By David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The gravity of labor disputes in the present time of national
danger was dealt with by Mr. Lloyd George in a speech to his
constituents at Bangor on Feb. 28, 1915, special reference
being made to the Clyde strike. He declared that compulsory
arbitration in war time was imperative, as it was "intolerable
that the lives of Britons should be imperiled for a matter of
a farthing an hour." This was essentially an engineers' war,
for equipment was even more needed than men. Mr. Lloyd George
went on to comment on the adverse effect of drinking upon
production, and added: "We have great powers to deal with
drink, and we shall use them."
I have promised for some time to address a meeting at Bangor. I have
been unable to do so because Ministers of the Crown have been working
time and overtime, and I am sorry to say that we are not even able to
make the best of the day of rest, the urgency is so great, the pressure
is so severe. I had something to say today, otherwise I should not have
been here, and I had something to say that required stating at once.
This is the only day I had to spare. It is no fault of mine. It is
because we are entirely absorbed in the terrible task which has been
cast upon our shoulders. I happened to have met on Friday morning,
before I decided to come down here, one of the most eminent Scottish
divines, a great and old friend of mine, Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh. We were
discussing what I have got to say today. I remarked to him, "I have only
one day on which to say it, and as that is Sunday afternoon I am very
much afraid my constituents won't listen to me." He replied, "If they
won't have you, come to Scotland, and we will give you the best Sunday
afternoon meeting you ever had." But I thought I would try Wales first.
[Cheers.] He told me that in the Shorter Catechism you are allowed to do
works of charity and necessity, and those who tell me that this is not
work of necessity do not know the need, the dire need, of their country
at this hour. At this moment there are Welshmen in the trenches of
France facing cannon and death; the hammering of forges today is
ringing down the church bells from one end of Europe to the other. When
I know these things are going on now on Sunday as well as the week days
I am not the hypocrite to say, "I will save my own soul by not talking
about them on Sundays." [Cheers.]
Do we understand the necessity? Do we realize it? Belgium, once
comfortably well-to-do, is now waste and weeping, and her children are
living on the bread of charity sent them by neighbors far and near. And
France--the German Army, like a wild beast, has fastened its claws deep
into her soil, and every effort to drag them out rends and tears the
living flesh of that beautiful land. The beast of prey has not leaped to
our shores--not a hair of Britain's head has been touched by him. Why?
Because of the vigilant watchdog that patrols the deep for us; and that
is my complaint against the British Navy. It does not enable us to
realize that Britain at the present moment is waging the most serious
war it has ever been engaged in. We do not understand it. A few weeks
ago I visited France. We had a conference of the Ministers of Finance of
Russia, France, Great Britain, and Belgium. Paris is a changed city. Her
gayety, her vivacity, is gone. You can see in the faces of every man
there, and of every woman, that they know their country is in the grip
of grim tragedy. They are resolved to overcome it, confident that they
will overcome it, but only through a long agony.
No visitor to our shores would realize that we are engaged in exactly
the same conflict, and that on the stricken fields of the Continent and
along the broads and the narrows of the seas that encircle our islands
is now being determined, not merely the fate of the British Empire, but
the destiny of the human race for generations to come. [Cheers.] We are
conducting a war as if there was no war. I have never been doubtful
about the result of the war, [cheers,] and I will give you my reasons by
and by. Nor have I been doubtful, I am sorry to say, about the length of
the war and its seriousness. In all wars nations are apt to minimize
their dangers and the duration. Men, after all, see the power of their
own country; they cannot visualize the power of the enemy. I have been
accounted as a pessimist among my friends in thinking the war would not
be over before Christmas. I have always been convinced that the result
is inevitably a triumph for this country. I have also been convinced
that that result will not be secured without a prolonged struggle. I
will tell you why. I shall do so not in order to indulge in vain and
idle surmises as to the duration of the war, but in order to bring home
to my countrymen what they are confronted with, so as to insure that
they will leave nothing which is at their command undone in order, not
merely to secure a triumph, but to secure it at the speediest possible
moment. It is in their power to do so. It is also in their power, by
neglect, by sloth, by heedlessness, to prolong their country's agony,
and maybe to endanger at least the completeness of its triumphs. This is
what I have come to talk to you about this afternoon, for it is a work
of urgent necessity in the cause of human freedom, and I make no apology
for discussing on a Sunday the best means of insuring human liberty.
