CHAPTER VII

“Despite all the machinations of my enemies, I will succeed. I am now sailing before the wind, and they against it.”

It is clear from these sentences that there was keen personal opposition to his candidature. It was a moment in Welsh Liberalism of fierce tidal struggle between the old and the new forces. The old forces died hard. That type of Liberalism, still not rare in England, which aims at cashing its seat in Parliament for money favours or local privileges, was by no means yet dead in Wales. The strong wind of that great national spirit which has since swept through the Principality had not yet risen to hurricane force. There were many elements of fear and self-interest which viewed with horror the challenge to powers in high places which David Lloyd George set before Wales as the only sure road to liberty. These men found his doctrine too hard for them. Mr. Doubting and Mr. Feeble-mind hoped still to serve two masters and to get the best of two worlds. It yet required a great struggle before David Lloyd George could convince them that his was a sign in which they could conquer. These great victories are not achieved easily; it is only through great storm and stress that nations attain to freedom of soul.

But a great event in this progress was destined to take place the following year—1889. It was a singular curiosity of this period of reaction in British home affairs that there had crept into the Unionist Government a man of large and progressive views. Mr. C. T. Ritchie[26]had emerged from the British middle class to take his seat among the mighty of this land. He had not lost sight of his own people in the process. Mr. Ritchie was a bluff man, rugged of speech and ungainly of appearance. He seemed like a fly in amber in themidst of a Tory Government. But he happened to be very popular with Queen Victoria, and he was a power in the City of London. It has always been in England a part of the compromise of the great aristocrats who dominate the Tory Party that they should promote to high office a few shining lights of the middle class. In an earlier time they had to promote Sir Robert Peel—at a great price to their cause. Now they had to admit Mr. Ritchie; and the penalty was almost as great. For in 1888, by creating the County Councils, he struck a blow at the roots of county feudal government.

Young Lloyd George saw in a flash the tremendous opportunity thus given to Wales. He knew by long experience that the power of the squires was largely based upon their control of county government in Quarter Sessions. He saw that they would endeavour to prolong their power by capturing the new County Councils. He determined to do his utmost to defeat them. He refused to stand for election himself, although he was offered four seats. His own ambition was larger. It was to capture the county. He moved about from place to place speaking everywhere and trying to rouse the whole of Carnarvonshire to the great chance now placed in their hands. He succeeded. He carried the county. Everywhere the candidates of progress were returned. “It is a revolution!” he cried. “The day of the squire has now gone!”[27]So profound was the conviction of the Welsh Liberals that he had won their battle for them that he was immediately chosen as county Alderman along with Mr.(now Sir) Arthur Acland, who, at that time, had a house in Carnarvonshire.

“The boy Alderman,” as he was called, instantly threw himself hotly into the new work of the Carnarvonshire County Council. He became a conservator for those native rivers of his which he loved so dearly, soon winning for them that freedom for which he had always striven in other ways. He took an active part in every branch of administration. But his main purpose was directed to using the Welsh County Councils as a political stepping-stone towards the great goal of Home Rule for Wales. He was a prime mover in appointing a Committee to collect evidence for the Royal Commission on the Sunday Closing Act in Wales. He pushed forward the idea of an Association of County Councils for the whole of the Principality. During those months of 1889 David Lloyd George created a Home Rule weapon in Wales of which he was destined to make a mighty use in one of the greatest struggles of his later years. Perhaps he “builded better than he knew.” But it is a very striking evidence of his early political instinct that he should have perceived so soon the full possibilities of the Welsh County Councils.

The tide of events now began to sweep him rapidly towards a larger political career. As recognised candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs he already began to play an important part on the larger political stage. In October 1889 he had supported a Welsh Disestablishment resolution at a meeting of the Welsh National Council. In December he persuaded the National Liberal Federation at Manchester to accept the policy of the Local Veto on the drink traffic. OnFebruary 4th, 1890, he made at the South Wales Liberal Federation a brilliant and arresting speech on Welsh Home Rule—a speech which instantly marked him out as a coming figure in Welsh politics. He argued with force and power that, as compared with Ireland, the argument for Welsh Home Rule was stronger because they lacked the specific difficulty of Ireland—the Ulster problem. The speech made a deep mark. Already in his own country he stood for unity and daring, while even in England rumours began to reach the ears of Radical politicians that a new and fiery force was arising hard by the rocks of Snowdon.

It was at this critical moment that Mr. Swetenham, the Conservative member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, died; and suddenly the young David Lloyd George was faced with a supreme challenge. Probably, if he had been able to shape events himself, he would have preferred to wait a few years before standing for Parliament. But to some men the call of fate comes early and swiftly, and cannot be denied.

