heavy-shouldered man with a big, broad forehead, a massive jowl, and an
aquiline nose. His wide mouth droops at the corners. In repose there
is something of a scowl on his face, which is intensified in
displeasure as his head shoots forward aggressively and almost
wolfishly. And yet, on the other hand, in his pleasanter moments he
has a boyishness and vivacity which are attractive. Nearly all who
have been in his office, whether they are at present in his employ or
not, will tell you he is a delightful man to work with. He will come
into the reporters' room of the _Daily Mail_, sit on the edge of the
table, smoke a cigarette, and talk to the men as if he were one of
themselves. He likes them. They like him. Stories cluster round him.
A young writer went out to investigate a series of happenings in a
Midland town, was rather badly hoaxed, and was responsible for a good
deal of ridicule directly against the paper. This is a deadly sin for
a newspaper man, and the chiefs of the office were naturally severe
about the matter. The writer in question, feeling that his career on
the paper was over, went out of the office to lunch and, as bad luck
would have it, encountered Northcliffe's automobile drawing up at the
entrance. He knew "Alfred," as the proprietor is called, would be
fuming, and was the last man on earth whom it was desirable to meet in
such a mood. The young fellow braced himself for the attack as
Northcliffe beckoned him forward. "What is this I hear? You have had
your leg pulled, have you? Don't take it too much to heart. We all
get deceived sometimes. I have had my leg pulled often before now.
It's annoying, but don't worry about it."
He was frequently through the departments, making the acquaintance of
new men, and exchanging a few sentences of conversation with the
established members of the staff. Once he stopped at the desk of a
junior sub-editor, whom he had not seen before, and said, "How long
have you been with me?"
"About three months," was the reply.
"How are you getting on? Do you like the work? Do you find it easy to
get into our ways?"
"I like it very much!"
"How much money are you getting?"
"Five pounds a week."
"Are you quite satisfied?"
"Perfectly satisfied, thank you."
"Well, you must remember this, that I want no one on my staff who is a
perfectly satisfied man with a salary of five pounds a week."
A subordinate who had been a couple of years on the staff died as a
result of an operation for appendicitis. He had a wife and one little
child who were not very well provided for. On the day after the
funeral, Northcliffe sent down and told her he had invested 1,000
pounds for her. Members of his staff who break down in health are sent
for a prolonged rest on full salary, and, when necessary, are
despatched abroad to recuperative climates with all their expenses
paid. He is not, however, a man who suffers fools gladly, and those
who come to him expecting, not only big salaries, but soft jobs, are
quickly swept out in a cascade of hard words. He has a sense of humor.
Once he turned the paper on to a search for an automobile which had run
over a village child and then disappeared. He found it after a time,
and it proved to be the car of his brother, Hildebrand, which, unknown
to the owner, had been taken out for a joy ride by the chauffeur.
There was something more than a chuckle among the other newspapers
because Northcliffe in his enthusiasm had publicly offered 100 pounds
reward for the discovery of the automobile and its owner. A few weeks
later Fleet Street was busy trying to disentangle the mystery of the
death of a young girl who had fallen from a railway carriage in a
tunnel on the Brighton line. Various plans for the elucidation of the
mystery were discussed between Northcliffe and the staff. In the
course of the discussion some one made the suggestion:
"Why not offer a reward of 100 pounds for the discovery of evidence on
the matter?"
"Yes," said Northcliffe, thoughtfully, "but where was my brother
Hildebrand on that night?"
Deliberately placing behind him his previous attacks on Lloyd George,
attacks personal and political, Northcliffe came out in strong support
of the Minister of Munitions and plainly stated that it was only by
revolutionizing the whole conduct of the war that victory could be
assured within a reasonable time. There probably was no consultation
between the two men. The support thus given to the Welshman was, in my
opinion, perfectly genuine, and probably history will say it was a
right and excellent course, though it involved stinging comment on
Lloyd George's Cabinet associates, especially on Mr. Asquith and Lord
Kitchener.