[Cheers.]
I will give you first of all my reasons for coming to the conclusion
that after this struggle victory must wait on our banners if we properly
utilize our resources and opportunities. The natural resources of the
allied countries are overwhelmingly greater than those of their enemies.
In the man capable of bearing arms, in the financial and economic
resources of these countries, in their accessibility to the markets of
the world through the command of the sea for the purpose of obtaining
material and munitions--all these are preponderatingly in favor of the
allied countries. But there is a greater reason than all these. Beyond
all is the moral strength of our cause, and that counts in a struggle
which involves sacrifices, suffering, and privation for all those
engaged in it. A nation cannot endure to the end that has on its soul
the crimes of Belgium. [Loud cheers.] The allied powers have at their
disposal more than twice the number of men which their enemies can
command. You may ask me why are not those overwhelming forces put into
the field at once and this terrible war brought to a triumphant
conclusion at the earliest possible moment. In the answer to that
question lies the cause of the war. The reason why Germany declared war
is in the answer to that question.
In the old days when a nation's liberty was menaced by an aggressor a
man took from the chimney corner his bow and arrow or his spear, or a
sword which had been left to him by an ancestry of warriors, went to the
gathering ground of his tribe, and the nation was fully equipped for
war. That is not the case now. Now you fight with complicated, highly
finished weapons, apart altogether from the huge artillery. Every rifle
which a man handles is a complicated and ingenious piece of mechanism,
and it takes time. The German arsenals were full of the machinery of
horror and destruction. The Russian arsenals were not, and that is the
reason for the war. Had Russia projected war, she also would have filled
her arsenals, but she desired above everything peace. ["Hear, hear!"] I
am not sure that Russia has ever been responsible for a war of
aggression against any of her European neighbors. Certainly this is not
one of them. She wanted peace, she needed peace, she meant peace, and
she would have had peace had she been left alone. She was at the
beginning of a great industrial development, and she wanted peace in
order to bring it to its full fructification. She had repeatedly stood
insolences at the hands of Germany up to the point of humiliation, all
for peace, and anything for peace.
Whatever any one may say about her internal Government, Russia was
essentially a peaceable nation. The men at the head of her affairs were
imbued with the spirit of peace. The head of her army, the Grand Duke
Nicholas, [cheers,] is about the best friend of peace in Europe. Never
was a nation so bent on preserving peace as Russia was. It is true
Germany six or seven years ago had threatened to march her legions
across the Vistula and trample down Russia in the mud, and Russia,
fearing a repetition of the same threat, was putting herself in a
position of defense. But she was not preparing for any aggression, and
Germany said, "This won't do. We don't like people who can defend
themselves. We are fully prepared. Russia is not. This is the time to
plant our dagger of tempered steel in her heart before her breastplates
are forged." That is why we are at war. [Cheers.] Germany hurried her
preparations, made ready for war. She made a quarrel with the same cool
calculation as she had made a new gun. She hurled her warriors across
the frontier. Why? Because she wanted to attack somebody, a country that
could not defend herself. It was the purest piece of brigandage in
history. [Cheers.] All the same there remains the fact that Russia was
taken at a disadvantage, and is, therefore, unable to utilize beyond a
fraction the enormous resources which she possesses to protect her soil
against the invader. France was not expecting war, and she, therefore,
was taken unawares.
