SOUTH AFRICA
“God defend the right!”
WHEN the South African War broke out in early October, 1899, Mr. Lloyd
George was touring in Western Canada. The mutterings of the coming storm
had already reached him in the distant regions of the Rocky Mountains,
and that swift political instinct of his had warned him of grave events.
He turned in his tracks, abandoned his holiday, and made for home.[41]
While crossing the Atlantic he had abundant time to meditate on the
great issue between the South African Republics and the British Empire.
By the time he arrived in England he had already a very strong
impression that a great wrong was being perpetrated. But before uttering
any decisive word in public he made a very careful study of the many
State Papers which set forth the case on either side in that momentous
strife, especially the minutes of the negotiations between President
Kruger and Lord Milner at Bloemfontein. For it has always been the habit
of Mr. Lloyd George to study his documents in politics with fully as
much care as a good judge preparing for the courts.
We all know the conclusion he reached in regard to the Boer War.[42] He
took the view, on the facts of the case, that the war was by no means
inevitable. He held strongly throughout the following years that the war
was the result of bad statesmanship. He did not deny the wrongs of the
Uitlanders; but he believed that the results of the war could have been
achieved by the patient pursuit of peaceful diplomacy. This view has
certainly been strengthened since those days by that very remarkable
book, _The Autobiography of Sir William Butler_.[43]
Throughout the most bitter period of the controversy that followed Mr.
Lloyd George always admitted that there were two sides to the case. He
absolutely refused to join in the utter damnation of those Liberals,
such as Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, who supported the war. “We take
a different view of the facts,” was his way of putting it; and perhaps
this view explains why he refused to make the quarrel over the Boer War
a dividing issue within the Liberal Party. There were extremists on both
sides who wanted to part company; and there were pro-Boers who even
rejoiced when that strange creation, the Liberal League, came into
being. Mr. Lloyd George was not one of these. Sir Edward Grey on the
side of the war Liberals, and Mr. Lloyd George on the side of the peace
Liberals, did their utmost to prevent a permanent split; and they
succeeded. When the war was over the two branches of the party were able
to come together, and found that they still agreed on the main issues of
domestic politics.
We can now see a little more clearly why it was that Mr. Lloyd George
refused to found a separate party on the basis of his opposition to the
Boer War. It was not merely his practical perception that the South
African War was an issue that would pass: it was also that he was in no
sense a “peace at any price” man. Although he found himself in the
company of the pacifists, he never wholly belonged to that faith. He has
always been conscious that the ultimate support of power and freedom
must be force—force guided by right, but still force.[44]
His passionate sympathy with wars of freedom is in itself evidence on
this side. His greatest heroes abroad are men like Garibaldi, and at
home those great Welsh patriots and princes who maintained the forlorn
fight of his own little nation against Saxon and Norman—men like
Glendwyr and Llewellyn; fighters like De Wet often reminded him of those
indomitable Welsh guerillas. He used to point to the great Norman
castles along the coasts of North Wales and the Welsh borders as the
“block-houses” which the conquerors had to build to control his own
people.
Not, indeed, that he ever maintained the view that a little nation was a
law unto itself. His support of the Boer cause was not due merely to his
belief in little nations.
Order has to be maintained in the world, and little nations cannot be
allowed to run amuck. That was why his opposition to the war was mild at
first and grew stronger as time went on. He felt that the Boers had made
a grave mistake in issuing their Ultimatum. As long as the war was on
our part a war of resistance to the Boer invasion his criticisms were
restrained by that fact. But in his view that phase ended with the
capture of Bloemfontein and the British claim to annex.
From that time forward (1900) Mr. Lloyd George opposed the war tooth and
nail. It was after that date that he determined to enter upon a campaign
against the war throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain. Many
of his parliamentary friends refused to join; but Mr. Lloyd George went
straight on and faced the music in every part of the kingdom.
Since John Bright’s great fight against the Crimean War nothing of the
kind had been seen in England. It is no light thing to meet the
war-passion full front.
But none of these fears held back Mr. Lloyd George at this great moment.
He went everywhere and faced hostile crowds in the very heart of the war
country. He faced a violent mob at Glasgow; he defied Mr. Chamberlain’s
own followers at Birmingham; he narrowly escaped death in one of his own
Boroughs—Bangor.
Whatever men might think of his views, no one could deny his courage. It
was no easy campaign to conduct. The charge of treason was always in the
air. “Do you wish the Boers to win?” shouted a heckler after one of his
most eloquent defences of the Dutch Republicans. He was silent for a
moment, then he said, slowly and impressively: “God defend the right!”
He has often been severely criticised both then and since for consenting
to put on a constable’s coat and uniform in order to escape from the
Town Hall at Birmingham. An armed mob had possession of the hall itself.
