Harold Spender

“ Lloyd George on the formation of the 1905 Liberal Administration presented no easy or simple task. The Board of Trade stood at a moment which comes to every great office of State—a moment when it may either increase or decrease, gather power or lose it. Its official name gave little clue to the distracting combination of powers varying from complete control at one end to vague influence at the other. British Departments are like wild-flowers—they grow and spread without plan or scheme, just as the chance caprice of Parliament or some fugitive Ministry may decide. ”

“ Fear rules the minds of men; and against fear courage alone prevails. This was always the moving faith at the back of all his great campaigns, whether of peace or of war. It was with this weapon that he has fought both Governments at home and Prussians abroad. It was the element of policy that underlay that frank directness of speech which offended the cultured classes of England so profoundly at the time of his Budget campaign.
For he convinced himself that modern public speakers had got into the habit of referring too politely to great national evils. ”

“ It is fair also to say that Bulgaria’s refusal of a promise of neutrality was for Greece an ominous and formidable fact. It is inevitable that Greece should have been looking rather at her resentful neighbour than at those larger aims of European interest which filled the policies of the Western Powers; it was natural and human that their first and possessing fear should be lest the work of the war of 1913 should be undone. For in that terrible war the price of victory had been appallingly high for so small a nation. ”

“ The war was not won alone; the peace could not be made alone. The armies had to combine for victory; the peace had to be combined too. No Great Power could have a peace entirely of its own, either in material gain or ideal aims.
The American aim, as shaped by their remarkable President and voiced in his splendid oratory, was for a peace of final world-conciliation. ”

“ Between all the Allies and the Chancelleries of the Allies, in the chilling alleys and by-ways of debate and diplomacy, this great enterprise lost “the name of action.” It was “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” Tradition, convention, convenience—all combined to strangle it.
We cannot say now how it would have prospered. The fortunes of war are always, after all, on the knees of the gods. No mortal can command success; we can only deserve it. ”

“ From the moment that war was declared (August 4th, 1914) , Mr. Lloyd George put aside all his doubts and hesitations. The perplexities of the previous week passed away like so many clouds from a summer sky. He became from that instant a war man, intent on nothing but achieving victory.
“I can understand a man opposing a war,” he used to say, “but I cannot understand his waging a war with half a heart.” In regard to the attitude of various friends in political life, he would always express a certain whimsical tenderness for those who were entirely opposed to the war. ”

“ But gradually, as the days passed, the world woke to the fact that the Armistice was only the opening of a new phase in the crisis of change. The Armistice terms imposed on Germany by the Allies had left her prone and helpless. She could not resume the fighting. Both the Central Empires were beaten and broken. The Emperors and the Kings were in flight. But the world could not be left to live in a vacuum. Desolation is not peace. Europe was like a shattered puzzle which had to be pieced together again before humanity could resume its normal life. ”

“ I remember the saying of a great Welsh preacher: ‘Such disturbances of the world always mean some great movement in the realms above’—a reflection on earth of some heavenly strife. I believe that is true.” I did not attempt to argue with this mood; but this sympathy with unrest explains much in his career, and most of all his skill in riding through tempests and mastering storms. For it is at such moments that he is at his best. Nothing seems to frighten or appall him. When the hearts of others are dismayed he is touched with a new emotion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They were the fit crusaders of a race that never contemplated defeat; and no man who had such a people behind him could vainly boast of his own single achievements.
Yet leadership counts for much, and vainly do the masses struggle if those at the top weaken and faint. There is no greater misfortune that can befall a race than failure of valour and resolution in high places. It was because Mr. Lloyd George kept, in the utmost stress of those events, his courage undimmed and his spirit unshaken, that he has rightly earned so large a part in the credit of victory. ”

“ That is not his present reading of a statesman’s duty in these difficult days. His mind is rather filled with another vision—the vision of a State deliberately consenting to sink faction in the cause of a larger purpose—of a community which, with all its passion for the healthy strife of party, can tell when to forego that strife, and can scent the danger from afar. It is the old vision of a house not divided against itself, but working together all parties and all classes, for the common good. Is it to fade into the light of common day? ”

