Evening star., 1933-10-22
MACDONALD'S FALL PUT
BESIDE LLOYD GEORGES
Author Says Statesmen Had Much In
Common, Each Being Classed by
Countrymen as Radicals.

to save the war. Macdonald did the
same in respect of his Labor friends
and associates to save the economic and
financial structure of his country.
But in the nature OF things neither
man was ever a6aln trusted by his old
followers, while each was unable to
build an effective personal following.
For long time each was stronger with
the public than with the politicians and
while this condition endured was safe
in Office. But public opinion in the end
weighed contemporary failure with past
service, and in both cases came to the
same decision. Beyond doubt Lloyd
George and Macdonald will count in
history as the two considerable national
figures Of the period between 1916 and
1888. One will be associated with the
war, the other with the postwar era.
Both. however. will also be remem-
bered as having failed in the larger en-
deavor, after an initial success in an
immediate crisis. We are nearer TO
war at the moment in Europe than at
any time since the armistice. And that
is an all-sufficient commentary upon the
fashion in which Lloyd George con-
Quoted British foreign policy at the
Peace Conference and Ramsay Mac
Donald in all the later and only less
Both tried to achieve European recon-
struction by the conference method
against, not with, France-and both
failed abysmally
Europe is very rapidly getting back
to a situation in which continental
peace, precarious at best, is based upon
combination of most Of the armed
nations against theoretically disarmed
Germany. If Hitler talks peace and
I,a ivac
overt act only because of the over
whelming odds against him. But in
such q situation Britain has no reason
to desire the weakening of France,
either politically by the breakdown OF
her system of alliances or militarily
by the reduction of her army. But this
conception of diminishing French in
fluence and power was at the bottom
of the policy of Macdonald as well as
that Of Lloyd George.
Locarno to Fore.
Today Locarno has again come to the
fore In European discussions, but Lo-
carno was in fact, a British guarantee
Of Germany against France and France
against Germany. bound to degenerate
into an alliance with one against the
other. when the purposes OF one became
unmistakably aggressive and the policy
of the other purely defensive. Locarno,
as it is now interpreted, is no longer a
voluntary agreement of Germany and
France to keep state of peace guaran-
teed by Britain-as well as Italy. It IS,
rather. virtual alliance Of Britain and
France against the aggressive purposes
Of the present Reich.
Macdonald and Lloyd George in their
separate ways sought TO rescue Britain
from all possibility OF being involved in
a new European struggle growing out
of Fra1co-Gernan issues. Both failed
because, precisely as in 1914. Britain
cannot stand aside and suffer France to
be crushed by German force, and that
again Is the sole alternative. The NaZis
of the Third Reich have in their turn
repeated the mistakes of the Hohen-
Nllern regime In the postwar period
They have driven France and Britain
together by becoming once more q COM
mon danger for both.
Germany Not Trusted.
British public opinion now is back in
the pre-war state of impatience and dis
trust Of Germany, which in the end
permitted Lord Grey to take his country
into war. But this state OF mind car
ries with it a complete break alike with
Lloyd George and Macdonald. 1t
amounts to rejection of the notion
that peace in Europe can be kept BY
balancing France and Germany ard
holding both in check by the implicit
threat of joining with the other. It
brings Britain back to the old stand, TO
the belief that only force can preserve
peace and the only peace possible is one
enforced against Germany by Anglo
French association.
AS postwar conditions thus begin to
reproduce the circumstances of the pre-
war era, comments on these by Lloyd
George must interest all students OF
contemporary as well as of recent his
tory. And in the English-speaking
world Lloyd George is the great surviy-
ing figure. He has not the gifts of
Winston Churchill as a narrator or the
painstaktng accuracy in detail of Poin-
care IN the French field, but while much
that he says must be suspect, all IS first
hand testimony of present political ap-
plication and of future historical value.
Copyright. 1889