In a public speech made immediately after the Lords' action he said: "I
come here to-day not to preach a funeral oration. I am here neither to
bury nor to praise the Budget. If it is buried it is in the sure and
certain hope of a glorious resurrection. As to its merits, no one
appreciates them more sincerely than I do, but its slaughter has raised
greater, graver, and more fruitful issues. We have got to arrest the
criminal. We have to see he perpetrates no further crime. A new
chapter is now being written for the sinister assembly which is more
responsible than any other power for wrecking popular hopes, but which,
in my judgment, has perpetrated its last act of destructive fury. They
have slain the Budget. In doing so they have killed the bill which, if
you will permit me to say so, had in it more promises of better things
for the people of this country than most things which have been
submitted to the House of Commons. It made provision against the
inevitable evils which befall such large masses of our poor population,
through old age, infirmity, sickness, and unemployment. The schemes of
which the Budget was the small foundation would, in my judgment, if
they had been allowed to fructify, have eliminated at least hunger from
the terrors that haunt the workman's cottage. Yet here you have an
order of men blessed with every fortune which Providence can bestow on
them grudging a small pittance out of their super-abundance in order to
protect those who have built up their wealth against the haunting
terror of misery and despair. They have thrown it out, and in doing so
they have initiated one of the greatest, gravest, and most promising
struggles of the time. Liberty owes as much to the foolhardiness of
its foes as it does to the sapience and wisdom of its friends. At last
the case between the peers and the people has been set down for trial
in the great assize of the people, and the verdict will be given soon."
The country was quickly in the midst of the election. It cannot be
said that Lloyd George dealt lightly with the House of Lords. Here is
a typical reference: "Who are the guardians of this mighty British
people? I shall have to make exceptions, but they are men who have
neither the training, the qualifications, nor the experience which
would fit them for such a gigantic task. The majority of them are
simply men whose sole qualification is that they are the first-born of
persons who had just as little qualifications as themselves. To invite
this imperial race, this, the greatest commercial nation in the world,
the nation that has taught the world in the principles of
self-government and liberty--to invite this nation itself to sign a
decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the
guardianship of such people, that is an insult which I hope will be
thrown back with ignominy."
Not only the upper classes, but a great many of the lower classes
stormed and raged at these and similar words. The _Daily Mail_ went so
far as to give a column of titbits from Lloyd George's speeches in
order to show what a really vulgar and detestable person he was, and
how unfit to occupy any leading position in the state.
The election results as they began to come in indicated that while the
Liberals were losing a number of seats which in years gone by had been
Conservative strongholds, they were, nevertheless, going to retain the
confidence of the country. In the result Mr. Asquith found himself
once again in command of the House of Commons with a majority of one
hundred and twenty-four.
The cards were placed in the hands of the Liberals now, but they had to
be very carefully played. The House of Lords swallowed its humiliation
as best it could and passed the famous Budget on April 28, 1910,
exactly one year after its introduction into the House of Commons.
They did not make any fuss about it, because, as I shall show, they had
other things to think of. I remember the day on which the bill became
law in the House of Lords. There were very few peers present. Several
of the members of the House of Commons walked across from the Commons
to witness the culmination of their effort. Among them was Lloyd
George. He came in under the gallery, sprucely dressed in a morning
coat, his long hair brushed back from his forehead and above his ears
with a neatness which was not observable in his moments of excitement.
To-day he had no work to do: one job was finished and he was only on
the threshold of another. As he stood at the bar he looked over the
members of the House of Lords with a grave and benignant expression
which reminded one of a fond father regarding erring children. I
thought of the studious expression which usually characterized the face
of that daredevil boy down at Llanystumdwy all those years ago. I am
quite sure that the peers who observed him surveying them did not think
he was benignant. If I am any judge of feelings, they looked upon him,
as he stood there at the bar, as a particularly malignant type of
viper. With a genial smile Lloyd George exchanged a chatty word or two
with an M. P. at his side. No one would have guessed that there was
bitterness in his soul at this assembly or that with grim purpose he
was even now marking out the destruction of their powers.