Certainly David Lloyd George showed no sign of hesitating to meet the call. On March 24th, 1890, he issued his Address—a brief, terse, dignified statement of his political faith. It was not the Address of an ordinary Liberal candidate. True, he gave his homage to Mr. Gladstone and the cause of Irish Home Rule; but then he passed on rapidly to a strong assertion of the claims of Wales—first and foremost, for religious liberty and equality; then for sweeping reforms in land and labour laws; last, but not least, for a liberal extension to Wales of the principle of self-government.In other words, Mr. Lloyd George stood for Parliament always before all things as a Welsh Nationalist. In subsequent years, when he was to be so often accused of disloyalty to the Liberal Party, that fact might perhaps have been more often remembered.

The sudden death of the Tory member threw the Unionist organisers into some confusion. At first they pushed forward a Liberal Unionist; but Wales has no liking for the lukewarm in politics. Finally, they selected the local squire, Mr. Ellis Hugh Nanney,[28]a strong Tory, but a man of considerable local popularity with those who admired him.

Here, then, was a thrilling contest—between the village boy and the local squire; between the rebel of the village school and its secular ruler; between the Robin Hood of the village woods and their lord and owner.

It was a sharp, keen struggle, fought to all appearances on Irish Home Rule; but the weapons of the fight were edged and pointed by the new spirit of freedom that was blowing hard from the Welsh hills. On Mr. Nanney’s side was the old order, with all its powers and attractions, its graces and its condescensions; on the side of David Lloyd George was the keen, breezy hope of the future, with all its rough and rugged possibilities. In the end the veteran Liberals of Wales rallied to the support of the young David. Both Mr. John Parry and Mr. Thomas Gee—after a searching interrogation—came to his help.

We may be sure that in the fierce atmosphere of that contest there was little effort to spare the humble origins of the Liberal candidate. It was characteristicof David Lloyd George that he met these attacks, not with apology, but with bold defiance.

On March 28th, speaking at Carnarvon, he uttered this ringing reply:

“The Tories have not yet realised that the day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”[29]

It is clear that that idea had taken hold of his mind with mastering power.

We can recover a picture of that little by-election as the struggle ebbed and flowed in the streets of those little Welsh townships, far away there between the mountains and the sea. To the great world it was a mere episode in Mr. Gladstone’s last great struggle.[30]It was only dimly that the shrewd London special correspondents began to perceive that something else was at stake also—something else for Wales, something else for England also.

We see the slow-moving drama working to a crisis through that far-away Easter-tide—the public still mainly absorbed in their holiday pleasures—the meetings at first feebly attended, and then, as the day ofelection draws near, more and more crowded—the squire-candidate at first amiably confident and aloof, pleading ill-health, then suddenly appearing constantly in public, feverishly canvassing, plainly alarmed by the reports of his agents. All through we can see the little “hamlet-lad” with the yellow rosette—boldly sporting his colours—flitting from town to town, urging on his supporters, speaking to the Welsh people in that sweet mellifluous, persuasive tongue of theirs, so magical to those who know it.

“A dull election,” said the correspondents at first. The result seemed to them doubtful. These Londoners expected the Welsh to be very excitable; and they were surprised to find them so calm. They forgot that deep waters run still.

Then they began to notice the Liberal candidate. One who heard him speak in Welsh wrote to London: “I never heard any one speak Welsh so charmingly as Mr. Lloyd George. It was the first time I had heard him; and though I could not understand a word of it, it is exceedingly pleasant to listen to him.”[31]Truly, a remarkable victory for the power of sound!

Then, as the election goes forward, we can see pale fear gradually creeping through the ranks of Tuscany. The Welsh Tory agent was hurriedly sent down from headquarters and wired back that the situation was serious. Exertions were redoubled. On those last days this election certainly was not dull. Deep cried unto deep; and the Welsh crowds began to murmur like the restless sea which beats on their shores.

Then comes the polling day—Friday, April 4th.Up to the last the issue is doubtful. It is a neck-and-neck struggle. The poll is very heavy. Carnarvon votes to a man—and Bangor almost to a man.[32]The shrewd observers are puzzled. They feel like those who watch the meeting of the tides. The signs are not clear. One coming from Nevin finds David Lloyd George in Carnarvon the solitary wearer of his own favours. He cannot understand it.

Then, the closing scene—the counting of the votes on the polling day in the room beneath the town hall at Carnarvon. It is midday of a beautiful spring day, and the street outside is packed with seething, expectant humanity. How slow they are inside there! How wearily the minutes drag on! But far away, over Criccieth, Snowdon shines, still snow-crowned, beautiful and serene.

Inside the town hall the issue wavers to and fro. From hour to hour fate oscillates in the balance.

The votes have now been counted. The Nanney heap is one side of the table, and the Lloyd George heap on the other. The heaps seem almost equal. But to the trained eyes of close observers the papers on the Nanney heap rise above his rival’s by just a shadow of a shade. There can be no doubt about it—David Lloyd George is beaten. Better tell him at once.

