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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1927-12-08, Page 6LL Mil _ G; O RE'S - S`T',, RISES ONCE' MORE With His War Chest Filled, 1 -le Is Preparing to Lead the Liberals in a New Offensive Against the Conservatives WHAT OF THE FUTURE? In Britain, where politics are anerman, determined to prove the op - •kaleidoscope, whereno party coni• polite, As President of the Board of mends a majority in the country and where the future is a free-for-all, one fact clearly emerges to -day. David Lloyd George is again advancing to the forefront. Whatever mistrust there still may be in his motives, he is at the mo- ment the undisputed leader of the Liberal Party. Under his personal control there is, too, a war chest, con- taining millions of money, and, on the chance of adding a further paragraph to the nage of history, this is a fund which he is perpared to stake at the polls. He is supported, too, bya powerful press, managed by that amazing embodiment of versatility, eight years. Lorca Reading. °Moreover, at the, age I Dazzled by Napoleon's generalship, of 65; Lloyd George has time to use, popular history has overlooked his but none to waste. In a land where more solid record as a civil admipis Gladstone was Prime Minister in his trator. ( So has it been with David eighties, and Balfour, sitting in .the Lloyd George. The world cannot Cabinet, will be 80 next year, Lloyd realize that to him ,the war and. Ver George has strength for ten full years thaneies and interruptions rest offit t erethe ieol more e of office. o - To consider Ms career merely as a gress in which he has never ceased past, therefore, is not enough. That to be interested. Years before the career is again a prospect. Even his war, he had set in motion what has critics agree that Lloyd Georgo has changed the face of England. escaped from Elba and that the Hun- Every Finance Minister, prior to dred Days have begun. All that they Lloyd George, had told his colleagues foretell, however, is a Waterloo and to spend as little .as possible.. It was a St. Helena. lf, then, we outline the an- axiom that the treasury stood for rise of this astonishing man to pro economy. With a gay exuberance that miuence before the war, his amazing astounded the Manchester School of dynamic as one of the. Big Four who Liberals, as it was called, Lloyd led a shattered world through victory George declared that finance should to an uneasy peace, and his fall from not . bo restrictive but constructive. what seemed to be absolute power in- Net only must there be old -age pen - a comparative obscurity, it is only sions, originated by Asquith, but na- as a prelude to whatever may be the tional insurance against sickness and culmination of vicissitudes so uuac- employment. Expenditure? Certain- countable. The Lloyd. George who ly. And he who proposed it would has been, "must read the riddle of thefind the money to meet it. He would Lloyd George with whom, here and tax the rich. now, the world has to deal. It was veritably a social revolution. Will They Join Forces? For while Lloyd Georgi did not inter - Hitherto, Lloyd George has been fere with private. enterprise, confis- discussed as a colleague of "Asquith." cate prophe erty or a tdllterogalm. con - It o - It is not Asquith who .now concerns us. The real question is how Lloyd which might be and has been inde- Georgo stands with Ramsay MacDon- finitely extended. His argument was ah. United, they can sweep Britain. simple. If money could be found for Divided, they can keep Stanley Bald- wars, it could also be found for; armies win in perpetual power. Theirs have of industry. been contemporary careers and often This meant that the entire "New - they have worked together, behind castle program of Victorian liberal the scenes. Can they renew such as- ism, which had consisted of home sociations and dare they avow them? rule for Ireland, the disestablishment They started -life at the same time. of the Church in Wales, a broader At a similar age they encountered franchisee and similar political .xnea- the same events. Both ofthem, more- sures, was overshadowed by the social over, were born 'Celts. Lloyd George issues. Is the Ramsay MacDonald of Wales, Of 'the proposals, two views were and Ramsay MacDonald is the Lloyd and still may be taken. One is that George of Scotland. The two men Lloyd George killed socialism. The understand each other. other is that he surrendered to it. It The Celt is supposed to be capri- was the latter opinion that swayed cicuz. Ireland and Wales and . the the House of Lords. Repudiating the Scottish highlands, with their songs financial privileges of the Commons, ant their feuds, are regarded as re- the peers rejected the budget, and at - penile of emotion. But the truth about ter two desperate elections, the Com- - the Celt is not his inconsistency of mons carried the day. If there had argument but his tenacity of instinct. been no Serajevo, such an achieve - In essential sympathies, neither Lloyd went would have placed a British George nor MacDonald . has ever statesman on the roll of the very few changed, nor ever wilil who have played a decisive part in the Beta these -nen began life poor. nation's progress. The one in Lossiemouth, the other in In estimating the services rendered Llanystymdwy saw and suffered by David Lloyd George in the great society as society is arranged in a war, we must dismiss from our minds British village. They