THE REAL LLOYD GEORGE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9135, 7 February 1910, Page 6

THE REAL LLOYD GEORGE.

AS lIE APPEARS TO A COLONIAL. Rom A London Correspondent.) LONDON, Dec. 17. It was with a perfectly open mind, tinged possibly with a little colonial admiration for the hard and plucky work that ho has done during late years, that 1 went to hear the Chancellor of tho Exchequer speak.

Tho Queen's Hall is not exactly in Wales, but" the occasion was one of the greatest Free Church gatherings that, LondQn has seen, and Mr Lloyd-George was, therefore, pretty near home. Let us grant that the enthusiasm —the cheering and psalm-singing —was in the main an outburst —and a wonderful one —of that deep religious fervour which is stirring England to-day as never since the Commonwealth; and think only of tho man.

Short and thick-set, with a typically Welsh type of countenance, the Chancellor belies most of tho cartoons, in which he is represented as a somewhat cadaverous and neurotic personality. His friends say that steady application to work and little opportunity for exercise are the causes of that peculiar ruddiness of complexion and tendency to flabby adiposity which now ' distinguish him from the majority of his portraits, both grave and serious. A frock suit, emphasises the impression, and the longish black hair overhanging his collar, exaggerates the thickness of the neck, and completes the picture of a born lighter. As indeed, he is. The tout ; ensemble resembles only in height and in the moustache the usually published portrait of the man. Tho benignity of brow, by which in his portraits he so closely resembles J. M. Barrie. is not apparent. Yet there are no lines on the face. It is almost unhealthy in its pink freshness. So far. the real picture is not displeasing. As a speaker. Lloyd-George is an interesting anachronism in English public life to-day. The voice, attenuated by an obstinate affection of the throat, is almost feeble. It reaches the far corners of Ilie hall because the audience is with him in a whole-souled manner, and because any interrupter is ejected summarily. 11l face of heckling and uproar he would perforce cut a sorry figure if lie were not endowed with tho most caustic and resourceful gift of repartee. He docs not command a flow of language comparable with that of. say. Lord Rosebery or Churchill, or even Balfour or Austen Chamberlain. He is more of a. reasoner and a logician than any of them. And he clinches his arguments in a somewhat jerky and irritating way, a phrase at a. time, driven home with the right first into the left, palm, while lie revolves regularly from side to side facing alternately tlie platform audience on his right and leftmore often than the body of the hall. Indeed, interruptions are necessary, as a rule, to fasten his attention on the mass of the audicnco. He is not a cultured speaker. There are some vowels which are foreign to the speech of English University men. and he says "perfetly" for "perfectly," "extraornary" for "extraordinary," and sometimes snaps out "edoocation." But one or two of these faux pas are found as affectations even amongst the welleducated English, who delight- to appear careless. Moreover, that is beside tho question. Lloyd-George was educated in a parish .school, and his ability, even at that. age. was so promising that the clergyman offered to make him a pupil teacher, provided, of course, he would join the Church of England. As ne jocularly remarked, lie might have been a curate by now if he had accepted the offer.

But all these trivialities are overshadowed and made almost imperccptibe, except to the close observer, by the overpowering earnestness of the man. Listening to him. one realises some of the significance of Welsh fervour and the patriotism of the Principality, just as later the eloquence of Dr. Scott. Lidgett and the Rev. C, Silvester Borne carries us back to the Spartan covenanters worshipping their God ia the fastnesses of the Scottish forerft.

The matter of the speech is of a piece with the manner. Hearing Lloyd-George speak, it is at onco apparent why Conservative statesmen, willing to concede the honesty and the strength of purpose of the man himself, are nettled, and even embittered, against him. Caustic sarcasm is less apt in British controversy than direct, and forcible argument. A flippancy which sometimes offends against revercnce- i.s distasteful. But the end of all, as Rcsebery would say, is a spccics of vulgarity in which Mr Lloyd-George positively exults. It is not continuous, or even general, but it crops up here and there in ways unknown to New Zealand politics, and it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

From every interruption he scored in that quiet, ironical manner which is undoubtedly at the root of much of the bitterness felt, against the little champion by his opponents. In such a cause, and on such an occasion, one resents the attack by inference which is so frequent a feature of the speech. He mentions a name, and the audience, ralising at onco from the tone and the inflection what is meant, hisses or boos. But in commiseration ho relents. It is Sir Robert Perks this time. "Ho- has rendered great service to Nonconformity, and I do not want to say a word about him; but I do wish he would not laways speak as if the Nonconformist conscience were locked up in his city safe." Thus the censure was pleasantly mitigated. But these instances are only picked out from a great speech to show" the character of the man and the secret, of his enmities. He is rising superior in a remarkable way to the narrowness and the prejudices of a life devoted in its religious and social aspects to freedom of conscience. Somehow or other such crusades do produce their own littlo mental bondages, and Lloyd-Georgo has wrestled gamely with his. How gamely we may understand when we know that until the last few years hed had not seen England. Wales was his world. His brilliant entrance from Wales into the arena and the front rank of British politics is sufficient evidence of the ability and the honesty of purpose of the man: