Lloyd George on to fateful hour. Ministries rose and fell: Roseberry and
Harcourt had their day: Chamberlain climbed to power: Asquith rose over
the horizon. The long smouldering South African volcano burst into
eruption. It meant a great deal to many people in England but to no man
quite so much as to Lloyd George.
Now comes the first of the many amazing freaks that Fate played with
him. The Institution of War which in later years was to make him the
very Rock of Empire was now, for a time at least, to be his undoing.
Before the conflict with the Boers Lloyd George was a militant
pacifist--a sort of peacemaker with a punch. When England invaded the
Transvaal Lloyd George began a battle for peace that made him for the
first time a force in Imperial affairs. He believed himself to be the
Anointed Foe of the War and he dedicated himself and all his powers to
stem what seemed to be a hopeless tide.
It was a courageous thing to do for he not only risked his reputation
but his career. Up and down the Empire he pleaded. He was in some
respects the brilliant Bryan of the period but with the difference that
he was crucifying himself and not his cause upon the Cross of Peace. He
became the target of bitter attack: no epithet was too vile to hurl upon
him. Often he carried his life in his hands as the episode of the
Birmingham riot shows. In all his storm tossed life nothing approached
this in daring or danger.
Lloyd George was invited to speak in the Citadel of Imperialism which
was likewise the home of Joseph Chamberlain, Arch-Apostle of the Boer
War. Save for the staunchest Liberals the whole town rose in protest.
For weeks the local press seethed and raged denouncing Lloyd George as
"arch-traitor" and "self-confessed enemy." He was warned that he would
imperil his life if he even showed himself. He sent back this word: "I
am announced to speak and speak I will."
He reached Birmingham ahead of schedule time and got to the home of his
host in safety. All day long sandwich men paraded the highways bearing
placards calling upon the citizenry to assemble at the Town Hall where
Lloyd George was to speak "To defend the King, the Government and Mr.
Chamberlain."
Night came, the streets were howling mobs, every constable was on duty.
The hall was stormed and when Lloyd George appeared on the platform he
faced turmoil. Hundreds of men carried sticks, clubs and bricks covered
with rags and fastened to barbed wire. When he rose to speak Bedlam let
loose. Jeers, catcalls and frightful epithets rained on him and with
them rocks and vegetables. He removed his overcoat and stood calm and
smiling. When he raised his voice, however, the grand assault was made.
Only a double cordon of constables massed around the stage kept him from
being overwhelmed. In the free-for-all fight that followed one man was
killed and many injured.
Anything like a speech was hopeless: the main task was to save the
speaker's life, for outside in the streets a bloodthirsty rabble waited
for its prey. Lloyd George started to face them single-handed and it
was only when he was told that such procedure would not only foolishly
endanger his life but the lives of his party which included several
women, he consented to escape through a side door, wearing a policeman's
helmet and coat.
Fourteen years later Lloyd George returned to Birmingham acclaimed as a
Saviour of Empire. Such have been the contrasts in this career of
careers.
Fortunately England, like the rest of the world, forgets. The mists of
unpopularity that hung about the little Welshman vanished under the
sheer brilliancy of the man. When the Conservative Government fell after
the Boer War he was not only a Cabinet possibility but a necessity. The
Government had to have him. From that time on they needed him in their
business.
Lloyd George drew the dullest and dustiest of all portfolios--the Board
of Trade. He found the post lifeless and academic; he vivified and
galvanised it and made it a vital branch of party life and dispute. It
is the Lloyd George way.
Here you find the first big evidence of one of the great Lloyd George
qualities that has stood him in such good stead these recent turbulent
years. He became, like Henry Clay, the Great Conciliator. The whole
widespread labour and industrial fabric of Great Britain was geared up
to his desk. It shook with unrest and was studded with strife. Much of
this clash subsided when Lloyd George came into office because he had
the peculiar knack of bringing groups of contending interests together.
Men learned then, as they found out later, that when they went into
conference with Lloyd George they might as well leave their convictions
outside the door with their hats and umbrellas.