“ 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—
“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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lloyd George has continued to be for this country the central figure of hope and hate. He keeps his old faculty of commanding the interest of men. Now, as in the boyish scrimmages of his youth, his flying colours draw others on. For the moment (1920) he strives for peace and unity in civil endeavour. But that is not because his eye is dimmed or his combative strength abated. He is by nature a partisan leader, and it has cost him no small effort to continue in his present part. The defensive on two fronts is not his characteristic role. ”

“ It is rare in history that a nation has found itself as perfectly identified with one man as England is to-day with Lloyd George. The world, enemies and friends included, stands amazed by the energy Lloyd George displays in dealing with the huge difficulties that the war has raised. But few know that in the energy of this one man is apparent the energy of the whole English nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wales was tired of those respectable professional members who were so easily captured by the political machines at Westminster. They wanted some one endowed with the courage to revolt; and already they had a perception that David Lloyd George was such a man. He had shown this in his defence of the fishermen of Nantlle, and in his championship of that poor old quarryman of Llanfrothen. In both cases he had defied authority; and in both cases he had won. He had been the first to break the tradition of fear which brooded over the Welsh people. ”

“ The sole and sufficient excuse for these grave restrictions of liberty was always the war, and the war alone. War is a terrible master; and wherever he raises his head, few escape his tyranny. All that can be said is that, with all their troubles, the sufferings of the men in the workshops were as grains in the balance against the sufferings of the men in the trenches.
But, even so, the work of the men alone was not enough to meet the need. Other sources of labour must be tapped. It was now necessary to call in the women to the aid of the men.
Mr. Lloyd George ventured on a bold appeal. ”

“ Lloyd George had not, for months before the strike, prepared to prevent it. The motor-lorries that supplied London with milk were not organised in a day. They were part of a perfectly legitimate counter-stroke prepared by the Government when they realised the extent of the plot to hold up the national life. But on the extreme wing of the Government’s side there was an equally violent section who cried, “Let’s fight it out to the end! Let’s smash Trade Unionism! Now’s the time to put Labour in the cart!”—elegant phrases, which we all heard in those days. ”

“ 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! and remedy it all the more easily because it brought wealth in its train. The great need was that that wealth should bear its due burden. ”

“ How divided were the English Labour leaders! Then from outside came this zealous Welsh Crusader, and while all these people were still talking he proceeded to act. When the world had recovered from its surprise most of the persons concerned turned round and attacked Mr. Lloyd George. However right he might be in his aim, there was always sure to be something wrong with his methods. This attitude frankly puzzled him. “Why! they talk as if I was trespassing,” he used to say. “Is charity, then, a form of property? Is kindness a monopoly?” The attitude of the doctors especially surprised him. ”

“ Between us and Serbia lay a Royalist Greece now indifferent if not actually hostile, coldly resolved to abandon her pledged word. Rumania was still hesitating and fearful. Russia was for the moment exhausted. No help was near enough to hand to save the doomed victim.
So the British Government were compelled to stand by helpless while the very nation on whose account the war broke out was conquered and outraged, her armies scattered, her population enslaved, and her children scattered like sheep through the mountains. [77] No more tragic chapter is recorded in the annals of Europe. ”

“ A worthy leader of a worthy nation!
On another day I remember him describing to me a visit he had paid to the fighting line at the most critical moment of that great peril. He spoke with flashing eyes. “We motored,” he said, “from the coast right up to the fighting front, and we did not meet a single British soldier in flight. Not one had turned his back to the enemy, not one!” Yet during that time the German guns were enfilading our trenches lined with English boys, and the chance of survival in that defence without death or injury had been reduced almost to the point of zero. ”

“ Such a passion for debate is a common disease of youth, and often passes like a fitful fever. But with the young Lloyd George it was not to be so. It was soon clear that the power of speech was with him a very special gift, and he threw into it a great deal of care and industry. Men at Portmadoc will still describe how he could be seen walking along the high-road gesticulating as he practised his speeches; and there is no doubt that at this moment of his life he already had some dim perception that he possessed the magic gift of oratory. ”