It is the fashion in the House of Lords to give the King's consent to
legislation by proxy. The consent, moreover, is given now, as for many
hundreds of years past, not in the English language, but in the
language of the old Norman-French conqueror of nearly a thousand years
ago. A bewigged clerk read out in resonant tones the title of the bill
and from another official there came the answer of the King, "Le Roy le
veult" ("The King wills it"). The Budget of 1909 had become part of
the law of the United Kingdom. Lloyd George, still chatting cheerfully
with a fellow-member of the House of Commons, walked back to the Lower
Chamber.
If any of the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the
course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to
get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have
been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the
presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A
cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith with
regard to the Lords. The plan was no less than this--to take away from
the peers their constitutional rights to do more than to hold up for
three successive sessions any legislation passed by the House of
Commons. They were not to have the power of killing bills, though they
might retard them a little. And so far as money bills were concerned
they were not to be allowed to delay them at all. The Commons were to
be given power to pass any money bill over the head of the Lords if the
latter did not agree to it immediately it was sent up to them. In
these cases the King and Commons between them were to be the lawmaking
power, and as the King's assent is always automatically given to the
proposals of Ministers in power the net result would be the complete
supremacy of the Commons in Government.
But how were these changes to be made effective? They could, of
course, only be brought into force by legal enactment, and it was
impossible to expect the Lords to sign their own death warrant. It was
settled between Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith to take the House of Lords
by the throat. Lloyd George was prepared for extreme measures, and Mr.
Asquith, a student of English history, found out a way by means of
ancient precedent. Twice before in the story of the British Parliament
there had been similar episodes. In the reign of Queen Anne and in the
reign of William IV. the Prime Minister of the day, encountering
opposition from the House of Lords, had gone to the reigning sovereign
and secured the promise of the creation of enough new peers to turn the
minority in the House of Lords into a preponderance of votes. This was
the plan now agreed upon, only the audacity of it was far greater than
on previous occasions, because Queen Anne's new peers numbered but
twelve and the number of new peers proposed to be created in 1832 to
pass the Reform bill under William IV. was limited to eighty. Mr.
Asquith and Lloyd George faced the fact that on this occasion it would
be necessary to create something like five hundred new peers.
I pass over some of the intervening stages--the howls that came from
the Lords, who saw their prestige departing with this wholesale
dilution of their order; the choking attempts which the peer leaders
made to be civil of tongue and to arrange a compromise. Merciless was
the determination of Lloyd George. Another general election on the
specific issue of the power of the Lords again resulted in the return
of the Liberals to office.
The Government proposals for the restriction of the future functions of
the Lords were embodied in a measure called the Parliament bill, and it
was for the Lords to pass this measure or else to suffer the immediate
creation of the army of new peers who had been nominated by Mr. Asquith
and who would immediately vote down the existing Conservative majority
in the gilded chamber.
The climax was reached on August 9, 1911, when the bill, having passed
through the Commons, was brought up to the House of Lords for their
decision. The peers by this time were torn between two impulses. One,
the most natural, was to defy Mr. Asquith and Lloyd George and all
their wicked companions, and let them create what peers they liked, and
the other to swallow the medicine, pass the Parliament bill, and thus,
while limiting their own powers for the future, preserve their ancient
caste and dignity.
It was touch and go throughout an excited discussion. Lord Morley,
plain John Morley of the years gone by, made a speech of three
sentences in which he said he was authorized to state that the King
would assent to the creation of the extra peers if the bill were not
passed. Wild hopes that the King would stand by the Lords were thus
extinguished. There were dramatic scenes never to be forgotten by
those who witnessed them, and then finally the bill was accepted by a
majority of seventeen votes. The power of the House of Lords, strong
for centuries, had been broken. The man who had broken it was Lloyd
George.