What about Britain? We never contemplated any war of aggression against
any of our neighbors, and therefore we never raised an army adequate to
such sinister purposes. During the last thirty years the two great
political parties in the State have been responsible for the policy of
this country at home and abroad. For about the same period we have each
been governing this country. For about fifteen years neither one party
nor the other ever proposed to raise an army in this country that would
enable us to confront on land a great Continental power. What does that
mean? We never meant to invade any Continental country. [Cheers.] That
is the proof of it. If we had we would have started our great armies
years ago. We had a great navy, purely for protection, purely for the
defense of our shores, and we had an army which was just enough to deal
with any small raid that happened to get through the meshes of our navy,
and perhaps to police the empire. That was all, no more. But now we have
to assist neighbors becoming the victims of a power with millions of
warriors at its command, and we have to improvise a great army, and
gallantly have our men flocked to the standard. [Cheers.] We have raised
the largest voluntary army that has been enrolled in any country or any
century--the largest voluntary army, and it is going to be larger.
[Cheers.]
I saw a very fine sample of that army this morning at Llandudno. I
attended a service there, and I think it was about the most thrilling
religious service I have ever been privileged to attend. There were men
there of every class, every position, every calling, every condition of
life. The peasant had left his plow, the workman had left his lathe and
his loom, the clerk had left his desk, the trader and the business man
had left their counting houses, the shepherd had left his sunlit hills,
and the miner the darkness of the earth, the rich proprietor had left
his palace, and the man earning his daily bread had quitted his humble
cottage. There were men there of diverse and varied faiths who
worshipped at different shrines--men who were in array against each
other months ago in bitter conflict, and I saw them march with one step
under one flag to fight for the same cause, and I saw them worship the
same God. What has brought them together? The love of their native land,
resentment for a cruel wrong inflicted upon the weak and defenseless.
More than that, what brought them together was that instinct which comes
to humanity at critical times when the moment has arrived to cross
rivers of blood in order to rescue humanity from the grip of some
strangling despotism. [Cheers.] They have done nobly. That is what has
brought them together, but we want more, [cheers,] and I have no doubt
we will get more.
If this country had produced an army which was equal in proportion to
its population to the number of men under arms in France and in Germany
at the present moment there would be three millions and a half in this
country and 1,200,000 in the Colonies. [Cheers.] That is what I mean
when I say our resources are quite adequate to the task. It is not our
fight merely--it is the fight of humanity. [Cheers.] The allied
countries between them could raise armies of over twenty millions of
men. Our enemies can put in the field barely half that number.
Much as I should like to talk about the need for more men, that is not
the point of my special appeal today. We stand more in need of equipment
than we do of men. This is an engineers' war, [cheers,] and it will be
won or lost owing to the efforts or shortcomings of engineers. I have
something to say about that, for it involves sacrifices for all of us.
Unless we are able to equip our armies our predominance in men will
avail us nothing. We need men, but we need arms more than men, and delay
in producing them is full of peril for this country. You may say that I
am saying things that ought to be kept from the enemy. I am not a
believer in giving any information which is useful to him. You may
depend on it he knows, but I do not believe in withholding from our own
public information which they ought to possess, because unless you tell
them you cannot invite their co-operation. The nation that cannot bear
the truth is not fit for war, and may our young men be volunteers, while
the unflinching pride of those they have left behind them in their deed
of sacrifice ought to satisfy the most apprehensive that we are not a
timid race, who cannot face unpleasant facts! The last thing in the
world John Bull wants is to be mollycoddled. The people must be told
exactly what the position is, and then we can ask them to help. We must
appeal for the co-operation of employers, workmen, and the general
public; the three must act and endure together, or we delay and maybe
imperil victory. We ought to requisition the aid of every man who can
handle metal. It means that the needs of the community in many respects
will suffer acutely vexatious, and perhaps injurious, delay; but I feel
sure that the public are prepared to put up with all this discomfort,
loss, and privation if thereby their country marches triumphantly out of
this great struggle. [Cheers.] We have every reason for confidence; we
have none for complacency. Hope is the mainspring of efficiency;
complacency is its rust.
We laugh at things in Germany that ought to terrify us. We say, "Look at
the way they are making their bread--out of potatoes, ha, ha!" Aye, that
potato-bread spirit is something which is more to dread than to mock at.
I fear that more than I do even von Hindenburg's strategy, efficient as
it may be. That is the spirit in which a country should meet a great
emergency, and instead of mocking at it we ought to emulate it. I
believe we are just as imbued with the spirit as Germany is, but we want
it evoked. [Cheers.] The average Briton is too shy to be a hero until he
is asked. The British temper is one of never wasting heroism on needless
display, but there is plenty of it for the need. There is nothing
Britishers would not give up for the honor of their country or for the
cause of freedom. Indulgences, comforts, even the necessities of life
they would willingly surrender. Why, there are two millions of them at
this hour who have willingly tendered their lives for their country.
What more could they do? If the absorption of all our engineering
resources is demanded, no British citizen will grudge his share of
inconvenience.
But what about those more immediately concerned in that kind of work?
Here I am approaching something which is very difficult to talk
about--I mean the employers and workmen. I must speak out quite plainly;
nothing else is of the slightest use. For one reason or another we are
not getting all the assistance we have the right to expect from our
workers. Disputes, industrial disputes, are inevitable; and when you
have a good deal of stress and strain, men's nerves are not at their
best. I think I can say I always preserve my temper in these days--I
hope my wife won't give me away--[laughter]--and I have no doubt that
the spirit of unrest creeps into the relations between employer and
workmen. Some differences of opinion are quite inevitable, but we cannot
afford them now; and, above all, we cannot resort to the usual method of
settling them.
I suppose I have settled more labor disputes than any man in this hall,
and, although those who only know me slightly may be surprised to hear
me say it, the thing that you need most is patience. If I were to give a
motto to a man who is going to a conference between employers and
workmen I would say: "Take your time; don't hurry. It will come around
with patience and tact and temper." But you know we cannot afford those
leisurely methods now. Time is victory, [cheers,] and while employers
and workmen on the Clyde have been spending time in disputing over a
fraction, and when a week-end, ten days, and a fortnight of work which
is absolutely necessary for the defense of the country has been set
aside, I say here solemnly that it is intolerable that the life of
Britain should be imperiled for the matter of a farthing an hour.
Who is to blame? That is not the question, but--How it is to be stopped?
Employers will say, "Are we always to give way?" Workmen say, "Employers
are making their fortunes out of an emergency of the country; why are
not we to have a share of the plunder?" ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.]
There is one gentleman here who holds that view. [Laughter.] I hope he
is not an engineer. [Renewed laughter.] "We work harder than ever," say
the workmen. All I can say is, if they do they are entitled to their
share. But that is not the point--who is right? Who is wrong? They are
both right and they are both wrong. The whole point is that these
questions ought to be settled without throwing away the chances of
humanity in its greatest struggle. [Cheers.] There is a good deal to be
said for and there is a vast amount to be said against compulsory
arbitration, but during the war the Government ought to have power to
settle all these differences, and the work should go on. The workman
ought to get more. Very well, let the Government find it out and give it
to him. If he ought not, then he ought not to throw up his tools. The
country cannot afford it. It is disaster, and I do not believe the
moment this comes home to workmen and employers they will refuse to
comply with the urgent demand of the Government. There must be no delay.
There is another aspect of the question which it is difficult and
dangerous to tackle. There are all sorts of regulations for restricting
output. I will say nothing about the merits of this question. There are
reasons why they have been built up. The conditions of employment and
payment are mostly to blame for those restrictions. The workmen had to
fight for them for their own protection, but in a period of war there is
a suspension of ordinary law. Output is everything in this war.
