THE KNOT AND THE WAY OUT

"Have you ever been trying to disentangle a knot with somebody looking on?" (Laughter.) "You seem to fumble, you seem to take a long time, they get very impatient, and at last they say, 'give it to me.' Then you look on" (laughter) "and the tangle gets a little more, and the fumbling gets a little more pronounced. There is a little satisfaction of a human kind in looking on." (Laughter.)

Mr. Lloyd-George has always been as skillful in disentangling knots as in avoiding the torpedoes of the enemy. He has been inclined to use Alexander's method of untying a knot, caring little whether he smote a little to the right or left of the true center as long as the entanglement was loosened. Perhaps the two-edged Wish sword is dulled from smiting; or perhaps the rope today is stronger than usual.

The Prime Minister is facing one of his greatest crises and has thrown himself on the people, "whose cause I have never betrayed during thirty-two years of strenuous public life". He has made a brilliant popular non-partisan speech. He belongs to no party except himself and he relies on the appeal of his indispensable personality. He has been criticized and laughed at; excellent! He will beg some one else to take his place and will enjoy a much-needed rest. Only, of course, he will then look on; - "and the tangle gets a little more, and the fumbling gets a little more pronounced." The man who would "hang the Kaiser in 1918" will see in 1922 "how we are to forgive Germany all the reparations and make France love us more than ever"; how we are to pay debts and not receive them, how all the problems of the country are to be settled.

Apparently Mr. Chamberlain and his associates are not too eager to have Mr. Lloyd-George take a much-needed, rest of this kind and today they will bring all their forces to bear at the Conservative meeting to hold the party true to the Coalition. If they fail and the DieHards lead in a march back to stricter party lines, the Prime-Minister has the alternative of joining the "Wee Frees" or of forming a new central party of his Liberals and moderate Conservative friends.

Whatever the result, the sun still shines brightly about the Welshman's head. The Coalition seems finally doomed. What of that? If not returned at the head of a party, Mr. Lloyd George will take his much-needed rest in Opposition, and his successor will be a brave man to try disentangling the knot under such a gaze.