CHAPTER IX

“The spirit of patriotism has been like the genie of Arabian fable. It has burst asunder the prison doors and given freedom to them that were oppressed. It has transformed the wilderness into a garden and the hovel into a home.”[38]

It was his aim that the same spirit should transform Wales.

A simple aim, it would seem. But no sooner did he set finger on the various political Arks that had been set up for worship in the different competing capitals of Wales than he found himself faced with the fiercest hostility. Among his bitterest opponents was one of his own followers in the House, Mr. D. A. Thomas (afterwards Lord Rhondda). Mr. Thomas set himselfup as the champion of the South Wales Federation; and he succeeded in maintaining the cause of local independence.

So tense and prolonged was the struggle that Mr. Lloyd George was content in the end to achieve his purposes in another way, by way of a Welsh National Council. “A rose by any other name will smell as sweet”—that is an important thing to remember in politics. Mr. Lloyd George has never forgotten it.

Here, in Wales, was evidently a case of nationalism only slowly struggling into consciousness, with many forces still to contend against. But if we take a long survey, and cast our eyes over the last half-century (1867-1920) how great is the contrast! Then (1867) there was a Wales almost entirely subject to its feudal chiefs, scarcely daring to assert its own language or nationality. Now (1920) there is a Wales returning an almost unbroken national party, and a majority of Welsh-speaking members.

In this great change David Lloyd George played a leading part.

The division between Welsh Nationalism and British Liberalism did not last long. British Liberalism, essentially in sympathy with Nationalism, soon forgave Mr. Lloyd George. Welsh Nationalism, always essentially Liberal, soon made its peace again with Liberalism.

It was during the struggles of 1896-9 that the reconciliation came. Then in the great parliamentary strife over the Agricultural Rates Bill and the Voluntary Schools Bill, Mr. Lloyd George first showed his mettle as a leader of parliamentary guerillas. Nay, more. Atthe moment when British Liberalism was bereft of leadership he gave it a lead. That was the great point.

Mr. Lloyd George’s great fight against the Agricultural Rates Bill in 1896 marked, indeed, his first great advance towards an assured parliamentary position. It was the first of the measures put forward by our Agrarians for the special relief of agriculture from the misfortunes which had befallen them in the seventies and the eighties. A small affair as compared with later proposals; but Mr. Lloyd George conceived against it an implacable hatred. It was not the relief that he hated; but he argued that under our land system the money would all go finally into the pockets of the landlords. He believed this sincerely; and he fought a great fight against the whole proposal.

The struggle went on through the early months of the Session of 1896. The Unionists at first took it lightly; then they grew angry. Here, it seemed, was a man who must really be reckoned with. This little Welsh attorney, this chapel-trained Nonconformist, actually seemed to know a thing or two about the sacred land system of these islands. He could not be ignored. His pertinacity and resourcefulness seemed to be inexhaustible. The fight went on from day to day, and there seemed no end.

On May 21st the Government moved and the Chairman accepted the “block” closure on the vital clause of the Bill—Clause four.

When the Chairman called the House to go into the division lobbies it was seen that a little group of members were sitting still on their seats, refusing to move. They were Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Herbert Lewis, backed by a little group of sympathetic Irishmen—Mr.John Dillon, Dr. Tanner, and Mr. Donald Sullivan—and by one Radical—Sir John Brunner.

“I must request honourable members to proceed to the division lobbies,” said the Chairman.

“I decline to go out under the circumstances,” said Mr. Lloyd George, speaking with his hat on, as in duty bound.

It was a new event. The Chairman was puzzled what to do. So he called the House back, summoned the Speaker—then Mr. Gully—from his repose, and reported to him what had happened.

“Do I understand,” said the Speaker sternly to Mr. Lloyd George, “that you refuse to clear the House?”

Mr. Lloyd George was quite unshaken by all this awful panoply of parliamentary terrorism.

“That is so, sir,” said he; “as a protest, I declined to go out.”

Then came the turn of that valiant and faithful soul—the Fidus Achates of our Æneas—Mr. Herbert Lewis. Did he too—so quiet and dutiful—refuse to go out?

“I regard this Bill, sir, as legalised robbery,” he said with a sudden outburst of honest vehemence.

After that there was nothing more to be said. The sacrilegious word had been spoken, and it was time for the high-priests of the temple to act. So the Leader of the House moved the suspension of these wicked men—the House voted the suspension by 209 to 58—and the Speaker called on them to withdraw. Mr. Lloyd George cheerfully rose to obey.

