The sun., 1919-09-28
LLOYD GEORGES ZENITH
is SEEN IN WORLD DRAMA
American "Red Line" Looms in Britain's Trade Sur
viva Fght-Premier Faces -Four Hostile
Elements in Political Vendetta.

man is felt at the non-success of the
Board OF Trades efforts to frame an eff
fective policy against dumping" Again,
and yet again. It Is America, with her
young insistent life and the roar Of her
machines, the Blood and the Iron, who
finds her way into the national life.
Labor is more than dissatisfied. Labor
is threatening and angry. The refusal
Of Lloyd George to nationalize the mines
has brought the miners to threaten an
accumulation of the Ca canny'' policy
and the lowering of coal production.
Labor Is now setting her house In order
and one must admit that at times, with
its rival Emergencies Of person and Of
policy, It resembles a madhouse-is de-
claring war on the Government and Is
concentrating upon a sweeping propa-
ganda campaign for that naturalization
which is to be made the acid test at the
next general election, now. since the
speech, looming more closely.
The Irish--or what is left Of 'em in
Northumberland OF them? What
could ireland find to criticise in a speech
which did not mention herr Well, just
that. T. p. O'Connor summed UP the
feeling in Ireland in four lines: AL
though the Prime Minister knew with
what expectation the whole Irish lace
had been looking forward to his speech,
coldly, deliberately. arrogantly, inso-
lently, he refused to say a word about
Ireland in a speech of three hours dura-
ton" Ohi tits 'Tay-Pay" himself that
has the nasty tongue when he takes
the attn
A Modern Vendetta in Politics.
Now / come TO my fourth, one-man.
section. After all, politics is the great
game-nearly as great as that Of love-
only that that 1t is the game OF hate.
There is one man in England who is a
more formidable antagonist to-day than
either Big Business OF Ireland or Labor,
so far as the little Welshman is con-
cerned. His name Is Northcliffe. His
was the hand that placed Lloyd George
on the high horse where he sits. His
is the hand that may pluck him from
the saddle. To him. in one breathless
second. Lloyd George, his pulses afiame,
referred en- pdssant: ct noticed to-day
that one egregious journalist, who has
been pursuing a Corsican vendetta, pub
lishes columns of denunciations of a
speech which has never been deliv-
cred. =.
The King of the Newspaper backed
Lloyd George against Herbert Asquith
for the Premiership In the early days
of the war, one party pal against the
other. Lloyd George won. He backed
him consistently until some time ago
when the little sensitive Welshman flung
down his challenge in the House of
commons to the most powerful man in
England The facts of the personal
drama, behind the scenes. nobody per.
haps will know in our time. But that,
his head high In the sun of victory, his
heart beating to the plaud.ts of a CRATE
ful country, the man who led Europe out
OF her four years nightmare, impatient
OF restraint which had become irk.
some. threw down the gauntlet in one of
those impetuous moments which have
played the decisive part in his career,
and with it the decisive part in the fate
OF empire, there can be no doubt The
political world. breathless, waited for
the counterblast. It did not come.
Gradually the method OF the silent
director of propaganda showed itself.
Gradually the two Tremendous weapons
he controls, the hammer of the official
times and the stiletto of the Daily Mol
with its largest circulation" began TO
get to work. Leaders appear day by
day in the Northcliffe columns attacking
critlcising, countering the Government
from all sides-and especially the man
who leads it-Lloyd George. The at.
tacks are admirable In their tone and
temper, subtle in their reasoning and
implacable for those who can read be.
tween the lines. They are written by
the cleverest brains in the newspaper
world. And they are doing their work.
With them, they have the turn of the
tide-the swing of public op,nion-and.
often. they have fact with them thew
have the three sections have mentioned
above. With them they have General
Hunser and his aids-rising prices and
discontent They have the bacillus OF
inertia with which the nation to-day is
inoculated, which stimulates criticism
while sitting action. Time and tide run
with that Silent Man. arch propaganda,
whom the historian OF the twenty-first
century will find to have played in
directly a master role upon the stage of
our times.