David Lloyd George smiles bravely. His friends gather round him with sober solace. “Better luck next time”—when suddenly there is a stir in the throng which surrounds the ballot papers.

One of David Lloyd George’s vigilant agents hasbeen better occupied than in uttering words. He stands eagerly scrutinising the piles of papers: and now his keen eye has noticed something doubtful about one of the packets of papers on Mr. Nanney’s heap. He picks it up and glances rapidly through the voting-papers. Below one or two Nanney votes there is a little unnoticed series of votes for Lloyd George. It is enough to make the difference, and to return David Lloyd George as member by a majority of 20.

Stung by frustrated hope, the Nanney agents insist on a recount; and one vote is transferred from Lloyd George to Nanney, reducing the majority to 18.

David Lloyd George is M.P. for the Carnarvon Boroughs!

The word goes swiftly forth. As soon as he appears, he is received by that hitherto silent crowd with tumultuous acclaim. The still waters break into foam. He is drawn in a carriage through the town by a tremendous crowd. At Castle Square he addresses them in Welsh: “My dear fellow-countrymen,” he says, “the county of Carnarvon to-day is free. The banner of Wales is borne aloft, and the boroughs have wiped away the stains!”

Eighteen votes[33]—not a very large gap between defeat and victory. But it is enough. ’Twill serve. The moving finger has written.

[25]Now (1920) as then a constituency consisting of five Welsh Boroughs—Carnarvon, Bangor, Criccieth, Pwllheli, and Nevin. Out of consideration for the Prime Minister the constitution was left unaltered by the Act of 1918.

[26]Afterwards Lord Ritchie.

[27]In a speech at Liverpool on February 18th, 1889. The first mention of Mr. Lloyd George in a leading article was in theCarnarvon Heraldover this speech.

[28]Now Sir Ellis Hugh Nanney.

[29]These words are taken from the verbatim report of his speech in theCarnarvon Herald.

[30]Mr. Gladstone wrote the following by-election letter:“Dear Sir,“Your sanguine anticipations do not surprise me. My surprise would be this time, if a Welsh constituency were to return a gentleman who, whether Tory or Liberal, would vote against the claims which Wales is now justly making, that her interests and feelings should at length be recognised in concerns properly her own. Even if he reserved or promised you his individual vote, by supporting the party opposed to you and keeping it in power, he would make that favourable vote perfectly nugatory.“I remain,“Your faithful servant.“W. E. Gladstone.”

[30]Mr. Gladstone wrote the following by-election letter:

“Dear Sir,“Your sanguine anticipations do not surprise me. My surprise would be this time, if a Welsh constituency were to return a gentleman who, whether Tory or Liberal, would vote against the claims which Wales is now justly making, that her interests and feelings should at length be recognised in concerns properly her own. Even if he reserved or promised you his individual vote, by supporting the party opposed to you and keeping it in power, he would make that favourable vote perfectly nugatory.“I remain,“Your faithful servant.“W. E. Gladstone.”

“Dear Sir,

“Your sanguine anticipations do not surprise me. My surprise would be this time, if a Welsh constituency were to return a gentleman who, whether Tory or Liberal, would vote against the claims which Wales is now justly making, that her interests and feelings should at length be recognised in concerns properly her own. Even if he reserved or promised you his individual vote, by supporting the party opposed to you and keeping it in power, he would make that favourable vote perfectly nugatory.

“I remain,

“Your faithful servant.

“W. E. Gladstone.”

[31]TheDaily News, April 2nd, 1890: “He has a flexible, sympathetic voice, a silvery, mellifluous articulation, and his action is that of an accomplished orator.”

[32]TheCarnarvon Heraldrecords that the Tories polled every possible man. One voter was brought all the way from Wolverhampton. Three Carnarvon plasterers were brought by car to Carnarvon from the beach at Pwllheli, where they were working.

[33]The full figures were:David Lloyd George1,963Ellis Nanney1,945——Majority18——

[33]The full figures were:

MRS. WILLIAM GEORGE,THE MOTHER OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN

CHAPTER VII

“And now,Out of that land where Snowdon night by nightReceives the confidences of lonely stars,And where Carnarvon’s ruthless battlementsMagnificently oppress the daunted tide,There comes, no fabled Merlin, son of mist,And brother to the twilight, but a man.”William Watson on Mr. Lloyd George.

“And now,

Out of that land where Snowdon night by night

Receives the confidences of lonely stars,

And where Carnarvon’s ruthless battlements

Magnificently oppress the daunted tide,

There comes, no fabled Merlin, son of mist,

And brother to the twilight, but a man.”

William Watson on Mr. Lloyd George.

Enteringthe House of Commons in April 1890, David Lloyd George walked straight into one of those great party struggles which in those days supplied the British public with an efficient substitute for the Prize Ring. The subject was a clause in the Budget of 1890 compensating the Drink Trade for abolished licences. The whole Liberal Party attacked this clause hotly under the leadership of Mr. Gladstone. The whole Unionist Party supported it.

On the face of it, the young Lloyd George, hot with temperance enthusiasm, could not have found a more congenial theme. But his letters and diaries reveal that he felt an immediate chill on contact with the House of Commons. He found the drink question being used as a great party weapon on both sides. Shrewd political calculations had annexed one party to drink and another party to temperance. But the young Lloyd George, drunk with the temperance faith, detected no real enthusiasm on either side.

“The debate,” he wrote to his uncle on May 16th, “was rather an unreal one, no fervour or earnestness characterising it. The House does not seem at all to realise or to be impressed with the gigantic evils of drunkenness.”

It was characteristic of young Lloyd George that he hoped for a great change in the atmosphere when the country was really aroused; and he proceeded to do his best to arouse it.

Often in the years that followed the young Lloyd George felt the same chill in the atmosphere of Westminster. He often used to say in those days that he found it necessary to renew his strength by constantly visiting the constituencies. He was always rather a platform man than a House of Commons man: he was never a great lobbyist. Often in those early years he used to find that he gained more inspiration from great popular meetings than from a week in the House of Commons.

He was a little timid of the House of Commons—perhaps wisely so. He saw in a moment that the House liked to be wooed carefully. “I shan’t speak in the House this side of the Whitsuntide holidays,” he wrote to his uncle. “Better not appear too eager. Get a good opportunity and make the best of it—that’s the point.” There, at any rate, he showed that he had the first qualification for parliamentary success—respect for his audience.

I can remember the ferment of expectation that gathered round Mr. Lloyd George among those of us who, in those days, watched the House of Commons from the gallery. We had heard vaguely of him as a great “spell-binder” in North Wales. We had been toldthat no man equalled him in his power of rousing Welsh crowds in the Welsh tongue. We had heard that he had the gift of the “hwyl”; and, not knowing quite what that meant, we expected to see something resembling a Druid appear on the floor of the House of Commons. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when we saw a slim, well-groomed young lawyer in a frock coat and with side-whiskers. The few questions he asked in the first week revealed that he had a soft, rather sweet voice, and was more inclined to speak in a whisper than a shout. All these things seriously upset our calculations, and considerably disappointed the hopes of all fervid sketch-writers.

It was on June 13th, 1890, that he first broke his parliamentary silence by a speech on the compensation clauses. He supported Mr. Acland’s amendment for diverting Mr. Goschen’s grant from liquor compensation to technical education.

It was by no means the speech of a fanatical Druid. It was a soft-spoken, skilful piece of debating expressed in excellent idiomatic English. It was full of swift debating thrusts and sharp-edged jests. It was in this speech that he described Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain as “political contortionists who can perform the great feat of planting their feet in one direction and setting their faces in another.” Here was just the kind of humour that the House of Commons loves. It came well within the line of that traditional parliamentary wit which has to be appreciated even by its victims.

In fine, Mr. Lloyd George’s maiden speech seemed a good start for a promising parliamentary career. It was approved by Mr. Gladstone, praised by SirWilliam Harcourt, and cheered by the House itself.

For the moment the young Welsh victor was a conspicuous figure. He stood in the limelight. He received from many quarters those purple favours which have turned the heads of so many young members fresh from a by-election. For this return, coming after several defeats of other candidates, was a notable event in the close and desperate partisan warfare of those years.

It was an event, indeed, deemed worthy of special attention from the veteran leader of the Liberal hosts, Mr. Gladstone smiled on Wales. On May 29th Mr. Lloyd George was invited to Hawarden with a party of Welsh constituents, who sang hymns and folk-songs on that historic lawn. The young recruit was introduced to the Grand Old Man, who honoured him with a special oration. “The Carnarvon Boroughs,” he said in his stately way, “are a formidable place for the Liberal Party to fight. Penrhyn Castle is an important centre. But truth, justice, and freedom are greater than Penrhyn Castle!” Mr. Gladstone was no doubt thinking of little more than his beloved cause of Ireland; but the words echoed through Wales with a meaning that perhaps Mr. Gladstone himself little dreamed of.

Thus David Lloyd George was initiated into the sanctities of the Liberal party. But he was not always to prove an easy and obedient acolyte.

For the House of Commons had not yet had any taste of Mr. Lloyd George’s rebellious humours. The real test of this quality was yet to come.

It came on August 13th of this year (1890) whenhe let himself go with a touch of his own native daring on some of the items of the Estimates. He selected them from among those decorative payments which are far too easily granted by an assembly always inclined to be kind to the great and prosperous. One of the items was a payment of £439 on the installation of Prince Henry of Prussia as a Knight of the Garter. “What service,” asked Mr. Lloyd George boldly, “has Prince Henry of Prussia ever rendered to this country? He has not yet rendered any service to his own country, to say nothing of service to Great Britain.”

