To understand any man you must get at his beginnings. Thus to appreciate Lloyd George you must first know that he is Welsh and this means that he was cradled in revolt. He must have come into the world crying protest.
He was reared in a land of frowning crags and lovely dales, of mingled snow and sunshine, of poetry and pa.s.sion. About him love of liberty clashed with vested tyranny. These conflicting things shaped his character, entered into his very being and made him temperamentally a creature of magnificent ironies.
But this conflict did not end with emotion. All his life Contrast, sometimes grotesque but always dramatic, has marked him for its own. You behold the Apostle of Peace who once espoused the Boer, translated into the flaming Disciple and Maker of War through the Rape of Belgium. You see the fiery Radical, jeered and despised by the Aristocracy, become the Protector of Peers. No wonder he stands to-day as the most picturesque, compelling and challenging figure of the English speaking race. Only one other man--Theodore Roosevelt--vies with him for this many-sided distinction.
The son of a village schoolmaster who died when he was scarcely three: the ward of a shoe-maker who was also inspired lay-preacher: the political protege of a Militant Nationalist whose heart bled at the oppression of the Welsh, Lloyd George early looked out upon a life smarting with grievance and clamouring to be free. Knowing this, you can understand that the dominant characteristic of this man is to rebel against established order. Swaddled in Democracy, he became its Embodiment and its Voice.
The world knows about the Lloyd George childhood spent amidst poverty in a Welsh village. The big-eyed boy ate, thought and dreamed in Welsh, "the language that meant a daily fare of barley bread." When he learned English it was like acquiring a foreign tongue. He grew up amid a great revival of Welsh art, letters and religion that stirred his soul. He missed the pulpit by a narrow margin, yet he has never lost the evangelistic fervour which is one of the secrets of his control and command of people.
With the alphabet Lloyd George absorbed the wrongs of his people and they were many. The Welsh had a double bondage: the grasp of the Landlord and the Thrall of the Church. All about him quivered the aspiration for a free land, a free people and a free religion. In those days Wales was like another Ireland with all the hardship that Eviction imposes.
The call to leadership came early. As a boy in school he led his mates in rebellion against the drastic dictates of a Church which prescribed liberty of religious thoughts and speech. He became the Apostle of Nonconformity and for it waged some of his fiercest battles.
Always the gift of oratory was his. He preached temperance almost with his advent into his teens: he was a convincing speaker before most boys talked straight.
In due time Lloyd George became a solicitor but it was merely the step into public life. To plead is instinct with him and with advocacy of a case in court he was always urging some reform for his little country.
Politics was meat and drink to him and he stood for Parliament. An ardent Home Ruler, he swayed his followers with such intensity that what came to be known as Lloyd George"s Battle Song sprang into being. Sung to the American tune of "Marching Through Georgia" it was hailed as the fighting hymn of Welsh Nationalism. Two lines show where the young Welsh lawyer stood in his early twenties: they also point his whole future:
"The Grand Young Man will triumph, Lloyd George will win the day----"
There is something Lincoln-like in the spectacle of his first struggle.
This lowly lad fought the forces of "Squirearchy and Hierarchy." The Tories hurled at him the anathema that he "had been born in a cottage."
"Ah," replied Lloyd George, when he heard of it: "the Tories have not realised that the day of the cottage-bred man has dawned."
Before he got through he was destined to show, that so far as opportunity was concerned, the Cottage in Great Britain was to be on a par with a Palace.
As you a.n.a.lyse Lloyd George"s life you find that he has always been a sort of Human Lightning Rod that attracted the bolts of abuse. A campaign meant violent controversy, frequently physical conflict. The reason was that he always stated his cause so violently as to arouse bitter resentment.
Into his first election he flung himself with the fury of youth and the eager pa.s.sion of a zealot. He threw conventional Liberalism to the wind and made a fight for a Free and United Wales. He frankly believed himself to be the inspired leader of his people: often his meetings became riots. More than once he was warned that the Tories would kill him and on several occasions he narrowly escaped death. Once while riding with his wife in an open carriage through the streets of Bangor he was a.s.sailed by a hooting, jeering mob. Some one threw a blazing fire ball, dipped in paraffine, into the vehicle. It knocked off the candidate"s hat and fell into Mrs. Lloyd George"s lap setting her afire.