They had pinned him and his friends into a back room: they threatened
and partly intended to achieve both his death and theirs. It is
contended that he was to wait meekly for his doom.
Such criticism is surely the very extravagance of blame. If an unarmed
public man faced with a mob so organised cannot resort to a “ruse of
war” to save both his friends and himself, then surely the bully will
rule the world. As a matter of fact, the Chief Constable of Birmingham
found it difficult enough to persuade Mr. Lloyd George to put on the
uniform; and it was only when he had convinced him that his friends too
were in danger that he reluctantly assented. But if he had actually
himself asked for the uniform he would surely have been fully justified.
To achieve an honourable peace—that was the object of his great
campaign in 1901 and 1902; and undoubtedly he played a great part in an
achievement which saved British South Africa. It is true he had beside
him that brave and honest man, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who helped
as far as it was possible for the official chief of a party deeply
divided by the issue. It is also fair to say that Lord Rosebery played a
great and honourable part in the final settlement. But all the risk was
taken by Mr. Lloyd George—at the time when every phrase and word meant
danger.
It is a curious fact that, when the Boers finally agreed to peace, Mr.
Lloyd George seemed for the moment to lose his interest in them. He
afterwards met and made great friends with General Botha and General
Smuts; and he has since taken General Smuts into his War Cabinet. But I
think he had at the time a sentimental sympathy with General De Wet in
his “no surrender” policy. His reason was with General Botha; but his
heart was with the men in the Back Veldt.
His interest did not revive until that occasion when Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman persuaded the Cabinet of 1906 to make the “clean cut”
by giving self-government to the annexed States. Of the speech which “C.
B.” then made to the Cabinet, Mr. Lloyd George always afterwards spoke
with a sincere and passionate admiration. He felt that it was the
undoing of a great wrong.
All through the time of the Boer War (1899-1902), Mr. Lloyd George would
spend his Sundays in that simple little house by the side of Wandsworth
Common—2, Routh Road. There he could escape from the tumult and
turmoil. On those Sunday afternoons he would often walk over Wandsworth
and Chapham Commons, and he would play and sing with his children as if
no great shadow overhung the country. He was especially fond of singing
hymns on those Sunday afternoons. He would always join with tremendous
gusto; and although his voice was untrained, he was certainly a very
hearty singer. But his greatest joy was when the children brought a book
of Welsh hymns and Welsh folk-songs. He would sing these with a
thrilling delight which made him really for the moment a singer of
power.
Then he would come back to discuss the situation; for he was never tired
of discussion. He would talk over every detail of the war; he would
follow it out with the greatest precision on large-scale maps. He
developed a most uncanny military skill; and he would prophesy with the
most remarkable astuteness the next move of the Generals on either side.
He knew every battle and skirmish; and, though he had never been to
South Africa, he seemed even to know the lie of the ground. He appeared
to know to what spot a column was going to move before it got there. He
had the same instinctive military perception with which Botha himself
was gifted. I remember De Wet once saying in conversation, “The only
military training I ever had was the same as that of Mr. Lloyd
George—parliamentary tactics.” May it not be that there is some
intimate relation between the tactics of Parliament and the
battle-field? Cromwell was a Member of Parliament before he was a
soldier; is it not possible that, if opportunity had afforded, Mr. Lloyd
George might have become a successful leader of armies?[45]
One afternoon especially comes back to my mind—hot summer afternoon
when we sat in the garden of the Wandsworth house and listened to Miss
Emily Hobhouse as she read to us her diary of her life in the
concentration camps. She had come hot-foot from South Africa with these
bare daily records of her experiences; and her idea was to work them up
into a book. Mr. Lloyd George gave an instant opinion: “No, publish it
as it stands!” was his pronouncement; and so the diary was published
with its fearful record of daily horror. Simultaneously with its
publication Mr. Lloyd George arranged to move the adjournment of the
House of Commons, and the double event blew up the whole policy of the
concentration camps.
Thus did he ultimately redeem the British name from the charge of
barbarism.
In the midst of the struggle Mr. Lloyd George determined that he must
have a London daily newspaper on his side. Committees had been formed
and subscription lists started, but little progress had been made. At
last he concluded that this was not a case for founding a new journal.
What was wanted was to buy up an established Liberal paper. A whisper of
trouble in the _Daily News_ office gave the compass-bearings for this
venture. Imperialism was not suiting the _Daily News_ readers; the
proprietors were willing to sell. But a hundred thousand pounds were
wanted for the purchase. Mr. Lloyd George determined to raise the money.
For once in his life he wrote two very careful letters—one to Mr.