“For how long, sir?” he asked the Speaker, with the spirit of a schoolboy making sure of his holiday.

“For a week,” said the Speaker; and they all withdrew.[39]

But the week was to be well used. The rebel went off immediately into Wales and was received with acclamation. The grey veterans of the Welsh Party in the House had shaken their heads. But the Welsh people knew better. They realised the value of a dramatic protest.

There were others who knew better even in the House of Commons. Sir William Harcourt, always a great parliamentary leader, recognised in a moment that there was stuff in this new fighter. “My little Welsh attorney,” he said to me once, “is worth the pack of them.”

“My audience is the country”—that was still the clue to all “Mr. Lloyd George’s parliamentary actions. He and Mr. Herbert Lewis “stumped” through Wales, rousing the people. That week’s holiday bade fair to cost the Government dear.

The English people were not far behind the Welsh in their applause. He was now fighting a battle in which not Wales only but the whole country was concerned. Invitations to speak showered in from all over England.

It is, indeed, from this period (1896-7) that we must date a very important and vital development in Mr. Lloyd George’s career. The guerilla warfare which he opened in this year was carried on by him over the Voluntary Schools Bill of 1897 and the Tithes Bill of 1899. But from a “guerilla” he was gradually developing into a leader of Parliament. Instead of hisfollowing the Front Bench, it was the Front Bench that began to follow him!

For it was a moment of deplorable strife and weakness in the Liberal leadership. Lord Rosebery had resigned over Armenia in 1896, and both Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Morley resigned over Fashoda in 1898. The throne was constantly being vacated; and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who succeeded to the purple, seemed at that time only a “stop-gap,” with Mr. Asquith as the real and only successor.

The country was weary of these personal issues; and they turned with refreshment to the little warrior below the gangway who, at any rate, seemed to care for the cause more than for himself. During those years it was he who checked the Tory ascendancy; and it was largely owing to his vigour and vehemence that in 1897-8 the tide began to turn in the country and the by-elections began to go against the Government—a landslide that was only stopped by the outbreak of the South African War in 1899.

In 1896-7, then, came the critical new departure in the career of Mr. Lloyd George. Up to 1895 he had seemed to be a Welsh Nationalist, pure and simple—that and nothing more. It looked then, indeed, as if he might become the Parnell of Wales—a Parnell of a different kind both in speech and character, but like him in his sole devotion to a national cause—a Parnell in the sense of a leader of a national revolt.

Mr. Lloyd George gave to Wales the opening call. But Wales was not ready for such a complete break with the old order. She was too deeply committed by sympathy and conviction, both political and religious, to the British Liberal allegiance. The feud was healed.

The Welsh Party in the House flinched from electing the rebel as their Chairman. So they left England to share his services. They allowed him the freedom of a wider and more splendid career. They refused to adopt his policy of an independent Welsh Party; so they threw him into a larger contest.[40]

He still continued, after 1895, to push the Welsh National cause—he has never ceased to push it. In the new House his enthusiasm was directed to “Home Rule all Round”; but he found few supporters.

He began more and more to merge the cause of Wales in the larger cause of Britain. He began to believe that the Nonconformists of Britain were in much the same case as the Nonconformists of Wales. Thus from being a Welsh Nationalist only he became a Nationalist on a larger scale—a Nationalist of Britain.

Wales practically gave him to England.

[37]194 votes as against 196 in 1892, when he defeated Sir John Puleston, the popular Tory champion.

[38]October 1894.

[39]These details are based on contemporary impressions and verified from Hansard.

[40]At a Welsh Party meeting on May 19th, 1899, an “independence” resolution moved by Mr. Lloyd George was definitely shelved.

CHAPTER IX

“God defend the right!”

Whenthe 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 tothe 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. Aslong 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 atBirmingham. 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. Hedeveloped 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 theDaily Newsoffice gave the compass-bearings for this venture. Imperialism was not suiting theDaily Newsreaders; 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 anyimmunity; 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 goodaudience 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 whichlit 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 inThe Atlantic Monthlyfor 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.

CHAPTER X

“No poor man can afford to be ignorant; leave that to the rich.”—Mr. Lloyd George at Hartley(1913).