Then he passed to an item of £2,769—“equipage money” to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. “The Lord-Lieutenant,” said Mr. Lloyd George, “is simply a man in buttons who wears silk stockings and has a coat-of-arms on his carriage.” At this he was called severely to order by the Chairman, but that did not prevent him from a ruthless comparison of this expenditure with the recent report of a Sweating Committee and the terrible revelations of poverty contained in that document.

Here the House of Commons had a touch of the real Lloyd George whom they were to get to know so well in the future. It was for this that he had come to Westminster; not for conventional party speeches, but for plain homely utterance on the pomps and conventions and extravagances of the great world. Here we get a first hint of his mission: a difficult and even cruel mission—to tell the comfortable and wealthy that they were living on the poor—to tell the decorative that they must be decorative no longer, but must either be useful or come down from their high places. He knew that such talk was not going to be popular in theHouse of Commons, but he was looking to another quarter for approval. Writing in his diary the day before delivering the speech on Prince Henry of Prussia’s Garter he made the following significant entry:

“My audience is the country.”

It was to the country, indeed, that he was already making his chief appeal. His biggest efforts of this year were made outside the House of Commons. The first was made on May 7th at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where the Liberal Party appeared in full force to support Welsh Disestablishment. He prepared his speech with the utmost care. He sent notes of it down to his uncle at Criccieth and received the comments and criticisms of the “Esgob”—the “Bishop”—as he loved to call Richard Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd George was perhaps a little humanly disappointed when he discovered that, graded by party officialism, he had been given the lowest place in the list of speakers at the Tabernacle. But this was soon forgotten when he once got into his stride. Although the audience had been dismally thinned by a succession of dreary orations, they sat out his speech to the end. He had intended to go on for only five or ten minutes: but the cheering and laughter of his audience carried him on for twenty-five. This was the very thing—here was a man to whom Welsh Disestablishment was an actual life issue, and not a mere new item in a party programme. When at last he sat down, the audience seemed surprised. Like a wise man, he left them unsatisfied, and the result was that the public soon demanded more.

After this success he was deluged with requests forspeeches in every part of England. But wisely he accepted few. He decided to stick closely to his House of Commons work, and there is no sounder course for any young Member of Parliament. The result was that at the end of this first session of 1890 he had already secured a good parliamentary footing.

It may be taken that the transition to Parliament from North Wales was by no means an easy domestic revolution for a struggling young provincial solicitor who had only just begun to earn an income.

Politics did not come to him, indeed, with such a crushing burden as it brings to many young men. The total expenses of this, his first election, were little more than £200. He definitely refused the offer of his political friends to raise a fund to cover his election expenses. But he accepted gratefully the unpaid help of several friendly lawyers at Bangor and Carnarvon as his election agents. In his later elections the Liberal Association of the Boroughs covered his expenses. The labourer is worthy of his hire; and Mr. Lloyd George had wisely accepted the offer. To that arrangement the Association adhered until the time when he entered a Ministry (1906)—thus creating one of the finest ties that can exist between a constituency and its member. Here, at any rate, was a member who was a public servant and not a public almoner.

But in spite of that great public aid the entrance of David Lloyd George into Parliament proved a great and growing strain on the young couple. Their eldest child Dick[34]was already fifteen months old when Mr. Lloyd George came into Parliament. The growingpractice at Portmadoc had to be left during the Session to his brother, Mr. William George, whose splendid self-sacrifice and high public spirit have always fortified and entrenched the private fortunes of his elder brother. While profits diminished, new expenses grew. A domicile had to be secured in London. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd George settled down first (1890) in a flat in Gray’s Inn, then (1891) in the Temple, and, later on, for six years (1893-9) Palace Mansions, Kensington. There they set up a simple house, always open to their many friends. For from the beginning Mr. Lloyd George was always the most hospitable of men.

For the first year or two of his parliamentary life he continued to practice in North Wales during the recess and to live during the autumn months at Criccieth with Mr. and Mrs. Owen, his parents-in-law.[35]

On these returns to his native soil he continued to use his legal position for those daring assertions of popular right which had become his passion. At this time, indeed, occurred one of the boldest of these incidents, when he faced Mr. Casson, the very lawyer to whom he had been articled. That able provincial attorney had concentrated in his hands all those secular offices which combine to make a genuine social tyranny. He was at once Clerk to the Justices and agent to the Tremadoc estate, which practically covered the whole district. As agent to the estate, he had allowed some of the houses in Portmadoc to fall into grave disrepair. At last the thing became a scandal. The Urban DistrictCouncil had to take action; and they instructed Mr. William George.

Complaint was in vain; it was soon necessary to prosecute. But the summons against Mr. Casson the agent could only be issued by Mr. Casson the Clerk of the justices: and Mr. Casson the Clerk of the Justices refused to issue it. He seemed safely protected by his own loyalty to himself.