While this newspaper campaign was in progress Lloyd George set to work
on his new effort, and that effort was the conversion of manufacturing
Britain into a network of arsenals for the making of deadly implements
of war. Again he made his special endeavor to appear as if they were
the pivot of future victory. Forgotten for the time was finance.
"Silver bullets" were no longer mentioned. "Shells, shells, shells!"
was the cry of Lloyd George now, and the country echoed it.
Enthusiastically he proceeded with his new task, and within a few days
he had sketched a general scheme of operations, and within a few weeks
the scheme was beginning to bear fruit. The difficulties were heavy,
but he had this great advantage, that the country was prepared to do
anything and to make any sacrifice which would lead toward victory.
The established armament firms and the Government works had the task of
providing shells and guns, and Lloyd George saw at a glance that this
arrangement was tragically insufficient. To alter it he had to do many
things. He had to secure the co-operation of manufacturers, especially
the engineering firms who had been engaged in the ordinary occupations
of peace time. He had to train new workmen, he had to enlist women, he
had to persuade the trade-unions to remove their restrictions, he had
to prevent the sale of alcohol in munition districts, he had to tell
the capitalistic makers of munitions all over the country that they
were only going to be left a percentage of their profits, and that the
rest was going to be taken by the Government. This was part of his
task. Many other things had to be attended to. There was, for
instance, the matter of supply of steel from the foundries, and then,
equally important, the question of transport by the railways. It would
require a full book to tell of all the directions in which Lloyd
George's efforts were expended in the ensuing weeks.
He went around the various big centers in the country and called
together meetings of the prominent business men, particularly
manufacturers, and suggested to them that they should form local
committees which would schedule the locality for facilities in
engineering work, and then outlined several ways in which they might
act. They might first organize all the factories engaged in ordinary
engineering work which could produce shells, or parts of shells, they
might develop a big central factory in the district where central work
could be done, and where finishing operations on partly made shells
might be carried out. Everywhere he met cordial co-operation. Within
a few weeks workshops previously used for making tramway metals,
cranes, refrigerating apparatus, automobiles, overhead wires,
agricultural implements, and many other kinds of material, were
beginning to turn themselves into shell-factories under the direction
of the local committees. Even watchmakers' shops were brought into use
for some sections of work.
Meanwhile, Lloyd George initiated in every town and village of the
country a census of metal-working lathes, so that no tool of this kind
should be employed on needless work. Coincident with these operations,
huge national shell-factories were planned for erection in various
parts of the country. To co-operate the work of the local committees
with headquarters in London a department of the Ministry of Munitions
was set up in each big manufacturing center, and through this
department Lloyd George kept in touch with all local operations.
Steps were taken to stimulate production by the recognized armament
firms. It was six months after Lloyd George had taken control that I
visited the Birmingham district, where I saw a new establishment for
shell-work, a huge structure on the outskirts of the city planted where
green grass was growing six months before, and under its one roof four
thousand young women engaged in long lines at automatic lathes
shell-making. This, as I said, was but one sample establishment.
Hundreds of thousands of women were subsequently at the same work in
various parts. The girls were drawn from all classes, and comprised
school-teachers, domestic servants, shopgirls, stenographers, and the
leisured daughters of the middle classes or of wealthy persons.
Lloyd George established in London, in connection with the Ministry of
Munitions, a department of labor, to advise him on matters affecting
workmen, a department of factory health which would tell him the best
way of safeguarding the strength and efficiency of factory workers, an
inventions department to encourage and examine inventions of all kinds
which might be useful in war. He called in some of the leading
business men of the country to help him in arranging, not only
technical matters in the actual manufacture of shells and guns, but
also the transportation of them, and the material of which they were
made. He soon had around him in Whitehall a co-ordinated little army
of iron and steel experts, explosive experts, railway experts, medical
experts, and financial experts. They were the cream of business and
professional intellect of the country. Under their driving stimulus
shells and munitions began to pour out at an enormous rate. It was a
cumulative production, and the high-water mark was not reached for many
long months, but when it had been attained the production rate of
shells by Germany was well beaten.