George Cadbury and the other to Mr. Thomasson. He placed before them the
issues in very clear and searching language. Those two generous and
large-hearted men replied by offering £25,000 each; and the battle was
practically won.
He read me those letters at the time—we were dining at Gatti’s—and he
read them over the coffee and cigars. All I can say is that the letters
were fully worth the money they brought to his cause.
It was not very pleasant for the “prize crew” to take the places of old
colleagues like Sir Edward Cook and Mr. Saxon Mills, both of whom from
their own point of view had honestly and patriotically maintained their
faith. Nor was the struggle easy for the new proprietors. I remember
consoling Mr. George Cadbury by pointing out that he saved at least as
many lives as he lost pounds sterling; and with that reflection that
excellent man was more than satisfied.
But the personal crises through which journalists and proprietors had to
pass during that time were dust in the balance compared with what Mr.
Lloyd George and his family had to endure. His professional work in the
City came almost entirely to a stand. His office was boycotted; and one
day a lump of coal was thrown through the window. Towards the end of the
war things got so bad that he had to contemplate breaking up his home.
“They shan’t starve me,” he said to his wife one day, “even if I have to
send you all to Criccieth and live in a garret myself.” Peace happily
came before this event; but at every turn in the struggle he had to look
ruin in the face. His boy Richard[46] had such a bad time at school in
London that they found it necessary to transfer him to Portmadoc County
School when the facts were drawn from the reticent boy.
Throughout these troubles he was as considerate of those around him as
he was regardless of his own interests. Mr. Arthur Rhys Roberts, his
partner in the city firm, has always given to Mr. Lloyd George his
devotion and loyalty; but he is the first to claim that Mr. Lloyd George
has earned it. At the most critical moment of the struggle, when
threatening notices were coming with every post, old clients vanishing
like melting snow, and companies discarding their services, Mr. Lloyd
George came to Mr. Roberts. “What are your views?” he said to him. “I
don’t mind smashing up my own business, but I have my qualms about
injuring you. Tell me what I shall do to protect you.” Mr. Roberts,
feeling that Mr. Lloyd George was risking everything, refused to claim
any immunity; but these simple touches of consideration explain the
devotion which Mr. Lloyd George has so often inspired in those who have
worked for him.
Down in his own constituency he seemed to have sacrificed everything.
They burnt him in effigy in three of his Boroughs—at Criccieth, Nevin,
and Pwllheli. When he went to Bangor all his friends warned him of the
grave risks he was running. But he insisted on speaking there in the
Penrhyn Hall. The mob broke every window. He refused protection, and
walked openly through the crowd out of the hall. In the High Street he
was struck on the head with a bludgeon and only saved by his hat. He
staggered, half stunned, into a café in the High Street, and there he
was besieged for hours by a raging mob. On the advice of the police, he
climbed out at the back of the house and got away in a cab that was
brought round to him. The crowd waited until two o’clock in the morning
in the hope of being able to “finish” him.
All through the fearful episode Mrs. Lloyd George shared her husband’s
danger, and was stoned in her motor-car as she was waiting for him.
At last he paid a visit to Nevin, his own special Borough, where as a
rule the people worshipped him. But there at first his only friend was a
lame old shoe-maker. The people did not attack him, but they held
absolutely aloof. When he held a meeting, they refused at first to come
into the hall. Nothing daunted, he spoke quietly, and at length, on
every subject under the sun except the Boer War. As they heard him
through the door talking about their favourite subjects people slowly
crept in, man by man, and gradually filled the hall. Then, when he found
himself with a good audience in front of him, he really approached the
subject. Gently and tentatively he addressed them in their own Welsh
language, and it is very, very difficult for a Welsh audience not to
listen to him in that melodious tongue. But though they listened they
showed no enthusiasm; he felt that he was not moving them at all. Then
suddenly he changed his tack. Facing them in his grimmest way he said to
them sternly:
“See here now—five years ago you handed me a strip of blue
paper to give to the Speaker as your accredited representative.
If I never again represent these boroughs in the House of
Commons I shall at least have the satisfaction of handing back
to you that blue paper with no single stain of human blood upon
it.”
The effect was electrical. The whole audience rose to their feet with a
shout. He had won them back to his allegiance.
It is a curious historical fact that in another great struggle another
great Celtic orator, fighting a lone fight against an unjust war-passion
in these islands, uttered very much the same proud boast. When Mr.
Edmund Burke sent to the Sheriffs of the City of Bristol in 1777 that
famous letter on the affairs of America he wrote:
“If you and I find our talents not of the great and ruling kind,
our conduct, at least, is conformable to our faculties. No man’s
life pays the forfeit of our rashness. No desolate widow weeps
tears of blood over our ignorance.”