Lloyd George threw off his coat, smothered the flames and after finding that the innocent victim of the a.s.sault was uninjured, calmly proceeded to the Town Hall where he spoke, accompanied by a fusillade of stones which smashed every window in the structure.
In this campaign, as in all succeeding ones, Lloyd George used the full powers of press publicity. He made reporters his confidants. Often he rehea.r.s.ed his speeches before them, striding up and down and declaiming as pa.s.sionately as if he were facing huge audiences. In fact he acquired an interest in a group of Welsh papers.
Already Welsh chieftainship was being crystallised in the aggressive little fire-eater. Antic.i.p.ating the coming call of the Mother Country she was laying her burdens on his stalwart shoulders. And what George was now doing for Wales he was soon to do in the larger arena of the Empire.
Once in Parliament Lloyd George was no man"s man. He became a free lance and while sometimes he ran amuck his cause was always the cause of his people.
In those earlier Parliamentary days you find some of the traits that distinguished him later on. For one thing he disdained the drudgery of committee work: he chafed at the confinement of the conference room; eagle-like he yearned to spread his wings. His forte was talking. He loathed to mull over dull and unresponsive reports. He frankly admitted a disinclination to work, and it makes him one of the most superficial of men in what the world calls culture. His intelligence has more than once been characterised as "brilliant but hasty."
But offsetting all this is the man"s persuasive and pleading personality which always gets him over the shallow ground of ignorance. This is one reason why Lloyd George has always been stronger in attack than in defence. His tactic has always been either to a.s.sault first or make a swift counterdrive. He is a sort of Stonewall Jackson of Debate.
Then, as throughout his whole career, he showed an extraordinary aversion to letter-writing. He became known in Parliament as the "Great Unanswered." He used to say, and still does, that an unanswered letter answers itself in time. This led to the tradition that the only way to get a written reply out of Lloyd George was to enclose two addressed and stamped cards, one bearing the word "Yes" and the other "No." More than once, however, when friends and const.i.tuents tried this ruse they got both cards back in the same envelope!
Not long ago a well known Englishman wanted to make a written request of Lloyd George and on consulting one of his a.s.sociates was given this instruction: "Make it brief. Lloyd George never reads a letter that fills more than half a page."
There is no need of rehearsing here the long-drawn struggle through which he made his way to party leadership. In Parliament and out, he was a hornet--a good thing to let alone, and an ugly customer to stir up.
Whether he lined up with the Government or Opposition it mattered little. Lloyd George has always been an insurgent at heart.
The crowded Nineties were now nearing their end, carrying England and Lloyd George on to fateful hour. Ministries rose and fell: Roseberry and Harcourt had their day: Chamberlain climbed to power: Asquith rose over the horizon. The long smouldering South African volcano burst into eruption. It meant a great deal to many people in England but to no man quite so much as to Lloyd George.
Now comes the first of the many amazing freaks that Fate played with him. The Inst.i.tution of War which in later years was to make him the very Rock of Empire was now, for a time at least, to be his undoing.
Before the conflict with the Boers Lloyd George was a militant pacifist--a sort of peacemaker with a punch. When England invaded the Transvaal Lloyd George began a battle for peace that made him for the first time a force in Imperial affairs. He believed himself to be the Anointed Foe of the War and he dedicated himself and all his powers to stem what seemed to be a hopeless tide.
It was a courageous thing to do for he not only risked his reputation but his career. Up and down the Empire he pleaded. He was in some respects the brilliant Bryan of the period but with the difference that he was crucifying himself and not his cause upon the Cross of Peace. He became the target of bitter attack: no epithet was too vile to hurl upon him. Often he carried his life in his hands as the episode of the Birmingham riot shows. In all his storm tossed life nothing approached this in daring or danger.
Lloyd George was invited to speak in the Citadel of Imperialism which was likewise the home of Joseph Chamberlain, Arch-Apostle of the Boer War. Save for the staunchest Liberals the whole town rose in protest.
