A dispute arose between the British and American Admiralties as to some warship-building projected by the Americans which our naval chiefs thought would threaten our superiority at sea. Thereupon Lloyd George began to express doubt about the necessity of proceeding with the League. I protested strongly, and eventually some compromise was arranged which put an end to this particular difficulty. But the incident illustrates the kind of way in which he regarded the League, and gave him a certain air of vacillation on the subject. After the war was over and we had left Paris I remember asking Fisher, then in the Government and often one of our representatives at Geneva, what the Prime Minister (as he was then) really thought about the League, and all I could get out of him was that Lloyd George was like the sea, sometimes blue and sometimes green. Lord Riddell says that Lloyd George hated the League. I think that is an exaggeration, though it may have been an accurate report of some casual observation in that sense. It is doubtless the case that the idea that war could be abolished seemed to him fantastic. "What had been would be" was to him a fundamental truth. He could never be persuaded to visit Geneva. He rarely referred to the League in his public speeches, and when he did his approval of it was chilly.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A dispute arose between the British and American Admiralties as to some warship-building projected by the Americans which our naval chiefs thought would threaten our superiority at sea. Thereupon Lloyd George began to express doubt about the necessity of proceeding with the League. I protested strongly, and eventually some compromise was arranged which put an end to this particular difficulty. But the incident illustrates the kind of way in which he regarded the League, and gave him a certain air of vacillation on the subject. After the war was over and we had left Paris I remember asking Fisher, then in the Government and often one of our representatives at Geneva, what the Prime Minister (as he was then) really thought about the League, and all I could get out of him was that Lloyd George was like the sea, sometimes blue and sometimes green. Lord Riddell says that Lloyd George hated the League. I think that is an exaggeration, though it may have been an accurate report of some casual observation in that sense. It is doubtless the case that the idea that war could be abolished seemed to him fantastic. "What had been would be" was to him a fundamental truth. He could never be persuaded to visit Geneva. He rarely referred to the League in his public speeches, and when he did his approval of it was chilly." in the context of "Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, All the Way (1949), pp. 155-156" to mean that wisdom is timeless.