and her prestige in the east was damaged from eone end to the other. That was the condition on land. Britain had been defeated by Turkey. There was another Turkish army menacing Egypt, and we were ron the defensive. We were just holding the desert in front of the Suez canal@in hourly fear of the Turks at . tacking us. That was the situation, at the end of 1916 Tn the west, after colos- sal losses, we had failed to break through the enemy lines, and actually before the httack was over Germany had with Itlrawn some of her divisions from the &battlefield and sent them to the east.
 At sea our submarine losses were growing, and we were on the eve of the great unrestricted submarine campaign. We had as yet found no effective means lbf destroying these ocean pests. At home we had as yet taken no effective means of grappling with this peril. Our food supplies were dangerously low. There ksas no rationing system, with the result flat the well-to-do had an undoubted dvalftage over those who were not so well off The cultivation of our land had gone down by hundreds of thousands of acres. Our shipbuilding in 1916 was hetween one-third and one-fourth what 1t was the year before the war. Our
 Imports had been inadequately regulated, hand dur shipping had not been brought ssu.sp(Slely under control, and the ship owners were consequently making huge profits, and we were not making the best of our ships.
 "A TERRIBLE MOMENT
 "That was the condition at the end of t916 There was a good deal of hesita- tion where there ought to have been de- cision. There was good deal of delay where*there ought to have been prompti- .ude. s%There was good deal of nervous cess where there ought to have been de- termination and if that condition of
 hingss had gone on, hesitate, dread to Ehinke what might have happened. Whens the government fell, believe he. 1here was no one anxious to take It's place. So far froln there being h scramble for the chief place Qaughter), I've wore all anxious to pass it on to someone else, and I wish that some of