To this policy of readjustment he also brought the laurel of
constructive legislation. To him England owes the famous Patents Bill
which gives English labour a share in the English manufacture of all
foreign invention; the Merchant Shipping Bill which safeguards the
interest of English sailor and shipper; and the Port of London Bill
which made the British metropolis immune from foreign ship menace.
England was fast learning to lean on the grey-eyed Welshman. He came to
be known as the "Government Mascot": he was continually pulling his
party's chestnuts out of the fire of failure or folly. George had begun
to "do it" and in a big way.
Likewise the whole country was beginning to feel pride in his
performance as the following story, which has been adapted to various
other celebrities, will attest:
Lloyd George sat one day in the compartment of a train that was held up
at the station at Cardiff. A porter carrying a traveller's luggage
noticed him and called his client's attention, saying:
"There is Lloyd George himself in that train."
The traveller seemed indifferent and again the porter called attention
to the budding great man. After persistent efforts to rouse his
interest, the tourist, much nettled, said tartly:
"Suppose it is. He's not God Almighty."
"Ah," replied the porter, "remember he's young yet."
When Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Asquith no
one was surprised. It is typical of the man that he should have leaped
from the lowest to the highest place but one in the Cabinet.
As Chancellor he had at last the opportunity to fulfill his democratic
destiny. Whatever Lloyd George may be, one thing is certain: he is
essentially a man of the masses. With his famous People's Budget he
legislated sympathy into the law. It meant the whole kindling social
programme of Old Age pensions, Health and Unemployment insurance,
increased income tax and an enlarged death duty. As most people know, it
put much of the burden of English taxation on the pocketbooks of the
people who could best afford to pay. The Duke-baiting began.
Just as he had fought for a Free Wales so did he now struggle for a Free
Land. All his amazing picturesqueness of expression came into play. He
contended that Monopoly had made land so valuable in Britain that it
almost sold by the grain, like radium. In commenting on the heavy taxes
levied by the land autocrats upon commercial enterprise in London he
made his famous phrase:
"This is not business. It is blackmail!"
To democracy the Budget meant economic emancipation: the banishment of
hunger from the hearth: the solace of an old age free from want. It made
Lloyd George "The Little Brother of the Poor." To the Aristocracy it was
the gauge of battle for the bitterest class war ever waged in England:
violation of ancient privilege.
The fight for this programme made Lloyd George the best known and most
detested man in England. To hate him was one of the accomplishments of
titled folk to whom his very name was a hissing and a by-word. Massed
behind him were the common people whose champion he was: arrayed against
him were the powers of wealth and rank.
In this campaign Lloyd George used the three great weapons that he has
always brought to bear. First and foremost was the force of his
personality, for he swept England with a tidal wave of impassioned
eloquence. Second, he unloosed as never before the reservoirs of ink,
for he used every device of newspaper and pamphlet to drive home his
message. He even printed his creed in Gaelic, Welsh and Erse. Third, he
employed his kinship with the people to the fullest extent. The Commoner
won. As the great structure of social reform rose under his dynamic
powers so did the influence of the House of Lords crumble like an
Edifice of Cards. Democracy in England meant something at last!
The tumult and the shouting died, the smoke cleared, and Lloyd George
stood revealed as England's Strong Man, a sort of Atlas upholding the
World of Public Life and much of its responsibilities.
Now for the first time he was caught up in the fabric of the Crimson Net
that a few years later was to haul nearly all Europe into war. In 1911
Germany made a hostile demonstration in Morocco. Although England had no
territorial interests there, it was important for many reasons to warn
the Kaiser that she would oppose his policy with armed force if
necessary. A strong voice was needed to sound this note. Lloyd George
did it.
Hence it came about that the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood in the
Mansion House on a certain momentous day and hurled the defi at the War
Lord. It called the Teuton bluff for a while at least. In the light of
later events this speech became historic. Not only did Lloyd George
declare that "national honour is no party question," but he affirmed
that "the peace of the world is much more likely to be secured if all
the nations realise fairly what the conditions of peace must be."
