Evening star., 1939-10-15
Lloyd George Wants Roosevelt
To Propose Peace Conference
Honorable Peace Now With Hitler Is Held Best
Means of Forestalling Potent and
Opulent Communist State
David LIoyd Ge0rpe
By David Lloyd George.


ances are making it impossible for the
world in either of the two hemispheres
to get on with its normal task. If the
President of the United States of America
could be persuaded himself to summon
a peace conference, I am convinced it
would be success This seems to me to
be the time to do it.
When fighting begins in real earnest,
when the ships of all nations are sunk
and sailors mutilated or drowned in the
stormy seas of the approaching winter
when towns are bombed and thousands
Of civilians killed-when victories on
each side are exaggerated and acclaimed
and defeats minimized or ignored-when
war and passion have blinded the COM
batant nations to their sufferings-when
the voice OF reason is suppressed in all
will be too late to intervene.
The sputtering war which has char
acterized the hostilities between Ger
many and the western powers still
continues. A fight between a few air.
planes. somewhere along the Siegfried
Line, or French raid, in which 300 Ger
mans are engaged with an equal num-
Der of French troops, are given consider
able space in broadcasts and on the first
pages of our newspapers. There is no
fighting in magnitude or ferocity or, hap
PLY, in slaughter comparable to that
which marked the first few weeks of the
Great War. The warning nations then
meant business and to put it through at
all hazards.
Whatever may be Herr Hitler's motives
Tor holding back thus far, there can be
no doubt that he has been reluctant to
deliver the first blow against the western
democracieS. The latter also have been
manifesting the same hesitancy on their
side. Our airplanes have not yet at
tackled the factories of Germany. The
French Army has not yet made serious
attack on the German Notifications. The
struggle at sea has begun but not on the
scale into which I predict it will develop
when the belligerents have started in
real earnest
Up to the present. both sides have been
sparring, not so much for time as for
position. AS far as time is concerned,
neither OF the two conflicting parties
can hope to gain much by few weeks
delay The French Army is perfectly
organized, its equipment is of the first
quality and its men highly trained and
well ofhcered. Their artillery, tanks and
ammunition have been brought up to the
front and there is no shortage of them.
Adequate for Anti Submarine War.
Our navy possesses overwhelming
strength and its anti-submarine fotilla
is quite adequate to the functions which
1t has to discharge. The air minister
gave an excellent account of our pre-
paredness as far as aircraft pilots are
concerned, and our secretary of state for
war astonished the House of Commons
and the public on the right side by his
account OF the numbers of trained men
. which are at our disposal
On the other hand, the Germans
have nothing to gain, in a military
sense, by postponing the real struggle
If it is inevitable.
They have brought back their men
from Poland and the majority of them
are already in array on the western
'front.'. The real explanation for this
holding back must be found in wiling
ness to recognize that the terrible
carnage and horror which must accom-
pany a death struggle between three
brave nations. armed to the teeth for
wholesale destruction, cannot even now
be avoided.
AT the time I am writing, the situa-
ton seems to have definitely worsened.
1t is reflection on the diplomatic
methods which have been emnlovod 49,
the aggravation is largely due to the
blunderlng clunlsiness which has o...s
so much to impair the strategic posi-
ton OF the democratic powers.
Replies to Hitler "Unfortunate."
The replies to the German Fuehrers
peace speech have been, to say the least,
unfortunate, if they were intended to
keep the door of negotiation open.
do not believe either Daladier or Cham
berlain meant to slam that door in Hit
ler's face. I heard Chamberlains
speech He spent most of it in stigma
VI,
thief, cheat; and his only pacific gesture
was the intimation that if he promised
to give an actual guarantee of good be-
havior in the future. they were pre-
pared to enter into discussions.
Naturally, this truculent reply has re-
ceived an angry response from the Ger
man government, and for the moment,
to quote German phrase, "the war is
now on" I am still hopeful that this
Is not the last word A devastating war
suits neither of the two parties in the
circumstances in which both have been
placed by recent events. Not one, of
the three belligerent powers is anxious
, to plunge irretrievably into this ghastly
trial of strength, which, if it is to be
fought out to the end. will leave them
all torn and bleeding, and at least one
Of them broken and PROSTATE.
Let us first of all take the German case.
Herr Hitler has nothing to gain from q
protracted war. The Intervention of
Russia might and undoubtedly would
help him to prolong the struggle by sup
plying him with his deficiencies in raw
material and food. Germany has been
rationed for years under the policy of
purchasing cannon with the peoples but
ter. It was lack of fats which the Ger
mans felt most severely irr the meager
days of 1918. 1t gradually reduced their
l.