“ But, on the whole, it is the future rather than the past that rules the mind of David Lloyd George.
To him the future has always been an unexplored miracle—ever in travail with some new birth. To him, behind the veil of the coming time, there always lies a possibility of some event such as the world has never known—of some creation such as the world has never seen. He has moods when he seems “fey” with his belief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lloyd George said afterwards in the House of Commons, “never in the whole history of war in this country have soldiers got more consistent and more substantial backing from politicians than they have had this year (1917) . . . . No soldiers in any war have had their strategical dispositions less interfered with by politicians. There has not been a single battalion, or a single gun, moved this year except with the advice of the General Staff—not one. There has not been a single attack ordered in any part of the battle-field by British troops except on the advice of the General Staff—not one. ”

“ The rector turns to the schoolmaster questioningly. The schoolmaster is white with vexation. The squire smiles indulgently. Little David looks more innocent than ever.
But farther along the line, behind his little desk, sits a boy with a little troubled, anxious face, looking as if he were the centre of guilt in that little company. He watches with growing trouble the ashen face of the schoolmaster; for he loves his master with all his soul, and he cannot bear to see him suffer. For this is little William George—a boy of milder, quieter temperament, given to love his enemies ”

“ There it is again, in small matters as in big—this note of daring, of refusal to accept defeat, of assertive invincibility. It is the key-note of his character. In every study of David Lloyd George it pursues you everywhere and all the time.
There never was a time in human history when such a quality was more needed. Frowning heights lie behind and in front of—roaring cataracts of catastrophe—gleaming peaks of suffering and sacrifice—frozen glaciers of death, seamed and crevassed with agony. ”

“ Lloyd George enjoys in his own home—that “happy fireside clime” which to him is always truly—
“The pathos and sublime
Of human life”—
perhaps accounts for the serenity of his outlook on public life.
That serenity is never more conspicuous than in seasons of hurricane. Like some ships, he rides steadiest in rough seas. When people around him are most disturbed, he is often the most calm.
There is doubtless an element in his nature which rejoices in conflict and storm. ”

“ General Ludendorff finds the chief reason for the German defeat in the war spirit which had been aroused in England under the leadership of Mr. Lloyd George, and in France by the inspiration of M. Clemenceau. Neither of those leaders would admit that they alone could have achieved so great a triumph for liberty over the menace of militarism. It was the spirit of the peoples of France and Great Britain that really achieved resounding victory—the peoples who shrank from no sacrifice and faced every trial rather than accept defeat. ”

“ Just as the soldier is suppressed during times of peace so the statesman is allowed little say during times of war. We have yet to learn from our enemies that war is a form of politics, and that neither of the two activities of the State can be wholly divided from the other. The cry of “Hands off the war!” uttered to the statesman is equivalent to a cry of dismissal.
Mr. Lloyd George, at any rate, was not at all willing to accept this impotent conclusion. He was clear that if the soldiers were to conduct the whole strategy of the war they must be responsible for the politics of the war also. ”

“ The stupendous war equipment of the German armies, both in guns and in munitions, has since become a commonplace; at that time it was a wonder and a surprise. The War Office went into the war still thinking in terms of the Boer War, when machine-guns were a new miracle and shrapnel was the last word in shells. They found themselves faced with an army in which machine-guns had become a multitudinous commonplace and shrapnel was already the humble servant of the high-explosive shell. ”

“ Lloyd George said that the Bolshevists had an army of 300,000 men, who would, before long, be good soldiers, and to fight them at least 400,000 Russian soldiers would be required. Who would feed, equip, and pay them? Would Italy, or America, or France do so? If they were unable to do that, what would be the good of fighting Bolshevism? It could not be crushed by speeches. He sincerely trusted that they would accept President Wilson’s proposal as it now stood. ”

“ There is no mere prettiness in these mighty views, no soft luxury of Italian backgrounds, and yet no barren terrors of arctic solitudes. On all sides there is majesty and power—the power of the height and the storm, the majesty of the winds and the deeps.
Of these three places in which Mr. Lloyd George spent his childhood and youth, Portmadoc is the business town, Criccieth is the pleasure resort, and Llanystumdwy is the village. Portmadoc, with its straight-set streets of little grey houses, speaks of money and affairs ”