Mr. Lloyd Georgewas not to remain idle long. In 1902 the Conservative wing of the Unionist combination once again asserted itself. The war was over. The Unionists found themselves with that great affair wound up and the whole world before them. It was a tempting position. They were still in supreme command of a Parliament which had five years to run. The House of Lords was their obedient servant. They could practically pass what Bills they liked. It was almost too much strain on human nature to expect that they should not pass some of the Bills that they really wanted.

True, there had been certain promises made during the General Election of 1900 which were rather difficult to explain. Various Unionist leaders had indiscreetly laid it down that that Election was for the war and the war alone. But the Government seemed content to rely on the humane view once put forward by an M.P. victorious through the strength of many promises—that promises made in the heat of an Election do not really count. So in 1902 they took the bit in their mouths and boldly brought in a Bill throwing the Voluntary Schools on to the rates. It was thevery policy which had been openly declared impossible from the front Conservative bench in 1896, and it was known to be extremely distasteful to Mr. Chamberlain.

Mr. Lloyd George took a leading part in the parliamentary opposition to this measure. He once more let “all out” as a guerilla fighter. There he was always supreme. His knowledge of the law made him extraordinarily resourceful in the invention and discovery of amendments; while he displayed a skill equally astonishing as an agile draftsman. Night after night he turned up fresh and smiling; always calm and moderate, serenely persuasive, and, to his enemies, distressingly cool. It seemed an outrage to speak of such a humane fighter as an obstructionist; and yet there is no doubt that few of the most savage of that tribe succeeded so well in delaying the progress of Bills.

Now, as in 1896, he became once more the heart and soul of the Opposition. The Government found themselves compelled to accept a great many of his amendments, and in this way very much weakened their Bill. Mr. Balfour found him a shrewd and agile opponent worthy of his steel.

This time, of course, he was not fighting alone. He was supported with the full power of the Front Opposition Bench, now ably led by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman with Mr. Asquith as chief lieutenant. But Mr. Lloyd George always contributed something peculiarly his own. To the heavy thunder of the Front Bench guns he added the fret and jar of machine-gun fire, galling the flanks of the Government forces, driving them from their chosen positions, often annihilating their best offensives.

There is no doubt that his opposition to the Education Bill played an effective part in weakening Mr. Balfour’s Government, and considerably improved the new Act when it came to be applied to the schools of the country.

But his real triumph came after the Bill had passed through Parliament. On the main objection of principle to that measure he agreed with the Nonconformists of England; but he did not see eye to eye with them in the policy to be employed to resist the application of the Bill. He was never a “Passive Resister.” The English problem, indeed, was different. The English Nonconformists had no certain control of the English County Councils. But in Wales Mr. Lloyd George had long ago ensured his hold over those bodies, and he had deftly amended the Bill so that they should have a decisive control over the administration of the Act.

He now laid before the County Councils of Wales a very ingenious scheme of resistance, destined to be far more effective than the heroic but vain martyrdoms of the English Nonconformists.

In January 1903 he issued to the people of Wales an Address embodying his policy.[47]It was in appearance a law-abiding policy, with the careful intention of avoiding any element of offence to legality. It was ingeniously based on provisions introduced into the Bill in the course of the long parliamentary fight.

It was laid down in the new Act, for instance, that all schools must be passed as efficiently equipped before they received rate-aid from the Councils. That was a provision already existing in regard to the ParliamentaryGrant; but always more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Mr. Lloyd George proposed that this provision of the law should be carried out. He suggested that all schools should be inspected and surveyed by the County Councils before rate-aid was contemplated; and that only those which were passed should be capable of receiving it. Mr. Lloyd George knew enough of the condition of these schools to be sure that few would pass any honest scrutiny. But none could deny the reasonableness of this request. “The sectarian schools,” he said in his Address, “should be properly cleansed and clothed before they are allowed to associate on equal terms with more decently clad institutions.” It seemed a fair and proper condition.

That was the first stage. The second was that rate aid was then to be given only to those schools that would accept genuine public control by the Councils and would suspend religious tests for teachers. Otherwise, nothing was to be handed to the schools except the Parliamentary Grants.

Meanwhile, it was characteristic of Mr. Lloyd George that it was part of his policy always to hold out the olive branch as an alternative to the sword. He suggested to the Councils that rate-aid should be given to any schools where the managers would accept the plan of “facilities” for sectarian teaching on colonial lines—the sects, that is to say, to teach after school hours. This was a plan which had always attracted him. It seemed to him to combine equity with the least possible interference with education. It was the part of his proposals which roused least enthusiasm in Wales on either side.