Persistent pacifist propagandists to-day may well take warning from that
utterance. He still believes it.
The spark that flashed at Agadir now burst into flame. The Great War
broke and half the world saw red. What Lloyd George believed impossible
now became bitter and wrathful reality. Though he did not know it at the
moment, the supreme opportunity of his life lay on the lap of the god of
Battles.
The Lloyd George who sat in council in Downing Street was no dreaming
pacifist. He who had tried to stop the irresistible flood of the Boer
War now rode the full swell of the storm that threatened for the moment
to engulf all Britain.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer he was called upon to shape the fiscal
policies that would be the determining factor in the War of Wars. "The
last £100,000,000 will win," he said. Only one other man in
England--Lord Kitchener--approached him in immense responsibility of
office in the confidence of the people. It was a proud but equally
terrifying moment.
Then indeed the little Welshman became England's Handy Man. As custodian
of the British Pocketbook he had a full-sized job. But that was only
part of the larger demand now made on his service. Popular faith
regarded him as the Nation's First Aid, infallible remedy for every
crisis.
If a compromise with Labor or Capital had to be effected it was Lloyd
George who sat at the head of the table: if an Ally needed counsel or
inspiration it was the Chancellor who sped across the water and laid
down the law at Paris or Petrograd: if the Cause of Empire clamoured for
expression from Government Seat or animated rostrum, he stood forth as
the Herald of Freedom. So it went all through those dark closing months
of 1914 as reverse after reverse shook the British arms and brought home
the realisation that the war would be long and costly.
The year 1915 dawned full of gloom for England but pointing a fresh star
for the career of Lloyd George. Although the first wave of Kitchener's
new army had dashed against the German lines in France and established
another tradition for British valour, the air of England became charged
with an ominous feeling that something was wrong at the front. The
German advance in the west had been well nigh triumphant. Reckless
bravery alone could not prevail against the avalanche of Teutonic steel.
All the while the imperturbable Kitchener sat at his desk in the War
Office--another man of Blood and Iron. He ran the war as he thought it
should be run despite the criticism that began to beat about his head.
To the average Englander he was a king who could do no wrong. But the
conduct of war had changed mightily since Kitchener last led his troops.
Like Business it had become a new Science, fought with new weapons and
demanding an elastic intelligence that kept pace with the swift march of
military events. The Germans were using every invention that marvellous
efficiency and preparedness could devise. They met ancient England
shrapnel with modern deadly and devastating high-explosives. If the war
was to be won this condition had to be changed--and at once.
Two men in England--Lloyd George and Lord Northcliffe--understood this
situation. Fortunately they are both men of courageous mould and
unwavering purpose. One day Northcliffe sent the military expert of the
_Times_ (which he owns) to France to investigate conditions. He found
that the greatest need of the English Army was for high-explosives. They
were as necessary as bread. Into less than a quarter of a column he
compressed this news. Instead of submitting it to the Censor who would
have denied it publication, Northcliffe published the despatch and with
it the revelation of Kitchener's long and serious omission. He not only
risked suspension and possible suppression of his newspapers, but also
hazarded his life because a great wave of indignation arose over what
seemed to be an unwarranted attack upon an idol of the people. But it
was the truth nevertheless.
At a time when England was supposed to be sensation-proof this
revelation fell like a forty-two centimetre shell. It was an amazing
and dramatic demonstration of the power of the press and it created a
sensation.
Shell shortage at the front had full mate in a varied deficiency at
home. Ammunition contracts had been let to private firms at excessive
prices: labour was restricting output and breaking into periodic
dissension: drink was deadening energy: in short, all the forces that
should have worked together for the Imperial good were pulling apart.
Northcliffe began a silent but aggressive crusade for reform in his
newspapers, while Lloyd George let loose the powers of his tongue. A
national crisis, literally precipitated by these two men, arose. The
Liberal Government fell and out of its wreck emerged the Coalition
Cabinet. This welding of one-time enemies to meet grave emergency did
more than wipe out party lines in an hour that threatened the Empire's
very existence.
