LLOYD GEORGE

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 7, 18 August 1909, Page 47

LLOYD GEORGE

By

T. P. O'CONNOR

At Birmingham. ¥HE time lias not come to tell of the other perils which Lloyd George faeed—especially when he went to the great public outside, incapable of the stately and stern selfrestraint of the House of Commons. In •Birmingham, as I have said, he escaped just by the skin of his teeth from a death almost as horrible as that by which the Southern man avenges on the negro the vile insult to his womankind. Two moments only in that awful day I recapitulate now. One was when the hall was surrounded by the yelling and murderous mob, and when Lloyd George was seated in a little room in the vast Town Hall building, waiting for the moment when he could emerge and make his escape. Here it was that his proverbial luck came to his aid. Just in front of the window of that little room, and just on the sill outside of it, the leader of the mob was standing, addressing a vehement speech to the men who were thirsting for- Lloyd George’s blood; and it was this little accident that saved Lloyd George. Every window in the Town Hall had by this time been broken; the one window saved, was saved by the body of Lloyd George’s deadliest enemy; if that window had been broken, and if Lloyd George had thus been exposed to view, people to-day, instead of reading his speech in producing the Budget of the British Empire, would perhaps be making a pilgrimage to the tomb under which lay the ashes of a martyr to the Pro-Boer cause. In Peril of His Life. There was one other moment when Lloyd George’s life was in even deadlier peril. The head constable of the police told him that there was only one chance of saving his life; and that expedient had been, curiously enough, suggested to the official by a similar incident just reported from America; that was that Lloyd George should put on the tunic and the helmet of a policeman, and so pass through the crowd in disguise. The suggestion was adopted; the little body of poliee-constables emerged from the building surrounded and beleaguered by the howling and murderous mob, Lloyd George in their midst. And just as he was passing through a space outside the building, a great electric light shone straight into his face. There is one thing which no disguise could ever entirely hide in Lloyd George, and that is the brilliant eyes—dark blue, but so dark blue as often to look brown and not blue; and with such gleaming and fitful and changing lights in them as to reveal something of the fiery and vital soul of the man. And the great electric light settling itself on Lloyd ■George’s face brought out the gleaming eyes; and as they looked out, they found themselves looking into the very eyes of another man. The eyes that met were illumined for a brief moment with the deadly gleam of two enemies that knew they were opposite each other, and that there was between them the hatred and the fury that meant blood and death. For the other man was also a Welshman, with all the volcanic passion of the race, and as fierce an enemy as Lloyd George was a vehement friend of the Boer cause. After an awful pause, the other Welshman shouted out in recognition and in denunciation; and for a moment Lloyd George thought his last hour had come. 'But the mob—blind, infuriated, ignorant, seeing red —mistook the purpose of the denouncer; thought he was playing on them some skilful or mocking jest; and as Lloyd George moved away he saw his assailant bleeding, terrified, and felled to the earth by the very hands he had Wished to direct against Lloyd George’s Fife. A Pipe of Peace. There was yet one other occasion Where Lloyd George had a narrow escape; but this time it was due to a very different reason; and the story is in its Way creditable, even to the mob whom it Saved from a crime. He had made a speech at a hall in St. Albans, Herts.; he had been escorted by the police to the railway station and deposited in *

train, and then left; for the police had forgotten that the mob might follow, and did not know that the train did not start immediately. Lloyd George settled himself down in his carriage, and taking out his pipe—he is a great smoker—lit it and began pulling away. And then the mob arrived, and, pausing for a moment in their mad and murderous advance, stood dumbfounded and astounded as they saw their hated enemy, just like any other simple human-being, puffing his briar-root pipe. The touch of sympathy made the whole world kin in that little station, and Lloyd George was allowed to go his way unmolested. There was something very human, very kindly, very characteristic of the emotional and better side of the Englishman, even in a rage, which makes the incident as creditable to Lloyd George’s enemies as to Lloyd George himself. The Practical Man. Lloyd George looks baek on these days of stress and storm to-day with some amusement, and with some surprise and without any bitterness; he understands better the passions which he excited, and he is older and cooler. And in the meantime his reputation has undergone a strange change. It is curious to recall the fact that Lloyd George was, but a short time ago regarded as a rhetorician, with no common-sense, and, above all, with no business sense. As a matter of fact, he is, and always has been, a man of keen common-sense and of keen business-sense. He says himself that he has a City mind. The Rating Bill. The House of Commons, for the first time, began to see this side of Lloyd George when he led the Opposition to a famous Rating Bill brought in by Mr. Balfour’s Government. In fighting this bill Lloyd George revealed an exact and detailed, knowledge of rating which astounded the squires and the other country magnates, who had spent all their lives in the study and in the governance of the finances of the county. The secret was very- simple, and throws a curious light on the small things in life that make or mar the fortunes of a politician. When Llyod George was an apprentice in a law’yer’s office there was a big rating case. This rating case, by an accident, came under the charge of one particular member of the firm, and by a more singular accident, that particular partner was the one to whom Lloyd George was clerk; and this ease, lasting over a long time, made Lloyd George familiar with the intricacies of the rating law and system, and the knowledge he thus gained as an humble lawyer’s apprentice came to his aid and first made him a real Parliamentarian when he was a prominent figure in the Imperial Parliament. In just the same way, when the great controversy came between Free Trade and Protection, Mr. Asquith rushed to the front of the fighting forces on the Liberal side by- having learned the intricacies of the subject as a leader-writer in the columns of the