But, though fighting fiercely, he never at any moment gave up the hope of peace. All through the hottest moments of this strife, through 1903-4-5, he kept the door open for a settlement. He struck up a remarkable friendship with that large-hearted man, Dr. Edwards, the Bishop of St. Asaph,[48]and largely through the efforts of these two there were frequent meetings and conferences—at Llandrindod and in London—but all to no effect. It always happened that just when peace seemed in sight the quarrel broke out afresh. The real fact was, of course, that the two sides never desired the same object or meant the same things.

“My advice is—let us capture the enemy’s artillery and turn his guns against him.” That was the heart of Mr. Lloyd George’s policy of resistance to the new Act. His idea was to defeat the spirit of the Act by obeying the letter.

It was no easy task to swing Wales into line on this policy. Some authorities wanted to go further and defy the Act altogether. Some—a very few—wanted to carry it out. Many individuals craved for the prison martyrdom of the English Nonconformists. There is fascination as well as courage in suffering for a cause.

But Mr. Lloyd George preached his doctrine north and south, east and west. In the spring of 1904 the triennial election for the County Councils was due. His advice was—to make this policy the test of those elections. If the electors decided in his favour, well and good—if not, then they must bow to democratic control and carry out the Act. At no point did he encourage the idea of personal individual resistance.

The elections came; and the results surpassed his most sanguine expectations. In every one of the twenty-eight counties the supporters of his “no rate” policy were returned with a strong majority. In many cases the supporters of the Act had been almost annihilated. In Carnarvonshire itself they were reduced to a minority of six. In Merionethshire there were fifty-two supporters of Mr. Lloyd George’s policy as against three opponents. Even in Brecon, where the Church was at its strongest, thirty-nine members out of sixty were in favour of his policy.

Such were the events which completely paralysed the exaction of the new Voluntary Rate throughout Wales.

The Government decided to coerce Wales. In April 1904 they brought forward a measure called the Defaulting Authorities Bill, but instantly nicknamed the Welsh Coercion Bill. This Bill provided that, where a Welsh County Council refused rate-aid to a Voluntary School, the Treasury should have the right to pay the money direct to the Church Schools. They were to deduct it from the Parliamentary Grant, thus compelling the County Councils to make up out of the rates the loss to their own “provided” schools.

It was an ingenious proposal; but it reckoned without the spirit of Wales under the leadership of Mr. Lloyd George.

The Bill did not pass through the House until the close of the Session of 1904. The “Kangaroo” Closure was called for by Mr. Balfour and granted by Mr. Lowther from the Chair. There was a scene of passion. Once more (as in 1896) Mr. Lloyd George refused to leave the House. Mr. Lowther brought to bear that invincible good-humour of his, and Mr. Asquithsuggested another and a better way. In the result, the whole Liberal Party, headed by Mr. Asquith, accompanied Mr. Lloyd George and his Welshmen in a solemn exodus from the House. Such incidents were not likely to make Wales more conciliatory.

In October Mr. Lloyd George definitely raised the flag of defiance against this Coercion Act.

He persuaded a gathering of 600 representatives of Education Authorities, assembled at Cardiff, to agree on a refusal to surrender.

In the memorable speech he made on this occasion he carried the war into the enemy’s country. He accused these law-makers of lawlessness on their side. He pointed out to them that for years the Board of Education had broken the law on behalf of Voluntary Schools. They had not enforced the efficiency imposed by law. “They broke the law in order not to levy a rate.” Very well. Wales would not levy a rate until the law was obeyed. That was their position. He boldly maintained that the law was on the side of Wales; and thus most wisely did he avoid that perilous identification of his policy with the idea and habit of lawlessness which has needlessly injured so many good causes.

He defied coercion. If the Defaulting Act were enforced and the rate-aid deducted from the Parliamentary Grant, he boldly advised that the Welsh Councils should close their schools. It would be a better thing that the children should be brought up to reverence freedom of conscience than that they should learn even the three R’s. Besides, they could provide buildings where they could teach them that freedom of conscience was a greater thing even than knowledge.

Once more, courage won the day. It was not going to be an easy thing to dispute Mr. Lloyd George’s reading of the law in those High Courts which know nothing of politics. Only a very few Welsh Authorities got out of hand, and, going ahead of Mr. Lloyd George’s astute advice, rendered themselves liable to prosecution.[49]

But even then the Government did not venture to act. They had not enough public opinion behind them. From 1904 to 1906 there was no moment in the history of that divided, tempest-tossed Government when they could safely have entered upon a strife so perilous and so doubtful. So Mr. Lloyd George was left in Wales still unassailed and triumphant until the General Election of 1906 swept away the Government and practically killed the Coercion Act.