VII
AT HOME AND IN DOWNING STREET
In the midst of all the stormy times of the fight with the House of
Lords and afterward up to the present moment Lloyd George's personal
life in its simplicity and happiness has been a standing contrast to
the turmoil and passion of his public energy. Meet Lloyd George among
his family, and it is hard to realize that such a homely, genial person
could be the man who tackled so rancorously the House of Lords. I went
to 11 Downing Street one day after the Budget fight was over, and when,
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George was preparing further
legislative changes. Eleven Downing Street, it should be explained, is
the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and joins
number 10, where the Prime Minister lives. It is a dingy, ugly-looking
building, attractive only by reason of its associations. In the year
that America declared her independence number 10 Downing Street was the
residence of Lord North, and it may then, as now, have had connecting
doors which made the two houses into practically one official home.
Lloyd George discussed public affairs in a corner of the old library
lined with books which Gladstone used to consult half a century ago and
his predecessors before him. A glance round the rows of volumes,
nearly all of them ponderous and many of them venerable, caused me to
ask Lloyd George who was his favorite author. He gave me no
philosopher, not even a poet, in reply. "I like romance," he said,
"historical romance. I am fond of Dumas and of modern writers like
Stanley Weyman." Possibly Lloyd George has never looked into those
old, handsome, leather-covered volumes at his official residence. His
secretaries may have pondered over them in securing material for their
chief, but Lloyd George has been too busy doing things to devote much
time to ancient philosophical reflections or to learned economic
theories. It is easy to understand how his temperament found
satisfaction and relaxation at the same time in the cut-and-thrust work
of Dumas and Weyman. I ought, perhaps, to add that he explained with a
smile how politics did not leave him much time for serious reading just
then. They have certainly left him still less since that time.
We were in the thick of talk about the busy political era when a little
girl of twelve, with a ribbon of blue round her tumbling hair, came
running into the room, not knowing that a visitor was present. She
would have run out again, upon seeing me, if her father had not stopped
her and caught her into his arms. For the rest of the interview she
sat on his knee, listening with big, live eyes to the conversation.
Once she cuddled closer to her father and laughed merrily as he
confessed to me that his next bill before Parliament was one to
prohibit the holidays of little girls at school from lasting more than
six weeks. Megan was the darling of her father's heart. Two or three
mornings of the week you could have seen them hand in hand walking from
11 Downing Street across St. James's Park to watch the ducks feeding in
the lake. With sparkling blue eyes, a sensitive mouth, and vivacious
manner, little Megan had some of her father's characteristics. She was
a daughter any father might be proud of. I guarantee Lloyd George was
prouder of her--and still is--than of his epoch-making Budget or his
historic victory over the House of Lords. Just now in Parliamentary
session, or indeed out of it, Lloyd George has not very much time for
walks in the parks--but I am sure Megan gets her share of attention in
spite of the European war.
The war has, of course, intensified Lloyd George's life and somewhat
altered its channels, but its main directions are preserved. At all
hours of day and night he must be prepared for service. He could not,
however, carry on his work without proper rest and sleep, and the
following is the kind of routine to which he has accustomed himself.
Awakening at seven in the morning, he has a quick glance through the
principal newspapers, not only of London, but those from the provinces
and from abroad as well. Occasionally while he is dressing, and always
before he leaves his room, he looks through documents and papers which
he has brought up to his bedside on the previous night. (They are
arranged in their proper order on a table by the side of his bed so
that in any waking fit at night he can put his hand on them readily.)
Visitors begin to arrive early, because Lloyd George has re-established
the practice of Victorian statesmen in having guests to breakfast with
him and his family. By this means he not only saves time from many
social functions, but gets through a lot of business as well, for his
breakfast guests include politicians, editors, leading officials,
prominent travelers from overseas, indeed practically the whole range
of persons who for state or private reasons he desires to meet.
Soon after ten o'clock he is busy with his secretaries. These have
already been at work on the morning letters, which in the days when he
was Chancellor of the Exchequer numbered a thousand a day and are now
probably three or four times as many. Work of a widely different kind
keeps Lloyd George on the go till lunch-time--departmental conferences,
visits from or to Cabinet Ministers, the supervision of answers to
questions to be put to him in the House of Commons that afternoon, the
reception of deputations from various interests affected by current
proposals or future proposals that he is making. At least once a week,
and sometimes more frequently, there is a Cabinet meeting in the
morning that probably lasts well into the afternoon. On days when
there is no Cabinet meeting there will be other visitors at lunch-time,
and these are generally of an official character. Big plans affecting
the social future of England have undoubtedly been worked out over
Lloyd George's lunch-table. He is a vivid talker himself, but he is
also a good listener, and there is not any one more ready to give an
ear to tactful and helpful advice--only those who offer it must have
something to say.