Lloyd George had no governmental red tape about his methods. For
instance, he ordered a notice to be put up in each of the local
munition offices, inviting callers who had inventions to submit them at
once for sympathetic examination. Any one who went to the Ministry of
Munitions in Whitehall and had real business could quickly see the
Minister. He had no use for a halo of officialdom. A thousand
difficulties rose to meet him as he built up the new organization, but
he trampled them underfoot and went forward, heedless of whether he was
making enemies or friends. An intermediate and important obstacle to
his work was the fact that many of the trade-unions of the country had
established rules which operated against an increase of production.
These rules had been built up as protection against capitalists whose
sole idea might be profits. It was necessary to sweep away these
restrictions, and one of the arguments which Lloyd George used to the
men was that he was not allowing employers to make fortunes out of the
country's need, but was taking away all but a percentage of their new
income and giving it to the Government. Even this was not sufficient
in some cases to get all the workmen in the proper frame of mind.
Lloyd George went down himself and addressed meetings of the men. Here
is an extract from one of his speeches: "The enlisted workman cannot
choose his locality of action. He cannot say, 'I am prepared to fight
at Neuve Chapelle, but I won't fight at Festubert, and I am not going
near the place called "Wipers."' He can't say, 'I have been in the
trenches ten and a half hours, and the trade-unions won't let me work
more than ten hours.' He can't say, 'You have not enough men here, and
I have been doing the work of two men, and my trade-unions won't allow
me to do more than my share.' When the house is on fire, questions of
procedure and precedence and division of labor disappear. You can't
say you are not liable to serve at three o'clock in the morning if the
fire is proceeding. You can't choose the hour. You can't argue as to
whose duty it is to carry the water-bucket and whose duty it is to put
it into a crackling furnace. You must put the fire out. There is only
one way to do it--that is, everything must give way to duty and
good-fellowship, good-comradeship, and determination. You must put the
whole of your strength into obtaining victory for your native land and
for the liberties of the world."
The British trade-unions wanted but little persuading under such an
appeal, and rights and privileges struggled for and won at heavy cost
during half a century were cheerfully relinquished for the time being.
There was some friction among small sections in connection with the
powers taken by Lloyd George to punish workmen who struck work, or who
dislocated operations in a workshop by leaving it to seek better money.
But in the passion for victory which coursed through the veins of the
nation the ruthless doings of Lloyd George were welcomed by the
overwhelming majority of the community. He asked the English people to
submit to shackles such as they had not known since the tyranny of the
Middle Ages. They willingly and even enthusiastically agreed.
Lloyd George not only rushed the beginning of national shell-factories,
since completed, but established large new towns of temporary houses in
country districts with something more than the rapidity of camps on a
rich gold strike. Britain, psychologically transformed, was in a large
measure physically altered also.
And yet, when all was said and done, Lloyd George was not satisfied.
He sought to stir the Cabinet to sterner work. The Cabinet was not by
any means ineffective, but there was not enough driving force in it to
please the Welshman. He wanted far wider and stronger measures taken
in order to enlist the whole strength of the British people. Fiercely,
day by day, the Northcliffe journals attacked Mr. Asquith, often with
unfairness, and always did they exalt Lloyd George as the only man in
the Cabinet who was really fit to lead. Then Lloyd George issued a
column prognostication as the preface to a book, and it caused a great
sensation. Here is what he said: "Nothing but our best and utmost can
pull us through. If the nation hesitates when the need is clear to
take the necessary steps to call forth its young manhood to defend
honor and existence, if vital decisions are postponed until too late,
if we neglect to make ready for all probable eventualities, if, in
effect, we give ground for the accusation that we are slouching into
disaster, as if we were walking along the paths of peace without an
enemy in sight, then I can see no hope; but if we sacrifice all we own
and all we like for our native land, if our preparations are
characterized by grip, resolution, and prompt readiness in every
sphere, then victory is assured."