Not an unusual incident in our happy countryside, in England as well as in Wales; but Mr. David Lloyd George there and then determined that it should not occur again in Portmadoc.

Mr. William George reported the situation to his brother, who said, “Leave this to me.” Next day he went into court. He began by challenging the bench. For one cause or another he was able to disqualify all the magistrates except a schoolmaster and a bank manager, men of open minds. To them Mr. Lloyd George then began to denounce Mr. Casson with merciless vigour for a whole hour. He lashed him ruthlessly for his misuse of his powers. He demanded that he should sit where every other culprit had to sit—in the dock.

Mr. Casson did not remain quiet under these lashes. He protested and interrupted for a time, but was at last quelled by Mr. Lloyd George’s attack. Then he subsided into silence until the magistrates sternly ordered the issue of the necessary summonses. The result was that the dangerously crumbling walls complained of by the Urban Council were put in a state of safety for the public.

When Mr. Lloyd George opened this scene the court was almost empty; but in a few minutes the public outsidehad seemed to get wind of what was happening. Long before the attack ended the court was crowded with people who made no attempt to conceal their approval. To this day Portmadoc will tell you that Mr. Lloyd George never did a more necessary piece of work, or did it more thoroughly, than on this notable day.

It is not remarkable that, feeling these powers growing within him, he should have thought seriously at this time of being called to the English Bar. His friend Samuel Evans urged this on him. He put his name down. But at that point some rare strain of diffidence held him back—some instinctive shrinking. At any rate, he never carried the matter further; but went on attempting to combine with his parliamentary duties the conduct of his solicitor’s practice at Portmadoc.

But he could not go on permanently with this double strain. More and more the public demanded speeches from him in the autumns; and he had less and less time for work at Portmadoc. In May 1897 he sent for his friend Arthur Rhys Roberts, a solicitor who was practising at Newport in South Wales. He asked him to join him in starting an office in London. They took rooms in 13, Walbrook, E.C.,[36]where they opened with no prospects except the vague promises of friends; and for the first three years David Lloyd George gave a great deal of time to this venture. He went to the office every morning and to the House in the afternoons. He worked hard for the firm. He wrote all important letters; he conducted all important interviews—oftenat the House of Commons. He was still a partner at Criccieth, and thus for a time he maintained a double position in the law—the partner in two firms. But Criccieth counted less and less, and gradually passed entirely into the hands of his brother.

He earned a fair income; but it was a hard life, and he had to supplement it with journalistic work for Welsh papers and for theManchester Guardian. He was quite a vigorous writer in those days. The burden was heavy. But he had beside him the great courage and thrift of his wife, and behind him the high and splendid spirit of his “Uncle Lloyd.”

His life in those early days was full and serene, crowded with work and play. The children began to fill his quiver—Dick, Mair, Olwen, Gwilym—those young voices that speak with our enemies in the gate. He loved children; and he loved life. He was already surrounded with friends, and especially with that bright band of young Welshmen who were gathering to Westminster—Tom Ellis, Herbert Lewis, Frank Edwards, Sam Evans, Llewellyn Williams. So girt, he ever took life “with a frolic welcome.”

His was a spirit welded of laughter and tears, moulded for great adventures. He learnt even in those early days the great art of varying grave with gay. But then, as now, the gay never took the place first. It was always there as a servant rather than master—a foil to grave endeavour; a background to serious purposes.

He had, of course, those little weaknesses that require the forgiveness of affection. He could always, when he wished, write letters with the best—especially when letters were really required for business or affairs.But he would not write the small letters, or answer the small letters. He was not very precise over social engagements. He was always more faithful to his humble friends than to the great and fashionable; and he sometimes forgot Gilbert’s great discovery—that even Belgrave Square has a heart behind its stucco.

Behind all the colour and zest of his young, eager life there was always that same quality of courage that knit his character like an iron girder. He had a serene confidence in his own star. He did not know the word “impossible.” The greater the obstacle the greater his security of success. It was this note that dominated his thought and speech.

But, after all, it was at those gatherings of his friends, when the pipes were lit and the laughter rang free, that the true Lloyd George was to be seen and heard—the Lloyd George who has since won the hearts of nations. Those were wonderful meetings of young souls at that little flat in Kensington. How that symphony of laughter and speech rings across the years, the echo of those grave debates of youth in which, though we knew it not, opinions were moulding and a will forming which, in the coming time, were to fashion and shake the world!

[34]Now Major Richard Lloyd George.

[35]At first on the farm, and later in Criccieth. Mr. Owen built there two semi-detached houses, Llys Owen and Brynawel, and there the Owens and the Lloyd Georges lived for some years next door to one another.

[36]In 1900 they shifted to 63, Queen Victoria Street, E.C., which is now the office of the firm of Rhyn Roberts & Co., as it has been called since Mr. Lloyd George severed his connection with it after taking Government office.