encountered the idea that, at any time of his life, caste and revolted against it. In he was a pacifist. If he opposed the politics, therefore, they were. hot war in South Africa, it was not be - Radicals, MacDonaad was 'ae -much cause it was a war but because it was a Liberal as Lloyd. George, and Lloyd a war waged by the strong against George was as favorable to Labor as the weak. As Owen Glendower fought MacDonald, for Wales against King Henry IV., so Trade, he telt his feet, incidentally; settling the first of the great coal dis- putes. But it was when Campbell - Bannerman died that the big chance came. Indeed, "the little Welshman" seized it, Hero* of "Lefts" Like other parties, Liberalism had . its Right and its Left. Asquith, as Prime Minister from the Right, had to be balanced by a man of:=Tess nega- tive achievement,:., David Lloyd George, the hero of the Left, thus be - carne -Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the first of the kind. It was an'. intimate partnership that lasted for Temperaments Differ. did Lloyd George fight for the Boers But in temperament and training against Joseph Chamberlain and the their personalities diverged. Like mobs of Birmingham. Similar were poets, both of the rebels 'suffered from hissympathies with Belgium and Ser- ' • an eternal want of, pence, and their Ser- bia fact, he was actually leading only university was earning a liveli- the peace party in the Cabinet, which hood. James Ramsay MacDonald, as in July, 1914, strove to avert the dis- a journalist, read and wrote, seeing aster, and was in close touch at that men in books and the brain of men at time with Ramsay MacDonald, who what is supposed to bo its beat. Lloyd was taking a similar line in the House George, as a solicitor in the junior of Commons. When, however, Ger- branch of the law, met men face to many began to cross frontiers, Lloyd face, and usually at moments when George accepted the fact of the war clients display their weaknesses. It and, like Roosevelt, would say, "If you was from different schools of expert - hit, then hit hard." once, therefore, that they were gradu- policy Not portfolio. ated. inspired by Karl Marx and the Of what followed libraries have Fabian Society, MacDonald organized been written. That Lloyd' George in- 9 Labor Party. But Lloyd George, trigued with the Tories, with North - though restive under the Gladstonian cliffs, with Beaverbrook, appears to yoke, remained a Liberal, fighting his be indisputable. That he wished to way into the House of Commons and run the war is also admitted, But there stirring up insurrections against that he cared about the office of Prime the old gang." The student oNiti- Minister, as such, is a theory which orates and the practitioner in immedi- misinterprets his character. It is the sten trod different paths, policy, not the portfolio, that Lloyd A slightly built, eager, well-groomed George has always desired. stripling of a statesman, with black To the Liberal Party, his triumph hair brushed to an ample gloss, Lloyd over Asquith and the coalition with George loved the platform; but what the 'Conservatives were acts of treach- he valued was print, Then, as now, ery, unparalleled in politics. Win the his tactics might be summed up as war? There were greater disasters, space in the newspapers. He had the so it was declared, under Lloyd better chance because Liberals in the George than ever there had' boob. un- House of Commons were Yew; every der his less advertised predecessor, one counted and every one was want- Ile that as it -nay, this village lad ed to speak. from Carnarvonshire, who had never Precisely why Balfour liked him, been to EOM. or Harrow, oxford or has been to Many people, a mystery. Cambridge; whose budget had been They did not. notice that, amid all the refected 11 tamp peers: whose name bitterness, Lloyd George treated Bal- had been oxevrated by peereslee Rncd four as hie senior and as a great pian. bafkere and lancllorile, wielded It was a tribute that, conveyed With powers for a time that a Mussolini infinite subtlety, Balfour did not re- might have envied-- powers that wOre sent, all the more ittoredible because they As a labor leader, MacDonald had were supported tiot by the suppres- acted on the assumption that even in sive force of a Fi ascismo., but by pleb - the early 90e Liberalism had become lac opinion. The Opposition still went obsolete, In 14€5, Lloyd George, by on, The newspapers could still say coining the Csibitiet of Dampliell-Bat►• - 0 ar Old Laud Fagerati'yUp*oMDat6 THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW . When Sir Charles Bathe made an official' visit to the king at Westminster the show was nigra elaborate than ever this year, several historical floats taking part. The city of London state coach is here seen on the way to the Abbey. ..w could not find or keep a seat in the House of Commons. Then, in a night, the autocracy col- lapsed. Angered by liberties granted to Ireland, the Conservatives unmade the man whom they had made. If Lloyd George had dreamed of the na- tional party, advocated by Churchill and Birkenhead, he Woke up to find himself in a nightmare. The man who had been everybody was nobody. Re- turning from Paris, he had been met by the King himself. In the House.of Commons the rise of Labor now re- duced the triumphant Caesar to a cor- ner seat below the gangway. Liberal Disastee. Never had any party suffered a dis- aster comparable with the .shattering of Liberalism. Not only was the vote split with Labor, but what was left of it had been discouraged by the inter- necine feuds between the friends of Asquith and of Lloyd George. Per- sonalities devastated politics and La- bor loudly acclaimed the end of the faith held by Bright and Gladstone. kYet no other party than the Liberal Party would look at Lloyd George. The score or two of "Wee Frees," as they were playfully described, who in the House of Commons survived the debacle, were his only chance, and half of them hatedhim with the hatred of a vendetta. Yet he began to recover his position. But, even at the worst of times, Lloyd George was never down as well as out. No statesman who has been Prime Minister is superanuated ex- cept by disease or death. He is held in reserve, sitting as before in Parlia- ment and joining still in debate. Party or no party, Lloyd George in the House of Commons has continued to be a personality. To ignore a pian who speaks as he speaks has been impossible. As Prime Minister he was criti- cized by others. He is now himself the critic. He has the advantage of an offensive in which he has always been a past master. The swing of. the pendulum is in his direction, and he helps to swing it. Stanley -Baldwin hopes to save him- self by means of what is called the Rapper vote—that is, the suffrages of women between the ages of 21 and 30 years. It is supposed that, alarmed by Bolshevism, they will vote Conser- vative. But some Conservatives are too masculine in their prejudices to be sure of this result. They fair the feminine in politics -especially do they dislike Lady Astor and her tem- impressive pause, "what of it? - I had perance ideas: my r-easons." Perhaps Not Premier. In a future Goverirment Lloyd George would not demand, of neces- sity, the Premiership. Why should he? Wherever MacGregor sits is the head of the table, and personal adapta- bility to circumstances greatly as- sists a statesman who knows that he can only return to power if there be a bargain. Lloyd George does not ex- pect that the Liberal Party will obtain a majority at the election. He does think that it will win back enough seats to be the balance wheel between the other parties. Either to Conser- vatism or to Labor, a Liberal alliance will be essential.. Has War Sinews. • Hence his adroit management of his war chest. For the expenses of 500 candidates at the next election, he has released $1,500,000. But he retains an ample balance for later emergencies. To Lloyd George even the Liberal Party is no more than a means to an end. To enumerate his blunders—of what use is that? People merely say that it must be a big man who survives them. To attack his war chest, as _ Lord Rosebery did—how does that help? What party has not had a war chest? Did hie Government traffic in titles? . When have Governments tailed thus to adorn their friends? There is the story of Ramsay Mac- Dahald himself and an automobile. Nowhere is Lloyd George vulnerable except in the spots where, to his re- torts, his rivals are also vulnerable. Is Genius Anyway. Moreover, he has the look of a big man. His face, once smooth' and alert, is now lined and massive. His hair, once black and glossy, is white and still abundant. He is a man whom audiences *ant to see and want to hear. He is a man who has been in the inside of the greatest decisions ever recorded among- mankind. To himopportunist is Canada's Ships Will Lack Nothing Comforts of Home With Latest Luxuries in Vessels Ottawa.—Comfort and luxury for first-class passengers are amply pro- vided for in the specifications for three passenger and freight ships for the new West Indies service, which are to be built by the shipbuilding firm of Cammel Laird & Co., Limited, Birkenhead, England, for the Domini- on Government for $3,849,000, accord- ing to the contract recently awarded by the Government. In addition to these three vessels, the firm is to build two more ships for use in the Canada -West Indies service. - The specifications for the first three vessels are as follows: Length over all, 438 feet; length between` perpendiculars, 415 feet; loaded draught, , 24 feet; moulded breadth, 59 feet; gross tonnage, about' 6,400, They will have straight stems, raking forward, counter -sterns, one, funnel, two pole masts, fore and aft rig, and six decks—boat, promen- ade, bridge, upper,' main and Iower. There will be passenger accommo- dation for 103 saloon, 32 second-class and 100 steerage There will be cargo Young Moor Sultan\ is Keen for ,Sports\: Fie Likes to Tinker Witf , Motors and to Rica Blooded Horses—Has a Good Education Pee, Morocco--Moul;ay Mohammed'\ the newly elected' fourteen-year-oW, Sultan of Morocco, is keenly interest-'. ed iu all sports and is also one of the\n. best educated youths in the Dark Co talent. " The boy is entitled to four wiyeal under Mohammedan law and has onel.1 Be and his two elder- brothers *ere + married' in a triple, ceremony .thirteen months ago. Moul�ay adobammedi. took as his ;,bride a first cousin, al daughter of his father's brother; Mona lay Jahar. t Most of the youth's education ha been imparted by French tutors, and ' it ;le said in Morocco trout lie le so filli bued with the European idea of mono -1 gamy that he may be satisfied with one wife. However, the ancient trap.l pings of the inr,perial harem will sure round him. Prom the Sultan's office in • �the`•paI ace he will occupy, four doors ops leading in as many 4jrections to apart