Life — August 11, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUGUST 11, 1921 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY VOL, 78 No. 2023 London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. N spite of all difi- culties —the reluctance of Tory pol- iticians, the offishness of Ulster, and the wild cries of Sinn Fein extremists who want complete independence, Irish matters are in a hopeful state. Fighting (which was so largely murder) has stopped. Political prisoners have been released. Discussion has been atnicably conducted and the negotiations that are going on are promising. Lord Northcliffe, on his way to Japan to study the East, has been here, bringing with him Mr. Wickham Steed, the Editor of the London Times. Mr. Steed has made some interesting talk, and gives the credit for the great improvement in Irish matters very considerably to King George. He quotes the King as saying to Lloyd George: “Are you going to shoot all the people in Ireland?” “No, your Majesty.” “Well then, you must come to some agree- ment with them. This thing cannot go on. I cannot have my people killed in this manner.” Mr. Steed said that the speech that King George made at Belfast, the speech that gave the Irish confidence in the peace overture, was the King’s own speech, and expressed his personal senti- ments. It was the King, too, Mr. Steed says, that got General Smuts interested in Irish matters, so if what Mr. Steed says is true, the King virtually took the Irish job away from his cabinet, and knowing that he had public sentiment be- hind him, put the Irish disease in the way of being cured. If that is true, and one likes to believe it all, kings may still be some good, for King George has done the British Empire a sizable service. The Irish needed an appearance of some one in 598 Madison Avenue, New York England whom they could trust and who had power enough to deal with them. No such person appeared in the cabinet, but the King on occasion has power. He has it when he represents public opinion. With that back of him he can do great things. King George seems to be a very good democrat, and perhaps even a true liberal. In all current dealings between nations or nationalities the spirit that is behind them counts enormously. King George seems to supply to Great Britain something like what President Harding just now supplies to these States. He is a great force for conciliation. Some one who saw him in the early days of the war reported that he was the maddest man in England and the hottest for beating Ger- many, but he does not seem to be mad now. He is a peacemaker and a good one. VERY week there is a picture in the paper of President Harding with a crowd about him— opening something (strictly constitutional), starting some- thing, making a speech about something; or merely listening to talk and giving it back. One says he is a patient man. No doubt he is, but he has the faculty for that sort of service. He has the gift of bringing government near to the people. Some men have that gift, others have not, but it is valuable,—at times very valuable indeed. If you are going to beat out the demagogues you must get to the people, and carry to them better and truer talk than the demagogue talked. President Harding is good at that. One might call him a good mixer, but it is more than that, and King George and the young Prince of Wales seem to have much the same faculty. Lord Derby was reported the other day in the London Times as remonstrating at the great activities that were exacted from the Prince of Wales. He is an engaging young fellow, as we all know here, and in England they seem to send him where there is trouble, to carry an infusion of good temper into quarrelsome atmospheres. That is really a very important social and political ser- vice, especially in these times when all kinds of people have need to work to- gether, and think as well as possible of one another. RESIDENT HARDING has only a very moderate appetite for isolation. For some men it is necessary at times, but not, apparently, for him. At this writing he has been spending Sunday in camp in Maryland with Henry Ford, Edison and Mr. Firestone, of whom the first two at least are as remarkable as any two living Americans can be, and are good company for the President because of the originality of their minds. They are men to whom nothing is impossible— to whom precedent shows only one way of doing things, and who are never held by it unless they think it shows the best way. Precedent cannot go far in curing the troubles of our present world, which are quite out of common, and call for new remedies. A while ago the Wall Street Journal was telling how hard up Henry Ford was; how his best men had left him; how he was too much extended, and had incurred a vast indebtedness which the banks would have to take care of. The intimation was that Henry had shot his bolt and that the masters of capi- tal were at last about to control him and pcint out to him what he had to do. Day after day these stories appeared in the Journal aforesaid, but it did not turn out at all as was said. Henry turned in his comicbooks.com