CHAPTER VIII

“Though it appear a little out of fashion,There is much care and valour in this Welshman.”Shakespeare’sHenry V, Act I, Sc. iv.

“Though it appear a little out of fashion,

There is much care and valour in this Welshman.”

Shakespeare’sHenry V, Act I, Sc. iv.

David Lloyd Georgehad gone to Parliament as a Welsh Nationalist; and, as the months passed, it became clear that the task of moulding and defending the new national cause in Wales would absorb his main energies.

It was not a popular task at Westminster, where it cut right across the party divisions. It was not even yet wholly an easy task in Wales, where the old spirit of feudalism had many strongholds and was still “an unconscionable time in dying.”

Throughout the following years (1892-7) David Lloyd George had to fight a double battle—at Westminster and in Wales. At Westminster he took the lead of a small group of Welsh members—often only four—who greatly dared to put the cause of Wales before the cause of party—never an easy task in a House where the party system is the very oxygen of the political atmosphere. On all great public questions that arose in those years—tithes, free schooling, local option, clergy discipline—he steadily and daringly pursued the national course and built up a national policy.

The influence that kept him straight on this course came ever from his own native soil. For he was in daily touch with that faithful little family group—those four loyal souls—his uncle, his brother, his sister, and his mother—who kept for him, while he battled in London, the fires burning on the home hearth, helped his wife by looking after the children in moments of stress, and steadily aided him with counsel and inspiration. David wrote to that little family party a daily record of his doings; and day by day Uncle Lloyd wrote to his “Di” long letters, partly in Welsh, partly in English, advising him on every question that arose, always taking the bold side, always bringing his nephew back to the goals of his pilgrimage—faith and fatherland. “Land of our Fathers” was the key-phrase in Uncle Lloyd’s politics; and, amid the stress and distraction of Westminster, his boy was never allowed, for a single day, to miss hearing that clear call from the Eagle mountains.

Here was the source of his strength in the struggles that now lay before him, calling for the utmost exercise of will and decision. For, if the Welsh cause was to be kept to the front, it was necessary to fight continually against the submerging influence of the party machines.

The most remarkable among these contests of the early nineties was undoubtedly that memorable fight undertaken by Mr. Lloyd George and a small band of Welsh fellow-members against Mr. Gladstone in the zenith of his power and frame over the Clergy Discipline Bill.

The Bill seemed a very innocent and reasonable measure. It aimed at strengthening the control ofthe Anglican Bishops—always weak enough—over their clergy. To Englishmen reasonable enough; but not so to Welshmen, to whom the very word “Bishop” was almost as hateful a sound as to the Presbyterian Scotch. Not until the Bishops released their hold on Wales would they consent to give them a stronger hold over their own clergy.

Now the Bill happened to be a very special favourite of Mr. Gladstone, who still loved his Church with a mighty love, and Mr. Gladstone was at that moment a very formidable opponent. It is difficult now to realise the power of his authority at that moment. The Liberals who had remained faithful to him regarded him with a loyalty that amounted to a passion. To dispute his word would seem to them the nearest secular approach to heresy or sacrilege. It was that spirit that Mr. Lloyd George dared to defy.

It was a sight for the gods to see those young Welshmen, night after night, facing the Grand Old Man. There he sat, almost alone on the Front Opposition Bench, battling against those eager young members. He took them very seriously. He argued with them, pleaded with them, rebuked them. Mr. Lloyd George thoroughly enjoyed the experience. “Ah! But he is a great debater!” he would say. But one thing he never forgot—the Grand Old Man’s eye. He has often said that to face that eye in anger was one of the most trying experiences in his parliamentary life. Years after, when some of us were discussing the points of likeness between the Grand Old Man and that gallant grandson who so splendidly gave his life for his country, Mr. Lloyd George suddenly burst out: “Ah! But he has not got the Old Man’s terrible eye!”

Mr. Gladstone pursued the matter to the end. He took a seat on the Grand Committee that was to consider the Bill. He and Mr. Lloyd George fought the matter out. It was only towards the end that Mr. Gladstone realised one day that his own speeches were prolonging the fight; and then the Old Man would sit glaring at the impudent youngsters in speechless anger.

But Mr. Gladstone bore no grudges against a good fighter who stood up for his own honest faith; and some years afterwards, when he met Mr. Lloyd George at Sir Edward Watkin’s house on the slopes of Snowdon, he made a special point of singling him out for special friendly speech.

Such revolts did not make Mr. Lloyd George more popular with the orthodox English Liberals. But things were to become worse before they became better. In the years 1892-5 came that great and prolonged contention between the Welsh members and the English machine over the position of Welsh Disestablishment among the Liberal fighting measures. In that contention Mr. Lloyd George took a leading part.