This war is not going to be fought mainly on the battlefields of Belgium
and Poland. It is going to be fought in the workshops of France and
Great Britain; and it must be fought there under war conditions. There
must be plenty of safeguards and the workman must get his equivalent,
but I do hope he will help us to get as much out of those workshops as
he can, for the life of the nation depends on it. Our enemies realize
that, and employers and workmen in Germany are straining their utmost.
France, fortunately, also realizes it, and in that land of free
institutions, with a Socialist Prime Minister, a Socialist Secretary of
State for War, and a Socialist Minister of Marine, the employers and
workmen are subordinating everything to the protection of their
beautiful land.
I have something more to say about this, and it is unpleasant. I would
wish that it were not I, but somebody else that should say it. Most of
our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work
for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of
all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this
great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work
a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a
minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The
others are a minority. But, you must remember, a small minority of
workmen can throw a whole works out of gear. What is the reason?
Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes it is another, but let us be
perfectly candid. It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to
work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are
impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. Drink is
doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put
together.
What has Russia done? [Cheers.] Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing
how unprepared she was, said, "I must pull myself together. I am not
going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will use all my
resources." What is the first thing she does? She stops the drink.
[Cheers.] I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, a
singularly able man, and I asked, "What has been the result?" He said,
"The productivity of labor, the amount of work which is put out by the
workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent." [Cheers.] I said, "How
do they stand it without their liquor?" and he replied, "Stand it? I
have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year, and we certainly
cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back there would be a
revolution in Russia." That is what the Minister of Finance told me. He
told me that it is entirely attributable to the act of the Czar himself.
It was a bold and courageous step--one of the most heroic things in the
war. [Cheers.] One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris,
and the French Minister of Finance said, "I have got to go to the
Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe."
[Cheers.] Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in
this country. It is really the worst form of drink used; not only among
workmen, but among other classes as well. Its ravages are terrible, and
they abolished it by a majority of something like 10 to 1 that
afternoon. [Cheers.]
That is how those great countries are facing their responsibilities. We
do not propose anything so drastic as that--we are essentially moderate
men. [Laughter.] But we are armed with full powers for the defense of
the realm. We are approaching it, I do not mind telling you, for the
moment, not from the point of view of people who have been considering
this as a social problem--we are approaching it purely from the point of
view of these works. We have got great powers to deal with drink, and we
mean to use them. [Cheers.] We shall use them in a spirit of moderation,
we shall use them discreetly, we shall use them wisely, but we shall use
them fearlessly, [cheers,] and I have no doubt that, as the country's
needs demand it, the country will support our action and will allow no
indulgence of that kind to interfere with its prospects in this terrible
war which has been thrust upon us.
There are three things I want you to bear in mind. The first is--and I
want to get this into the minds of every one--that we are at war; the
second, that it is the greatest war that has ever been fought by this or
any other country, and the other, that the destinies of your country and
the future of the human race for generations to come depend upon the
outcome of this war. What does it mean were Germany to win? It means
world power for the worst elements in Germany, not for Germany. The
Germans are an intelligent race; they are undoubtedly a cultivated race;
they are a race of men who have been responsible for great ideas in this
world. But this would mean the dominance of the worst elements among
them. If you think I am exaggerating just you read for the moment
extracts from the articles in the newspapers which are in the ascendency
now in Germany about the settlement which they expect after this war. I
am sorry to say I am stating nothing but the bare, brutal truth. I do
not say that the Kaiser will sit on the throne of England if he should
win. I do not say that he will impose his laws and his language on this
country as did William the Conqueror. I do not say that you will hear
the tramp, the noisy tramp of the goose step in the cities of the
Empire. [Laughter.] I do not say that Death's Head Hussars will be
patrolling our highways. I do not say that a visitor, let us say, to
Aberdaron, will have to ask a Pomeranian policeman the best way to
Hell's Mouth. [Loud laughter.] That is not what I mean. What I mean is
that if Germany were triumphant in this war it would practically be the
dictator of the international policy of the world. Its spirit would be
in the ascendant. Its doctrines would be in the ascendant; by the sheer
power of its will it would bend the minds of men in its own fashion.