The reorganised Cabinet knew--as all England knew--that the greatest
requirement was not only men but munitions. A galvanic personality was
necessary to organise and direct the force that could save the day. A
new Cabinet post--the Ministry of Munitions--was created. Who could
fill it was the question. There was neither doubt nor uncertainty about
the answer. It was embodied in one man.
The little Welshman became Minister of Munitions.
Lloyd George had led many a forlorn hope by taking up the task that
weaker hands had laid down. Here, however, was a situation without
precedent in a life that was a rebuke to convention. To succeed to an
organised and going post these perilous war times was in itself a
difficult job. In the case of the Ministry of Munitions there was
nothing to succeed. Lloyd George had been given a blank order: it was up
to him to fill it. He had to create a whole branch of Government from
the ground up. All his powers of tact and persuasion were called into
play. For one thing he had to fit the old established Ordnance
Department rooted in tradition and jealous of its prerogatives into the
new scheme of things.
Lloyd George was no business man, but he knew how business affairs
should be conducted. He knew, too, that America had reared the empire of
business on close knit and efficient organisation. He did what Andrew
Carnegie or any other captain of capital would do. He called together
the Schwabs, the Edisons, the Garys and the Westinghouses of the Kingdom
and made them his work fellows.
From every corner of the Empire he drafted brains and experience. He
wanted workers without stint, so he started a Bureau of Labor Supply: he
needed publicity, so he set up an Advertising Department: to compete
with the Germans he realised that he would need every inventive resource
that England could command, so he founded an Invention and Research
Bureau: he saw the disorganisation attending the output of shells in
private establishments, so he planted the Union Jack in nearly every
mill and took over the control of British Industry: he found labour at
its old trick of impeding progress, so with a Munitions Act he
practically conscripted the men of forge and mill into an industrial
army that was almost under martial law. He cut red tape and injected red
blood into the Department that meant national preservation. In brief,
Lloyd George was on the job and things were happening.
The Minister established himself in an old mansion in Whitehall Garden
where belles and beaux had danced the stately minuet. It became a dynamo
of energy whose wires radiated everywhere. "More Munitions" was the
creed that flew from the masthead.
A typical thing happened. The working force of the Ministry grew by
leaps and bounds: already the hundreds of clerks were jam up against the
confining walls of the old grey building. Lloyd George sent for one of
his lieutenants and said:
"We must have more room."
"We have already reported that fact and the War Office says it will take
three months to build new office space," was the reply.
"Then put up tents," snapped the little man, "and we will work under
canvas."
Realising that his principal weapons were machines, Lloyd George took a
census of all the machinery in the United Kingdom and got every pound of
productive capacity down on paper. He was not long in finding out why
the ammunition output was shy. Only a fifth of the lathes and tools used
for Government work ran at night. "These machines must work every hour
of the twenty-four," he said. Before a fortnight had passed every
munitions mill ground incessantly.
These machines needed adequate manning. Lloyd George thereupon created
the plan that enlisted the new army of Munitions Volunteers. Nelson-like
he issued the thrilling proclamation that England expected every machine
to do its duty. It meant the end of restricted output.
With the ban off restriction he likewise clamped the lid down on drink.
Munitions workers could only go to the public houses within certain
hours: the man who brought liquor into a Government controlled plant
faced fines and if the offence was repeated, a still more drastic
punishment.
Lloyd George began a censorship of labour which disclosed the fact that
many skilled workers were wasting time on unskilled tasks. Lloyd George
now began to dilute the skilled forces with unskilled who included
thousands of women.
Right here came the first battle. Labour rebelled. It could find a way
to get liquor but it resented dilution and cried out against capacity
output. The Shell Master again became the Conciliator. He curbed the
wild horses, agreeing to a restoration of pre-war shop conditions as
soon as peace came. All he knew was the fact that the guns hungered and
that it was up to him to feed them.
The wheels were not whirring fast enough to suit Lloyd George. "We must
build our own factories," he said. Almost over night rose the mills
whose slogan was "English shells for English guns." In speeding up the
English output the Welshman was also equipping England to meet coming
needs, laying the first stone of the structure that is fast becoming an
Empire Self-Contained.