Meanwhile, during those years David Lloyd George had been all the time steadily adding to his reputation as a speaker and debater both in the House of Commons and in the country. There, after all, we always come back to his supreme political weapon—the power of public speech. Born in those village debates within the bootmaker’s shop and the smithy at Llanystumdwy, that power had been sharpened and developed on the village greens and in the town halls of Wales, trained to finer uses on the public platforms of England, and quickened by the quick thrust and parry in parliamentary debate. It had passed through the fire of stern combat during the South African struggle, and now it had emerged in swift, keen sword of combat, at once supple and strong.

That weapon he had used in all the great parliamentary fights of those years, when Mr. Balfour was carrying on, like the great Arthur of old, the last great combat for that pleasant, serene, feudal England which was already so sorely wounded by the hunters.

Feudalism seemed to win for the time. The Bills became Acts of Parliament—the Schools Bill, even the Licensing Bill. Mr. Balfour, himself a supreme master of the parliamentary arts, seemed to survive. But all the time David Lloyd George was inflicting mortal wounds, until at last, like the old defeated royalist in the Civil Wars, Mr. Arthur Balfour gracefully yielded his sword. He was actually the first, in that generous way of his, who recommended to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman that, in whatever Cabinet he might be called upon to form, Mr. Lloyd George must in any case be a Minister.

It was in 1903 that a great diversion occurred in the development of this drama. Striking across the orbit of both the great political parties, with some of the strength and ruthlessness of his old Radical days, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain put forward his famous Tariff Reform proposals.

One of the first results of that event was to divert all political energy for the moment from Bills to debate. Both in Parliament and on the platform from 1903 to 1906 the energies of public men were mainly absorbed in that great titanic controversy—so absorbing to the British mind—between Free Trade and Protection.

Mr. Lloyd George shared this diversion with all the others. He was called from progressive tasks to the essentially conservative business of defending theexisting economic order. He did it well. He proved himself a faithful Free Trader. But this was not principally and specifically his especial task. In this field Mr. Asquith took the lead, and Mr. Lloyd George was always his faithful “junior.”

But Mr. Lloyd George’s defence of Free Trade soon began to develop a character of its own. His tactics gradually began to take on a note of attack. His defensive became an aggressive.

He had recognised, from the opening of the struggle, that the strength of Mr. Chamberlain’s case lay in his frank recognition of the grim, shameful facts that lay beneath the smooth surface of English life. He realised that Mr. Chamberlain was the first great statesman to recognise fearlessly the existence of that England which so few statesmen had yet recognised—the England of the poor. Mr. Chamberlain, in fact, had brought “Darkest England” into the political landscape.

As the campaign went on Mr. Chamberlain grew bolder and bolder along these lines. He contended that tariffs, and tariffs alone, would provide the money for Old Age Pensions. He hinted at even vaster boons which were coming to England if she would only turn her back on that sour and pinchbeck old lady—Free Trade.

Mr. Lloyd George perceived at once the danger of this attack. He, at any rate, knew the “deep sighing of the poor.” He realised the black abyss which lay below the surface of England’s wealth. He feared the appeal to the hungry mouths of our neglected masses.

From that day forward he set out to prove that Free Trade also could remedy poverty—aye! andremedy it all the more easily because it brought wealth in its train. The great need was that that wealth should bear its due burden. That was to be his cure for the trouble.

At that time his phrasing was large and general. He had not yet worked out his later plans. Earlier he had served on the Rothschild Pensions Committee, and he had thrown all his energies into that inquiry. He was ever studying the problems of the land. But he kept a mind open to details. In that year (1904-5) he was storing impulse and collecting knowledge, preparing for the great moment that lay ahead of him.

That moment was now to come.

In December 1905 Mr. Balfour resigned, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman immediately undertook to form a Ministry.

It was already clear that Mr. Lloyd George must be a member of the new Cabinet. Sir Henry offered him the Presidency of the Board of Trade, and he accepted it. To the public the appointment came as a surprise. It seemed the last post for that brilliant parliamentary free-lance, that gay leader of forlorn hopes.

They were to find that, behind that flashing exterior, there was a cooler personality, well fitted for the control of the calmer and shrewder side of our national life.

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