Germanism in its later and worst form would be the inspiriting thought
and philosophy of the hour.
Do you remember what happened to France after 1870? The German armies
left France, but all the same for years after that, and while France was
building up her army, she stood in cowering terror of this monster. Even
after her great army was built France was oppressed with a constant
anxiety as to what might happen. Germany dismissed her Ministers. Had it
not been for the intervention of Queen Victoria in 1874 the French Army
would never have been allowed to be reconstructed, and France would
simply have been the humble slave of Germany to this hour. What a
condition for a country! And now France is fighting not so much to
recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect
and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this
nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a
France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And
that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken,
Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend
ourselves. We might have a navy that would enable us, perhaps, to resent
insult from Nicaragua, [laughter,] we might have just enough troops,
perhaps, to confront the Mad Mullah--I mean the African specimen. [Loud
laughter.]
Where would the chivalrous country be to step in to protect us as we
protected France in 1874? America? If countries like Russia and France,
with their huge armies, and the most powerful navy in the world could
not face this terrible military machine, if it breaks that combination,
how can America step in? It would be more than America can do to defend
her own interests on her own continent if Germany is triumphant. They
are more unready than we were. Ah! but what manner of Germany would we
be subordinate to? There has been a struggle going on in Germany for
over thirty years between its best and its worst elements. It is like
that great struggle which is depicted, I think, in one of Wagner's great
operas between the good and the evil spirit for the possession of the
man's soul. That great struggle has been going on in Germany for thirty
or forty years. At each successive general election the better elements
seemed to be getting the upper hand, and I do not mind saying I was one
of those who believed they were going to win. I thought they were going
to snatch the soul of Germany--it is worth saving, it is a great,
powerful soul--I thought they were going to save it. So a dead military
caste said, "We will have none of this," and they plunged Europe into
seas of blood. Hope was again shattered. Those worst elements will
emerge triumphant out of this war if Germany wins.
What does that mean? We shall be vassals, not to the best Germany, not
to the Germany of sweet songs and inspiring, noble thoughts--not to the
Germany of science consecrated to the service of man, not to the Germany
of a virile philosophy that helped to break the shackles of
superstition in Europe--not to that Germany, but to a Germany that
talked through the raucous voice of Krupp's artillery, a Germany that
has harnessed science to the chariot of destruction and of death, the
Germany of a philosophy of force, violence, and brutality, a Germany
that would quench every spark of freedom either in its own land or in
any other country in rivers of blood. I make no apology on a day
consecrated to the greatest sacrifice for coming here to preach a holy
war against that. [Great cheering.]
Concluding this speech in Welsh, Mr. Lloyd George said: "War is a time
of sacrifice and of service. Some can render one service, some another,
some here and some there. Some can render great assistance, others but
little. There is not one who cannot help in some measure, whether it be
only by enduring cheerfully his share of the discomfort. In the old
Welsh legend there is a story of a man who was given a series of what
appeared to be impossible tasks to perform ere he could reach the
desires of his heart. Among other things he had to do was to recover
every grain of seed that had been sown in a large field and bring it all
in without one missing by sunset. He came to an anthill and won all the
hearts and enlisted the sympathies of the industrious little people.
They spread over the field, and before sundown the seed was all in
except one, and as the sun was setting over the western skies a lame ant
hobbled along with that grain also. Some of us have youth and vigor and
suppleness of limb; some of us are crippled with years or infirmities,
and we are at best but little ants. But we can all limp along with some
share of our country's burden, and thus help her in this terrible hour
to win the desire of her heart." [Loud cheers.]
Mr. Lloyd George and his party returned after the meeting to Llandudno,
where today he will inspect the First Brigade of the Welsh Army Corps.