BRITISH EMPIRE: Is It Peace?

• Share

Ex-Premier David Lloyd George, now en route to the U. S., published a book in London called Is It Peace?

The work is distinctly pessimistic about the progress of peace since he went out of office, and is little more than an amplification of the newspaper articles which he has been contributing to the Hearst press. He is convinced that peace "has gone back perceptibly and unmistakably." "The present year." says he, " has been one of growing gloom and menace; the international temper is distinctly worse all around."

The 300-page book is written with characteristic Lloyd Georgian vigor and is full of sonorous metaphor. The Ruhr gets attention. Says he: "If Poincaré is out for reparation, his policy will inevitably fail in comparison with that which he so rashly threw over; but if he is out for trouble it has been a great success and in the future it will be an even greater triumph for his statesmanship. The permanent garrison in the Ruhr has possibilities of mischief which it does not require any special vision to foresee.

"The concluding lines of the preface : "Peace can only be restored by full recognition of the equities as well as the humanities — of the humanities as well as the equities. I have sought in these pages to deal fairly with both.

"The ex-Premier was invited to call on the President at the White House during his visit this month to U. S. cities. Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Lloyd George have this in common: each of them had a humble village cobbler as his earliest political adviser. Mr. Lloyd George's cobbler happened also to be his uncle and his acting father. Mr. Coolidge's cobbler is, as everyone knows, James Lucey of Northampton, Mass.