At a quarter to three in the afternoon the House of Commons assembles,
and from that time onward to eleven o'clock at night Lloyd George is to
be found either on the Treasury bench or in his private room behind the
Speaker's chair. Endless are the occupations for a busy Minister in
Parliament, and whether he is answering questions, expounding policy,
fighting through details of proposals, or merely listening to the
speeches of opponents, he is pretty well on the stretch the whole time.
Even in his own room there is business to be done, deputations to be
received, "whips" to be consulted, friendly or hostile talks to be gone
through with members, and frequently also the reception of individual
visitors. All this takes no account of social usages, the little
hospitalities which must not be forgotten--the accompanying of groups
of constituents to the public galleries, the entertainment of other
groups to tea on the Terrace overlooking the river. Sometimes an hour
may be seized for the House of Lords at the other end of the corridor
when they are dealing with Commons legislation.
I asked Lloyd George how he managed to sleep after such days as these,
and he said: "I never have any difficulty about that. Downing Street
is only about four minutes' walk from the House of Commons. If the
House adjourns at eleven I am usually away by twenty minutes past, and
at a quarter to twelve I am in bed--probably asleep. This power for
quick sleep has always been a great help to me."
The Lloyd George family at home consisted of Mr. and Mrs. George, two
sons, and two daughters. Of the two boys, both in the twenties, one
was at Cambridge University and the other in a responsible position as
a civil engineer. Both are now soldiers, fighting in France. There
are two girls, Megan and her sister, Olwen, a charming girl who has
lately become engaged to a medical officer in the army. There is
another person who frequently completes the family circle at 11 Downing
Street. It is Richard Lloyd, the old shoemaker who forty years ago
risked his little all to educate his orphan nephew. It was one of the
pleasurable anticipations of Lloyd George, when he was appointed
Chancellor of the Exchequer with the privileges of this historic
residence, that Richard Lloyd would be able to come and stay there.
"My dear old uncle," he said, "will be so proud to come and stay at the
house in which Gladstone, his great hero, at one time lived."
Lloyd George is wiry, but no man, however strong, could continue
indefinitely to put himself under such a strain as I have indicated
without occasional complete rest. When he is not under too heavy a
time he will go for a weekend's golf to Walton Heath, some twenty miles
from London, in Surrey, or spend a couple of days at Brighton on the
south coast. But when he is really exhausted there is only one place
for him, and that is his beautiful home near Criccieth, about a mile
from Llanystumdwy, where he spent his boyhood. On the hills rising
from behind Criccieth and forming the foot of the Snowdon range he has
built a graceful residence, whence he can look down over the wooded
slopes to Criccieth and thence to Carnarvon Bay. On the other side the
house faces the snow-capped mountains. From every window there is a
beautiful scene. A lane leading from the gates, between towering
hedges, winds through fields and woods down to Llanystumdwy.
With the charm of mountains, countryside, and sea there goes an
invigorating atmosphere. "When I am exhausted," said Lloyd George to
me once, "I come down here from London and I sleep long nights. In the
daytime I sit out here on the veranda in a basket-chair with a rug
around me, facing the sea, and here I rest and sometimes sleep. This
beautiful Welsh air wraps me all round with its healing touch, and I
let it do its work, and I am soon well again." During these
recuperative days Lloyd George does no business, writes no letters,
receives no visitors, sees no one but members of his own family. After
about three days of this treatment he is recovering himself.
