"Last Man"

No Reichstag deputy would have dared last week to offer the faintest criticism of Herr Hitler's speech. No delegate of the Supreme Soviet, had it been in session. would have risked his life by indicating that perhaps Joseph Stalin was going too fast in his diplomatic conquests. But last week in the House of Commons, "Mother of Parliaments," David Lloyd George, World War Prime Minister, not only counseled the Government but criticized it.

It was three days before the Hitler "peace ultimatum'' had been delivered and it was just after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had virtually turned down the Hitler, terms in advance (see above). The "Father, of the House," an M.P. now for almost 50 years, thought Mr. Chamberlain's rejection a bit hasty. "I think it is very important," he said, "that we should not come to a too hurried conclusion." He did not want Great Britain to make any more enemies, particularly of Italy and Russia. He was even willing to keep an open mind about the possible impossibility of restoring Poland to the Polish Republic. The territory that Russia took from Poland "certainly is not Polish," Mr. Lloyd George said. He wanted whatever peace terms were being delivered to receive "very, very careful consideration."

The spectacle of the old bitter-end former Prime Minister advocating even listening to Adolf Hitler when the one formally announced war aim of Great Britain is to eradicate "Hitlerism" surprised those who had heard him on other occasions criticize the British Government for countenancing aggression in Manchukuo, Abyssinia, Spain, Czecho-Slovakia. While some M.P.s, many of them Tories, were known to feel that peace was worth almost any price, the House of Commons generally thought that the Lloyd George speech was at best untimely for Britain and were fearful that the reaction abroad would hurt. When hot-headed M.P.s came near to suggesting that peace talk at such a time was the next thing to treason, the white-haired veteran protested bitterly that he was the "last man to propose a surrender." Only Mr. Lloyd George knew precisely why he made such a speech at such a time, but one could guess that the old man, having once conducted Britain through a war himself, would naturally be inclined to super-criticism of the conduct of this one. Between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd George has long existed something less than mutual amity. During the last war Mr. Lloyd George appointed Mr. Chamberlain Director-General of National Service. Summed up Author Lloyd George later in his memoirs: "It was not one of my successful selections.''

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.