This was a direct attack on the Cabinet, of which, of course, Lloyd
George was a member. His words meant that the Government was
proceeding along conventional paths, and not rising to great
emergencies, and was lacking that desperate resolution so necessary in
war. Thus it was that Lloyd George threw out to the world more than a
hint of the difficulties he had had with different departments.
Northcliffe acclaimed this message heavens high. Some Liberals, on the
other hand, began to see in Lloyd George an intriguer for the position
of Prime Minister, and Lloyd George, not the first time in his life,
throwing past prejudices and principles to the winds, came out as a
strong supporter of conscription for the nation. Every young man must
be serving his country either in the munition-factory or on the field
of battle.
X
AT HIGH PRESSURE
The fundamental difficulty between Lloyd George and some of his
colleagues was that he had ideas about running the country which were
at variance with theirs. His Celtic temperament could not tolerate the
slow muddling-through process, was impatient for daring new methods.
He was disinclined for step-by-step procedure, and found reason for
anger in the officials and Ministers who thought the war ought to be
conducted according to book. There has yet to be told the full story,
not only of all the obstacles which Lloyd George had to remove from his
path in organizing the munition supply, but also of the hindrances
which fettered the prosecution of the war as a whole with every ounce
of strength, every shilling of money, at the disposal of the British
nation.
I can imagine that Lloyd George was not a very pleasant colleague in
the Cabinet during these intervening months. When the records come to
be given it will be seen that he was constantly and furiously striking
at the iron bars of custom and routine, that he was trying to turn the
lip service of individuals to practical service. At times he reached
the edge of desperate action.
It was in the thick of his other work that a crisis arose in South
Wales, where the miners, numbering two hundred thousand, responsible
for the supply of coal to the British navy, refused to work unless the
employers conceded certain demands about pay and conditions. The
seriousness of the position was appalling. The president of the Board
of Trade, Mr. Runciman, struggled hard to bring about a settlement. He
failed. Something had to be done and done at once. The country,
looking around for a man to come to the rescue, fixed on Lloyd George.
He left the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall, took a train down to
South Wales, had a straight talk with the employers, another straight
talk with the men, and in one day settled affairs and got the men to
continue their work. I cite this as a passing illustration of how
Lloyd George was Britain's man-of-all-work, and of how the nation had
to turn to him practically every time it was in difficulty.
While struggling to speed up the Cabinet on a hundred matters Lloyd
George became impressed with the necessity of increasing the size of
the British army, already millions strong. The voluntary system had
hitherto been relied on, and there was strong opposition, both in the
Cabinet and in the country, to tentative proposals for conscription.
Lloyd George took an early opportunity of showing that he was on the
side of the conscriptionists. There was an outburst of protests, but
it proved of no avail, and it was largely through Lloyd George that
conscription in Britain became an established fact. Even then he was
by no means satisfied with the way affairs were being handled, and the
newspapers were speculating on his next big attempt, when tragedy
descended on the country in the unexpected death of Lord Kitchener by
the sinking of the war-ship _Hampshire_ off the coast of Scotland.
Kitchener had been Minister for War. Who was to be the new man? There
was really only one man in the running, and Lloyd George forsook his
munition work, now practically accomplished, and went over to take
charge of the War Office. Coincident with his acceptance of this post
new arrangements in the organization were made, and it was no doubt
largely by his influence that General Sir William Robertson was
installed at Whitehall as Chief of Staff, virtually commander-in-chief
of the British armies. He was a man after Lloyd George's own heart, a
soldier who had risen from the ranks, a quiet man who would stand no
nonsense, and one who knew modern war conditions from A to Z.