Lloyd George realised that he could not run every munitions plant,
whereupon he organised local Boards of Control in the great ordnance
centres like Woolwich, Sheffield, Newcastle and Middleboro. Each became
a separate industrial principality but all bound up by hooks of steel to
the Little Wizard who sat enthroned at Whitehall.
England became a vast arsenal, throbbing with ceaseless activity. The
smoke that trailed from the myriad stacks was the banner of a new and
triumphant faith in the future.
What was the result? Up and down the western battle front English cannon
spoke in terms of victory. No longer was British gunner required to
husband shells: to meet crash with silence. He hurled back steel for
steel and all because England's Hope had answered England's Call. Lloyd
George had done it again.
I first met Lloyd George during those crowded days when he was
Commander-in-Chief of the host that fed the firing line. Under his
magnetic direction British industry had been forged into a colossal
munitions shop. No man in England was busier: not even the King was more
inaccessible. Life with him was one engagement after another.
Now came one of those swift emergencies that seems to crowd so fast upon
Lloyd George's life and with it arose my own opportunity.
The British Trade Union Congress in annual session at Bristol had
expressed Labour's dissatisfaction over its share of the munitions
profits. Lloyd George had sent them a letter explaining his proposed
excess profit tax, but this apparently was not enough. The delegates
still growled.
"Then I'll go down and speak to them in person," said the Minister with
characteristic energy.
Thus it happened that I journeyed with him to the old town, background
of stirring naval history. On the way down half a dozen department heads
poured into his responsive ears the up-to-the-minute details of the work
in hand. He became a Human Sponge soaking up the waters of fact.
At Bristol in a crowded stuffy hall he faced what was at the start
almost a menacing crowd. Yet as he addressed them you would have thought
that he had known every man and woman in the assembly all their lives.
The easy, intimate, frank manner of his delivery: his immediate claim to
kinship with them on the ground of a common lowly birth: his quick and
stirring appeal to their patriotism swept aside all discord and
disaffection. As he gave an eloquent account of his stewardship you
could see the audience plastic under his spell. The people who had
assembled to heckle sat spellbound. When he had finished they not only
gave him an ovation but pledged themselves anew to the gospel of "More
Munitions."
It was on the train back to London that I got a glimpse of the real
Lloyd George. What Roosevelt would have called "a bully day" had left
its impress upon the little man. His long grey hair hung matted over a
wilted collar: there was a wistful sort of weariness in his eyes. He
sank into a big chair and looked for a long time in silence at the
flying landscape. Then suddenly he aroused himself and began to talk.
Like many men of his type whom you go to interview he began by
interviewing the interviewer.
The first two questions that Lloyd George asked me showed what was going
on in his mind, for they were:
"What were Lincoln's views of conscription, and did your soldiers vote
during the Civil War?"
There was definite method in these queries, for already the Shadow of
Conscription had begun to fall over all England. It was Lloyd George,
aided by Northcliffe, who led the fight for it.
The talk always went back to the great war. When I spoke of his speech
at Bristol his face kindled and he said:
"Have you stopped to realise that this war is not so much a war of human
mass against human mass as it is a war of machine against machine? It is
a duel between the English and German workman."
You cannot talk long with Lloyd George without touching on democracy.
This is his chosen ground. I shall never forget the fervour with which
he said:
"The European struggle is a struggle for world liberty. It will mean in
the end a victory for all democracy in its fight for equality."
When I asked him to write an inscription for a friend of mine and
express the hope that lay closest to his heart, he took a card from his
pocket, gazed for a moment at the rushing country now shot through with
the first evening lights, and then wrote: "Let Freedom win."
A few days later Lloyd George made still another appearance in his now
familiar rôle of England's Deliverer. The South Wales coal miners,
2,000,000 in number, went on strike at a time when Coal meant Life to
the Empire. There is no need of asking the name of the man who went to
calm this storm. Only one was eligible and he lost no time.