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WHERE ARE WE GOING?
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
WHERE ARE WE
GOING?
BY
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
O.M., P.C., M.P.
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER 1916-1922
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
WHERE ARE WE GOING? II
——
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The chapters collected in this book represent a running comment on theEuropean situation during the past ten months. Although in the hazethat covers the Continent it is difficult always to see clearly whatis happening, and still more difficult to forecast what is likely tooccur, I have not deemed it necessary to revise any of the estimatesI made from time to time in these periodic reviews on the position.In the period covered by them peace has gone back perceptibly andunmistakably. Of the years immediately after the end of the Great Warit may be said that up to the present year each showed a distinctimprovement over its predecessor. The temper of the warring nationsshowed a gradual healing and improvement, and East and West there was areturn to reason and calm in their attitude towards each other. In theCannes discussions of January 1922 the atmosphere of hostility whichpoisoned the Spa discussions in 1920 had largely disappeared, and theapplause which greeted Herr[Pg vi] Rathenau's fine speech at Genoa in April1922 was cordial and general. The electric messages from Paris failedto provoke a thunderstorm, and one of the speakers, at the last meetingof the Assembly, drawing an illustration from the weather outside, saidthe Conference had broken up under blue skies and a serene firmament.
That was in May 1922. Those words, when used, met with cheeringapproval: if used to-day they would be greeted with scoffing laughter.The present year has been one of growing gloom and menace. Theinternational temper is distinctly worse all round. A peace has beenpatched up with the Turkish Empire. No one believes it can endurelong. The only question is, How