Here, then, began a new phase of the European conflict. From the
shops, offices, farms, and factories of Britain there had sprung up an
amateur army, millions strong, and the organization of this new
national force was under the supervision and control of a Minister who
began life as a village boy in a cottage of a shoemaker, and under the
military direction of a commander-in-chief who also sprang from the
common people, and as a young man was an ordinary trooper in the ranks.
It could never henceforth be said that Britain, the most aristocratic
country on earth, had not been content to hand over the reins to
democracy in the greatest emergency of her history. Robertson and
Lloyd George worked well together, and there can be no doubt that under
their joint effects the British forces in the field attained a fighting
value which was not excelled by any other army in existence on either
side in the great conflict.
Frequently Lloyd George was in the trenches at the front. From time to
time he was deep in consultation in Paris or at home with the leading
statesmen and commanders of France, Italy, and Russia. All this was
only a few months ago. I saw him in the House of Commons at the time.
The strain was undoubtedly telling on him, but was not oppressing him.
His hair was a little whiter, his face was pallid, and thinner than of
yore, but his eyes were like burning coals. He had much to bear apart
from the actual work, for there were large sections of politicians and
several influential newspapers who openly said that ambition was his
curse, that he was undermining Mr. Asquith who had been his greatest
political friend, and that all his discontent was directed toward an
ultimate dramatic stroke which would make him Prime Minister. Many of
the Liberals who used almost to worship him made no secret of the fact
that he had lost their allegiance, while the extreme Socialists
denounced him as a traitor to the working classes, inasmuch as he was
tyrannizing over them by his war measures. Moreover, many of his
opponents in the Cabinet must have regarded him with some feeling of
distrust. He said no word in defense of Mr. Asquith, whom the
Northcliffe press persistently and violently assailed. The conclusion
is inevitable that Lloyd George shared some of the opinions then
expressed. Taking Lloyd George's nature into account, the situation
may be imagined, and it was not hard to see that a climax must come
sooner or later.
It was approaching swiftly. Meanwhile the transformation of Britain in
which Lloyd George had had so large a hand was proceeding. No longer
could it be said that the old country was lethargic. In all directions
was the elementary strength of this stolid people manifesting itself.
Classes were uniting in the determination that there should be
limitless spending of energy, of blood, and of treasure, that the
harder grew the fight the stronger should be the will, the livelier the
action, till the great danger was trodden finally underfoot. For
months past it could have been said:
All the youth of England are on fire
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.
Now most of the people had reached the decision that nothing but
extermination should lead to their defeat.
And leave your England as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance,
For who is he whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair that will not follow
Those cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
It was really a very-much-alive England, though strangely changed,
which the amateur fighters had left behind them on their departure for
the field of war. Tens of thousands of women unaccustomed to hard
labor were tiring their bodies from early morning till night so that
there would be more men for the fighting-line. The state had virtual
possession of the great industries, of engineering, of railway
transportation, and of shipping. The liquor trade had been cut down to
narrow limits which, while it benefited the health and efficiency of
the population, ruined financially a great many property-owners. The
trade-unions had relinquished their rights, so that every hour of the
day and night there should be no strong and healthy arm which was not
lending aid to the country in its need. Every man in the country up to
the age of forty was either in the army or doing some useful war work
at home.
Steps had been taken to prevent the price of coal being raised to
consumers, and this was shortly to be followed by the Government
acquisition of the whole of the South Wales coal-field. Already a
movement was afoot to regulate the food-supply and to restrict
expensive luxuries. At the head of these tremendous changes was Lloyd
George, whose so-called socialistic legislation a few years before had
roused spasms of rage among classes which now belauded his every action
and announced him as the coming savior of his country. If there is any
consistency in human nature at all, it is hardly possible that there
were not those who recalled his incendiary speeches, his unsparing
legislative action of the Budget days. And yet there were no
complaints. Millionaires placed their money at his disposal. The
dukes paid him homage. All the while Lloyd George grew harder in the
face. Big changes were still necessary if the war was to be brought to
an end victoriously and rapidly.