The Cordova daily times., 1918-02-25


r he would give more confidence to the
country if he came here oftener and
: gave us authoritative statements as
: regards the policy of the government"
: He vigorously criticized Balfours
} speech of the day before, saying the
foreign office had failed to realize that
"the world is now being permeated by
new ideas which are totally at vari.
/, ance with some of the prehistoric
: veiws held in the foreign office"
Diplomacy, he declared. is no longer
to be regarded as the special privilege
of the foreign office. Commander
/ Wedgewood interpOlated:
and of the governing classes"
"And, as my honorable and gallant
}, friend says, Of the governing classes"
continued Major Davies.
Following him there came a perfect
! torrent of speech from a seat beneath
the balcony where I sat. I couldn't
see the speaker, but the evening pa
pers note the feat that Mr.. Stanton,
member for Merthyr, broke all speed
records, speaking 300 words in the
course of fifteen minutes. 1t must
/ have been Stanton. What he wanted
the prime minister to do, he said, was
''to get more Of the young men who
are Sinking around the mines or in
other industries into the army" His
peroration was:
1--WE have these airpIahes comingI
from America, and I am hoping the
government has a little surprise in !
store for u.s. and that one morning we
shall wake up and read that 500 or
1000 airpIanes have flown to Germany
and bombed them to the deyil-men,I
women and children, the same as they
have done our people"
Almost missed this fine finish, for in
the midst OF it [ spied the boyish out
line of the prime minister-he's really
not much bigger than Secretary of
War Baker-as he came through the
doorway back of the speakers dais
No ceremony attended his entry. He
slipped in quietly and wedged himself
between Sir Eric Geddes and BOnar
Law on the front bench where the
members of the government SIT
Stanton sat down and the prime
minister stood up. He placed a bun
die of papers on the big desk that ex-
tended from the speakers chair IN
front of and about half the length of
the government bench. AS he spoke
he referred to his notes, for the speechf
contained many figures, said to be a L
weakness of the prime minister. While Il
in appearance he was as much thef
evangelist as ever-the Gypsy Smith
type, not the Billy Sunday-he did not
use his evangelist voice today. The
pulpit-like effect, however, was en-
phasized in other ways; by the iuvof-
untary trick, for instance, of resting
his hands on the desk at height
slightly below his shoulders, and sway
ing slowly backward and forward
This government bench is just a
bench, with a back, and nothing more.
Lloyd George talked for almost an
hour and a half Before he concluded
Bonar Law, who had been slipping by
imperceptible degrees, was sitting on
the small of his back, or close thereto.
When the prime minister sat down
Sir Eric Geddes availed himself of the
chance, which he must have been wait
ing for earnestly, to brace himself by
putting one foot on the side Of the bigI
table. OF course, 1t was the foot OF
the first lord of the admiralty, butt
the spot where it rested was not morel
than ten inches from the head of theI
great gold mace, symbol of sover-
eighty, lying across the front of the
desk.
Many speakers followed. Mr.. AS
quith's speech, like the prime minis
ters, has been fully reported. Mr..
Adamson, chairman of the Labor party
members, addressing the prime minis
| ter directly, said:
"If you imagine that you are going
to go on making call after call for men
without some definite and distinct ar
rangement as to the CONSUMPTION OF
wealth, then you will find you are up
against a very difficult proposition"
Later, when another member took Is
sue with his statement that members
of the upper classes are not found in
the food queues, Adamson retorted:
ST do not think you will find any
large proportion of duchesses in these
queues"
1t was soon after this that Lloyd
George departed. Prefacing his re-
marks by saying it really wasn't worth