New-York tribune., 1921-11-28
See Club Over
Irish in Trip of
Lloyd George
Associates Here Not Certain
He Will Sail Saturday.
Recalling Wilson's Tao
tics at Paris Conference
Presence Not Necessary
Can Only Break NewCround,
as President and Hughes
Have Gained Chief Points
By P. w. Wilson


For years Americas correspondent Of
The London Daily Ne,cs" and former
Member Of Parliament.
Copyright, 1921. New York Tribune Inc.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27.-The state
ment that Mr.. Lloyd George has booked
his passage on the Aquitania. sailing
from Liverpool next Saturday, may be
true, but it does not mean of necessity
that he will embark as delegate TO
the conference. Just as President Will
son, when in Paris, summoned the
steamship George Washington to his
assistance, so does Mr.. Lloyd George,
from time to time, charter the Aoui-
tenla. The Irish question is not set
tied, and as tactician the Prime Min
lister is using his various invitations to
the United States as q means of eNer-
c1slng pressure upon the extremists in
both camps. With Ulster holding out
for exclusion and the rest of Ireland
holding out against the oath of al
legiance, Mr.. Lloyd George seeks to
invoke the New World to cure the in
sanity of the Old World, but we must
cot assume as yet he will actually take
the trip across the ocean. There are
alternatives-a resignation, for in
stance or general election.
With British diplomacy, one of the
great difficulties has always been to
get Downing Street to see things as
they really are in North America 1t
is obvious that the British Foreign
Office. and perhaps Mr.. Lloyd George
himself, has misiudged the effect pro-
duced by M. Brands two speeches on
public opinion in the United States.
Apparently it Is believed in London
that an answer from Mr.. Lloyd George
must be delivered in Washington.
doubt very much whether this is the
view of the British delegation here on
the spot. There is no indication what
ever that any further rejoinder to NJ.
BRAND is required, and in certain quar-
ters the spectacle of Mr.. Lloyd George
hurrying across the Atlantic in order
to entertain the American people with
a lively tilt at his French colleague is
regarded with misgiving. So far as we
can judge, the United States and its
press and its public men have rapidly
and accurately grasped the essentials
of the position disclosed by M. Brands
speeches. The best argument that Brit
ain can now use is to maintain silence
on the subject.
Conference Confounds Prophets
Having known MIR. Lloyd Georges
-
imagine that in his vicinity there have
been outbursts of no little wrath over
some expressions attributed to M.
BRAND. These ebullitions are entirely
pardonable even in the greatest Of
men, but what the British delegates
have to consider is not the emotions
of the Prime Minister when he hears
that British battleships have been
compared with sardine tins, but the
of OF h
ington. 1t has been. at work only
fortnight, but already it has changed
the destinies of mankind There has
been no other such diplomatic phe-
nomenon in human history. 1t marks
an epoch. All the rules have been re-
written. All the prophets have been
at fault. If Mr.. Lloyd George is ap-
plying to Washington the experiences
through which he went at Paris he will
find that his calculations have gone
wrong. At Paris France was at the
center. AT Washington she is of ne
cessity nearer the circumference. The
conference can 60 on even if certain
European nation does not entirely ap
prove.
Let me state in plain black and
white what this conference has meant
already for the future of the human
race.
wide fame the figures of two statesmen
of q type hitherto quite unfamiliar.
When the armistice was signed the
name of Warren G. Harding was un-
known in Europe. Three years later
it is a name on every lip. What has
impressed Europe is President Har-
ding's power of holding himself in re-
serve. He knows that his is the last
word and therefore he is careful not
n nth in "a
Modestly, he remains in the back
ground, but when he speaks, as he
spoke on Friday about the prospects
of the conference, every syllable
counts.
The second statesman discovered in
the conference is Mr.. Hughes. His
powers of mind had long been recog
nized and admired, especially by ju
rists. But in the Presidential cam
paign of-1916 he seemed to the foreign
onlooker to display certain inde-
cision of Judgment. AS judge and an
attorney his demeanor was correct and
severe rather than winning. At the
conference we have found him radiat-
ing hope and faith and energy. Day
and night he tolls. His appearance
indicates the stress of his activity.
But he displays what Emerson would
have called "an oversoul" of good fell
lowship, as if nothing had either hur-
ried or worried or furried him. At
lunch, at dinner, in the char--wher-
ever you find him-he is in good tenn
per, sympathetic and with an ear for
all who have anything to bring before
him. His is a new philosophy. never
admitted before into statesm anship, at
anv rate so simply and frankly. Crom-
wells religion ran to artillery. Glad
stcne's religion Numbered in perora-
tions The religion of Secretary Hughes
is genial, tolerant and kindly, with an
absolute fidelity to truth
"PitiIess Publicity" Over All
Next. there has emerged an abso-
lutely new diplomacy. The open cove
nants openly arrived at which the ma
tions failed TO get at Paris are made
available at Washington. 1t is quite
true that the committees sit in secret.
But we who are correspondents know
quite we'll what they are doing, and
broadly we tell the public. The rules
Of order are strictly observed. Minutes
are kept. If proposal is made by any
nation the reasons for the proposal
must be given. If nation resists a
proposal, it must also give it's reasons
The intention Of Mr.. Hughes is declared
without any equivocation-it is dis /
armament on land and sea; and if any |
one won't have it, let the world know
who says no, and why. 1t is the insist
ence on candor, on publicity, on the |
facts, that has given Mr.. Hughes his I