For weeks the local press seethed and raged denouncing Lloyd George as "arch-traitor" and "self-confessed enemy." He was warned that he would imperil his life if he even showed himself. He sent back this word: "I am announced to speak and speak I will."
He reached Birmingham ahead of schedule time and got to the home of his host in safety. All day long sandwich men paraded the highways bearing placards calling upon the citizenry to a.s.semble at the Town Hall where Lloyd George was to speak "To defend the King, the Government and Mr.
Chamberlain."
Night came, the streets were howling mobs, every constable was on duty.
The hall was stormed and when Lloyd George appeared on the platform he faced turmoil. Hundreds of men carried sticks, clubs and bricks covered with rags and fastened to barbed wire. When he rose to speak Bedlam let loose. Jeers, catcalls and frightful epithets rained on him and with them rocks and vegetables. He removed his overcoat and stood calm and smiling. When he raised his voice, however, the grand a.s.sault was made.
Only a double cordon of constables ma.s.sed around the stage kept him from being overwhelmed. In the free-for-all fight that followed one man was killed and many injured.
Anything like a speech was hopeless: the main task was to save the speaker"s life, for outside in the streets a bloodthirsty rabble waited for its prey. Lloyd George started to face them single-handed and it was only when he was told that such procedure would not only foolishly endanger his life but the lives of his party which included several women, he consented to escape through a side door, wearing a policeman"s helmet and coat.
Fourteen years later Lloyd George returned to Birmingham acclaimed as a Saviour of Empire. Such have been the contrasts in this career of careers.
Fortunately England, like the rest of the world, forgets. The mists of unpopularity that hung about the little Welshman vanished under the sheer brilliancy of the man. When the Conservative Government fell after the Boer War he was not only a Cabinet possibility but a necessity. The Government had to have him. From that time on they needed him in their business.
Lloyd George drew the dullest and dustiest of all portfolios--the Board of Trade. He found the post lifeless and academic; he vivified and galvanised it and made it a vital branch of party life and dispute. It is the Lloyd George way.
Here you find the first big evidence of one of the great Lloyd George qualities that has stood him in such good stead these recent turbulent years. He became, like Henry Clay, the Great Conciliator. The whole widespread labour and industrial fabric of Great Britain was geared up to his desk. It shook with unrest and was studded with strife. Much of this clash subsided when Lloyd George came into office because he had the peculiar knack of bringing groups of contending interests together.
Men learned then, as they found out later, that when they went into conference with Lloyd George they might as well leave their convictions outside the door with their hats and umbrellas.
To this policy of readjustment he also brought the laurel of constructive legislation. To him England owes the famous Patents Bill which gives English labour a share in the English manufacture of all foreign invention; the Merchant Shipping Bill which safeguards the interest of English sailor and shipper; and the Port of London Bill which made the British metropolis immune from foreign ship menace.
England was fast learning to lean on the grey-eyed Welshman. He came to be known as the "Government Mascot": he was continually pulling his party"s chestnuts out of the fire of failure or folly. George had begun to "do it" and in a big way.
Likewise the whole country was beginning to feel pride in his performance as the following story, which has been adapted to various other celebrities, will attest:
Lloyd George sat one day in the compartment of a train that was held up at the station at Cardiff. A porter carrying a traveller"s luggage noticed him and called his client"s attention, saying:
"There is Lloyd George himself in that train."
The traveller seemed indifferent and again the porter called attention to the budding great man. After persistent efforts to rouse his interest, the tourist, much nettled, said tartly:
"Suppose it is. He"s not G.o.d Almighty."
"Ah," replied the porter, "remember he"s young yet."
When Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Asquith no one was surprised. It is typical of the man that he should have leaped from the lowest to the highest place but one in the Cabinet.
As Chancellor he had at last the opportunity to fulfill his democratic destiny. Whatever Lloyd George may be, one thing is certain: he is essentially a man of the ma.s.ses. With his famous People"s Budget he legislated sympathy into the law. It meant the whole kindling social programme of Old Age pensions, Health and Unemployment insurance, increased income tax and an enlarged death duty. As most people know, it put much of the burden of English taxation on the pocketbooks of the people who could best afford to pay. The Duke-baiting began.