lents each of whidhi itracliitioually i reserved for one of the four wives officially permitted the rulers, Ladies of the harem which the late Sultan left are Like to pine away? their livee in a palace that is to ba provided thr them. The Government will eupply funds for' their support. The boy Sultan is. an automobile fan and a fine horseman. He has siev- eral cars and, having a knack wit' machinery, spends a great ...deal of time tinkering with the motor. Inr; driving .across- the country he often takes the wheel himself. • The lad likes hiellhorses a bit 'wild' and will not ride+anything but al thoroughbred with spirit, His, tutors! found this out long ago, when they tried to mms akehim ride mogentle mounts of the type usually given to children of the sovereign for their own protection. As a youth he is said to have climbed! every tree in the palace grounds. His physical instruction wasp in charge of the Sultan's Black Guard. Indoors hiss favorite studies were the sciences and literature. Sultan `'Moulay Mohammed is a youth of clean-cut features, jet black eyes and clear straw-colored skin. He speaks French perfectly. Hamada is the familiar name by which his in �= mates know him. His full regal oaguo- men is Moulay Mohammed Ben Moulay Yussef ("Ben" meaning "son of"). The Sultan's two older brothers, who • for some -reason lost out in the selec- tion of the naw Sultan, were not at Fez when the religious and political accommodation for about 27,000 cubic {chiefs sof the country made their choice. feet for general cargo, and about 13,- 000 cubic feet of insulated space, divided into•'four compartments for the carriage of perishable cargo. Two vessels will have four holds, two 'for- ward and two aft. 'They will be pro- pelled by twin screws, driven by oil- fired geared turbines. The, captain's quarters will. be lo- cated on A deck, together with the the throne of the Alide dynasty after quarters of the deck officers, the en -the last rite called for by ancient gineers and the wireless operator, and tradition is performed—the holding. of ridicule as an also the wireless office. The after end his stirrup for him by the most Ben• merely to say that Paderewski is no of this deck will consist of promenade crated religious leader, the Snerif of pianist because he can play trills. Yu space. There will be suite's, each Wezzan. Without this, no Sultan can his achievements there is something consisting of sitting room, bedroom be said to have been invested with hie not to be , explained by opportunism. powers of office. To put the case in a word, Lloyd George- love him or hate him—is what the race recognizes as .genius. One of the brothers' was at Marrakesh and titre other was in the country near Fes. A salute of 100``guns will be fired in the Sauitan's honor when he makes his• formal entry into Rabat, seat of the Government and the French Residency. At Rabat he will take possession of This is a true bridge story. She was only a beginner, but she meant to keep her end up, and so she was not at all abashed when her partner said, "Do you know you revoked?"' "Well," she replied, after a short but and bath; also rooms.with private showers. Some of the suites will. be luxurious. A laundry, barber shop - and dark room for photographic purposes will add to the comforts and convenience of passengers. As these vessels will trade in both tropical and cold waters special atten- tion has been given to the: ventilation and heating arrangements on the three vessels. It is understood that they will be painted white. Well Remembered by Many of Us This piece of trench ou the my Ridge front and the old Vi time condition to stand forever as a nienhorial to the Canadians what they liked, tut Asttuith hifnsolf oeinent so the old trenches will last for many 'earay C4rango tunnel are being put back in their warn bap here who fell there, The are tilled with moist r C Conan Doyle Asserts Houdini Was Medium Says Magician. Was Foe of Spiritism in Public, But Had Different View in Private The late Harry Houdini, magician, who was known for his fight against mediums, was in reality the greatest psychic medium of modern times, ac- cording to Sir A. Conan Doyle, who begins in the issue of Mystery Stories a study of Houdini. Admitting, that Houdini's public at- titude was uncompromisingly anti spiritism, Sir .Arthur wrote; "But this was not in the least his. attitude in private. I suppose that there are few leaders of the move- ment, and few known mediums, who have not letters of his taking the tone that he was a `sympathetic inquirer who needed but a little more to be convinced. His curious mentality, caused himabsolutely to ignore the experience of any one else, but ho seemed to be enormously impressed if anything from an 'outside source came in his own direction, "On one occasion Houdini showed. me a photograph which the had taken in 'California, '1 believe it to be the only genuine spirit photograph ever,' taken!' he Cried. To my mind, it was a very doubtful one, and olid which no sane spiclitualist would have passed for a mometn. But, in any case, if his was, as ho claimed, genuine, why should heput down all °theta to fraud?" The creator of Sherlock Holmes Writes; that since the death of Houdini he had received several messages pier porting to onto front him, but "none of them contained the conclusive proofs upon which 1 insist." anxious ''young Father (as doctor. ,... appears from -sickrocnx)•-•--"i'�:rin tier?" Doctor- = Theeti,"