“A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.” Comparing
the two passages, Mr. Lloyd George’s words are a curious unconscious
echo of Edmund Burke’s—showing how, under similar stress, great minds
will ever leap to the same expression.
Throughout all these storms Mr. Lloyd George always showed that steady,
clear-headed shrewdness which is perhaps his supreme characteristic.
Never was this more conspicuously shown than in his contest with Mr.
Chamberlain over the connection with Kynochs. Here was difficult,
dangerous ground, where he had to tread delicately. On one occasion, in
that attack, he was constrained to make use of some figures published in
a newspaper. Shortly before the debate, he sent to his partner an urgent
request that he should verify his figures at Somerset House. A clerk was
sent along, and after careful checking it was discovered that there was
an error of no mean dimensions—an excessive 0 in one of the statements
of share-holdings. At the last possible moment the error was telephoned
to him at the House of Commons.
As Mr. Lloyd George waded his way through the figures in the press
report, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, sitting on the Treasury Bench, leaned
forward, waiting to pounce. He, too, knew of the error, and he was
intending to use it for his assailant’s destruction. He well knew the
cost of one such slip in the House of Commons.
But when Mr. Lloyd George came to the figure, he paused, and passed it
by. Mr. Chamberlain leaned back in his seat pale to the lips,
disappointed and baffled. He had met his match.
The climax in this crisis in Mr. Lloyd George’s career came when Mr.
Chamberlain, in September 1900, suddenly dissolved Parliament. In the
famous Khaki Election that followed certainly Mr. Chamberlain seemed as
if he might look with security to one great triumph, and that was the
final political extinction of Mr. Lloyd George. It was surely improbable
that a constituency which had just burnt him in effigy would return him
to Parliament. But if Mr. Chamberlain staked much on that throw it only
shows that he did not know Wales.
I happened to be with Mr. Lloyd George through that election. It was a
very astonishing affair. When he first came down to Carnarvon he seemed
to have few friends in the Boroughs. The people were sullen, if not
hostile. Then he began talking to them in their own language; and it was
curious to watch, in meeting after meeting, all their old tribal loyalty
gradually coming back to him. He moved from town to town, slowly and
cautiously recapturing their affections. He left no stone unturned. In
private he calculated his chances with all the close shrewdness of a
business man. Daily he reckoned up the voting probabilities in his
pocketbook. In public he worked indefatigably. He had against him a
retired military officer, Colonel Platt, chosen doubtless for the khaki
suggestiveness of his title. All the feudal powers of Wales put forth a
supreme effort to destroy their life-long terror.
We all know how it ended. Mr. Lloyd George was returned to Parliament on
Saturday, October 6th, 1900, with the largest majority he had yet
achieved—296. Some of the inflammable material which had been bought
for burning him in effigy at Carnarvon was actually used in the
manufacture of the torches which lit up his triumphal procession. The
same crowd which had been ready to destroy him a few months before led
him home on the night of the poll with a pomp and enthusiasm fit for a
king returning from his wars. A few months ago they had stoned him; a
few weeks ago they were still against him: but now with silver tongue he
had won back their hearts, and his people were with him again.
Outside his own house, Mr. Lloyd George stood up in his carriage and
bade them sing that great anthem of Wales, “The Land of our Fathers.”
The darkness above us gave to the scene a ghostly majesty; the earnest,
melancholy harmonies breathed an undying hope; the sea of resolute faces
gave a sense of vast, indefinable strength. The great hymn ended, and
then in perfect quiet the great multitude dispersed.
That last scene gave a clue to his hold over his people. At the critical
moment he had recalled their minds from adventures abroad to the thought
of their own dear land at home. On the very edge of abandoning him they
had recoiled. They had remembered him as their own Welsh leader; and
their loyalty had gone back to him.
It marked a great step in his career. For it proved to the whole world
that he had behind him a people that would support him in his direst
need. With such a support behind him a man can serenely face the future.
-----
[41] A letter from British Columbia on September 18th, 1899, records his
horror, and his resolution to return (_Du Parcq._ ii. 216).
[42] His first public utterance was on October 27th, just before the
House rose.
[43] _Sir William Butler: An Autobiography._ By Lieut.-General Sir W. F.
Butler, G.C.B. (London. Constable & Co., Ltd. 1911.)
[44] He made a remarkable speech before the war at Manchester, in
January 1899, defending the use of force in cases of defence.
[45] See the article by Mr. Herbert Sidebotham in _The Atlantic Monthly_
for November 1919, in which he discusses the question.
[46] Now (1920) Major Richard Lloyd George. Both Mr. Lloyd George’s sons
fought in the war, and both became majors.