Welsh Disestablishment in Wales, ever since 1868, had taken the same position and grown to the same power as the Home Rule Movement in Ireland. The Welsh was a Nationalist movement in a religious dress. But English Liberalism had been chilly towards this movement, and treated it with scant favour. Mr. Gladstone opposed it in 1870, and it was only in 1891 that he first supported it, and allowed it a place in the famous Newcastle Programme. But so greatly was the Liberal Party absorbed in the Home Rule struggle that in 1892-3 the Welsh cause slipped back and the Liberals showed a definite tendency to shelve it.

It was at that moment that that small group of young Welshmen again stepped forward and definitely demanded that Welsh Disestablishment should be carried through the House of Commons and sent up to the House of Lords.

Mr. Lloyd George was the leader of this revolt; and for those two years he conducted it with a ruthless persistence which galled and embittered the Liberals, wearied by the great fatigues of the Home Rule struggle. For it was precisely in 1893, just after the great disappointment of the rejection of the Home Rule Bill by the House of Lords, that he roused the whole of Wales to demand the production of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill.

There followed one of those intense sectional struggles which in our party system are largely veiled from public view, but are none the less bitter for that.

Those of us English Liberals who were actual spectators of the battle certainly regarded Mr. Lloyd George as far from reasonable. We were looking at the matter from the angle of English Liberalism. His was the angle of Welsh Nationalism. Those angles sometimes crossed.

Mr. Gladstone resigned on March 1st, 1894; and Mr. Lloyd George instantly demanded of the new Government that the Welsh Disestablishment Bill should be carried through the Commons in 1894, unless they were prepared immediately to take up the struggle with the Lords, in which case he was prepared to forego the claim of Wales based on the Newcastle Resolution to legislative attention immediately after the Home Rule Bill.

The harassed Liberals—sensitive from weakeningvitality—struggled on their bed of torture. Sir William Harcourt, the new leader in the Commons, at first refused. Mr. Lloyd George pursued his offensive with a fierce attack at Holywell. Then came Mr. Asquith with a vague speech at Plymouth; and at last on April 26th, 1894, the Disestablishment Bill was introduced. Again came delay. But the revolt went steadily forward; and the unhappy Government, with its dwindling majority, squirmed like some victim under the mediæval torture of thepeine forte et dure.

At the opening of the Session of 1895 the Rosebery Government were perforce obliged to push the Disestablishment Bill forward. It was carried by a majority of 44 on April 1st, 1895. But yielding brought no peace. The Government was forced to pass the Bill through Committee; and during that stage Mr. Lloyd George and his friends fiercely pressed certain nationalist amendments which the Government reluctantly accepted. These convulsions proved too much for a sick Ministry. On August 11th, 1895, while the Welshmen were away in Wales devising new measures of torture, the Rosebery Administration fell over the “cordite vote.”

Mr. Lloyd George was fiercely attacked by orthodox Liberals for his conduct in this affair. He was roundly accused of hastening the downfall of the Government. He answered by saying that the Government was already doomed from internal dissensions.

But in Wales his attitude was greeted with acclaim; and in the General Election that followed, he was able to defeat Mr. Ellis Nanney once more with a majority practically identical with that of 1892.[37]

The reason was clear. The Welsh now cared more for their own causes than for the causes of the Liberal Party. The spirit of nationalism had spread from Ireland to Wales. They cared nothing for the Rosebery Government. They did not believe that the Commons could any longer legislate—not until the Lords were fought and crushed. What they were looking to was that the future claims of Wales should be pegged out as clearly as the claims of Ireland.

It was for that spirit that Mr. Lloyd George stood now in Wales.

Not that, even in Wales, the victory of Welsh nationalism was achieved without a struggle. During these years (1893-7) parallel with his activities at Westminster, David Lloyd George was engaged in a great campaign within Wales itself. It was a campaign for unity and concentration.

He found in 1892 the political energies of Wales divided between a number of purely party organisations, precisely after the fashion of England. Parliament Street had carved up the Welsh counties in the same spirit and method as Canterbury had carved up the Welsh dioceses. There were the North Wales Federation and the South Wales Federation, and a number of other similar bodies, with all the various staffs and camp-followers who find their meat and malt in local distinctions and differences. The worst of it was that these local divisions often blazed up into national divergences on points of policy.

On the other hand, there were simultaneously growing up among the younger generation of Wales a vast number of common national organisations and societies,literary, social, and political. There was the same ferment that we have of late years seen in Ireland—the ferment of a new national growth, shown in language, literature, and even in costume. There was the Cymru Fydd (“Wales of the Future”), the Cymmrodorion, and, above all, the revived Eisteddfod, that remarkable annual Welsh festival of poetry and song which seems to combine the spirit of classical Greece and of Celtic Britain.

Mr. Lloyd George aspired to bring into Welsh politics some of the strength and hope of this new national rebirth.

His definite aim, in the long series of great orations which he delivered on this subject between 1889 and 1896, was to bring patriotism to the help of Welsh politics in place of party—

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