One day in a lane near Criccieth I met him in tweed suit and soft gray
hat, with field-glasses strapped around him, and a stout walking-stick
in his hand. He had been at Criccieth a fortnight, and thoughts of
work were again seizing hold of him. He had in prospect a big scheme
of land legislation that was to continue and develop the movement begun
in the Budget. (A little later the war cut the project short.) "I am
going for a walk up to the mountains," he said. "I can do my thinking
best when I am out walking alone." Afterward I wondered what new
revolution to startle the landed aristocracy of Britain he devised on
that summer day by himself among the mountains. Curiously enough,
Lloyd George does not like exercise for his own sake, but he enjoys it
when he has a mental task in hand; he also enjoys it during a game of
golf. I once heard him say that without golf he would never have
thought of taking a four-mile walk for recreation. It is worthy of
mention in connection with this that he has been described at second
hand on his own confession as being a very lazy man, and that he has
sometimes absolutely to force himself to a settled task--and, strange
as it may appear, there is nothing in this inconsistent with the public
estimation of him as a person of uncontrollable energy. Let his heart
be given to an object, and there is no effort he will spare, no degree
of fatigue to which he will not drive himself.
Intensely fond of an open-air life, Lloyd George's days at Criccieth
are always a joy to him. You will come across him unexpectedly on the
bank of the river Dwyfor with a fishing-rod in his hand, trying for
trout. You will see him sometimes in the early morning at work in his
garden in his endeavor to demonstrate that fruit trees will grow as
well in Welsh soil as in the warm, red earth of Devonshire. Sometimes
he and his wife, with perhaps one of his sons, will put a couple of
tents into an automobile, start off up among the mountains, and camp
out in some lonely and romantic spot for days at a time, living the
primitive life entirely by themselves.
Strange it is to observe the attitude of the people of the countryside
where he was brought up and where he built his early fame. There are a
scattered few of the middle classes who in this remote country spot
cannot understand the heights he has reached in public estimation. It
is really a weird sensation to come from the outer world and talk to
these people. No, no, he may to some extent have secured notoriety in
circles even as far off as London, but really there is nothing in the
man. Why, he was brought up here in the village! But these quaintly
prejudiced folk are, after all, but a remnant, and the great mass of
people all around in the farms and cottages prize his fame highly. The
pride with which a villager refers to the fact that he went to school
with Mr. Lloyd George must be one of the highest pleasures experienced
by the Welsh statesman. It is an event to go to a meeting in the
institute at Llanystumdwy and hear him address a crowded meeting of his
compatriots in their native tongue and with all the old affectionate
familiarity of a long-standing friend and neighbor. The rolling music
of the ancient language is echoed back from the enthusiastic Celts in a
kind of rhythmic ecstasy which thrills even the ignorant and alien
Sassenach visitor. Lloyd George is still one of themselves. It is
indeed hard for them to realize his position in the outside world,
though they are so proud of it. To Criccieth and Llanystumdwy he is
not so much the prominent statesman of the United Kingdom as just Lloyd
George, the friend who grew up with them. He will never be anything
else to them. It is all quite delightful and, one may add, quite
bewildering to his enemies, who cannot understand that such unconcealed
and regardless simplicity is an integral part of the nature of him whom
they regard as a malignant. I have seen Lloyd George in a hundred
capacities, electrifying a multitude, in the thick of battle with the
cleverest minds of Parliament, attacking to their faces with relentless
ferocity men of the noblest descent in Britain, and yet I know of
nothing in his life which approaches in interest his relations with his
old village friends of long ago. They like him for himself and not for
what he has become, though they are so proud of him. One elderly lady,
a friend of the Lloyd George family, when paying a visit to London
heard that Lloyd George was to address a London meeting, and she
thought she would like to go and hear him. She presented herself at
the hall and was nearly swept off her feet by the surging crowd making
its way in. After reaching one of the corridors with difficulty, she
got an attendant to take her name in to Mrs. Lloyd George. The latter,
who was on the platform, hurried out to her old friend and took her to
a seat in the front of the hall. The building was packed in every
part. Lloyd George got one of his usual receptions and made one of his
usual speeches. The old lady was staggered. She went back to Wales
full of the wonderful experience--and it has to be remembered that she
had known Lloyd George all her life. "I have heard that he has become
a well-known man," she said, "but I never understood what an important
man he was till I went to that meeting."