“ Economist —a groat financial weekly still extant and flourishing. Recent History, The more recent history of Lloyd George is too familiar to require recapitulation. When he went to the Beard of Trade he was put there —as he laughingly says himself—because it was tiie place where it was supposed he could do the least harm. Even C.-8., who knew him so well, had not yet got over the idea that oratory and not business was the forte of Lloyd George. As a matter of fact, as a solicitor, Lloyd George had been brought in touch with many sides of business life, and he had also learnt there the great art of negotiation and diplomacy. And when he got on the Board of Trade, he immediately began to apply business methods to tiiat long mismanaged department. Lloyd George was called to the great office by popular acclaim; and now he stands at the moment when he has to justify his eminent position. It is too soon to forecast what will be the result of the tremendous struggle in which Lloyd George is now engaged. He has always been known to be daring, audacious fearless man by his intimates, but the Budget is more daring, more audacious, and more fearless than anybody anticipated. It has been well called by one newspaper the “Adjective” Budget, for there has never been a Budget to which so many and such varying epithets have been applied. With these things I have nothing to do in these columns. The Budget Speech.

It is my business to describe only the personal aspect, and I add a few lines to give my impressions of the Budget speech which Lloyd George made. It was, according to universal admission, too long He dwelt—especially in th - earlier part of the speech—too much on the mere political side of his subject. Doubtless when the speech comes to be read in cold blood —and especially when it is read twenty years hence—these are the very passages which will count, and be read and re-read. For these passages are the boldest and most original proclamation of a New Evangel that- anybody in the position of Lloyd George "has ever uttered. I have heard it, complained that the speech was obscure; T did hot find it so. It appeared to me as clear as crystal from the beginning to the end. Lloyd George, however, in making Such a- speech,' had one big disadvantage.- Everybody,- wanted to know the end before bven the beginning; that is to say, whether we were to pay more for our tea- or our beer or our whiskey—in short, what . was to be the bill to pay.’ With an audience devoured by such a spirit of impatience, it was impossible to secure a perfectly patient hearing while Lloyd George laid down, broad and e’ear, the lines of a new political and fiscal gospel. I believe, while as a spoken speech, it was not a big success, as a speech to read it will stand out. But what the fate of the Budget will be, do not ask me to tell; it would be a wise prophet who could. In Private Life. Finally, there is the other side of Lloyd George, which I must treat here rather rapidly at the end of a long article. Nobody knows Lloyd George really who has not seen his domestic, as well as his public life. With a little daughter on his shoulders, in a home that retains the simplicity of his origin, and of his Welsh blood and traditions, breathing an atmosphere of gentle affection; a boy, with a hearty laugh and quizzical look of a boy;

he is so simple. „■> elemental, so tender and so lovable that it makes it a little diliieult ever again to think of him as the inflexible combatant that has taken a great part in our epoch’s bitterest fights. ft is, as 1 have said, a simple home—even though it finds itself in the splendid opulence of 11, Downing-street. couple of young Welsh girls attend to the small wants of the little household; and there is also a good-natured, rosy-cheeked young Irish boy who found his way from Ulster to Criecieth, Lloyd George’s Welsh home, an 1 from Criecieth was promoted to the services of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To a Celt like myself and an Irishman, this young Irish boy, good-natured, willing, soft-voiced, just gave that final bit of colour to the home of a great Celt like Lloyd George which was a certain finishing and symmetrical touch to the whole simple Ce’tie surroundings of the man. A Child of Dreams. And of that home the brightest, the prettiest, most fascinating figure is Megan. Who is Megan? It is a question which Megan herself would find it hard to answer. To the world she is Lloyd George’s youngest daughter with faillong curls of hair, with blue eyes. But this is only the obvious. Megan lives in a strange imaginative world of her own, in which her personality becomes almost as much of a puzzle to herself as to others. She has childhood’s extraordinary power of creating a world of dreams which is as real to her as the world of reality, and in that world she assumes many diflerent shapes. At one time she is Kate —-and as Kate she is a domestic servant; and again in that capacity She becomes, with her baby face, in the eary morning with a cup of tea to her father’s guests in the little house at Brighton, where Lloyd George spends week-ends. But later on in the day she becomes thoughtful — and then she is DorothyJones. Dorothy Jones is supposed to be a student at the big girls’ school hear Brighton called Roedean, where, as a matter of fact, Megan’s eldest sister is at present studying. And then later oh in the day, this Protean young lady drops her other roles, and becomes Megan Lloyd George; hut she does not forget to talk to you about her other personalities; How Kate will see yo.u again the following morning early, how Dorothy Jones may come to tea, and; how Megan Lloyd George will certainly be at supper. This weird, delightful little creature has already become the companion of her father. From the Month of a Babe. You will see her in the photograph taken of Lloyd George the other day. when he was so cordially greeted by the German working men leaders in St. James’s Park. And a’ready-she has added to the number of the memorable sayings of ch'klhood. with their strange uncanny wisdom, as though they realised the words of the poet, and were trailing clouds of glory from heaven which is their home. “There is a Welsh proverb,’’ said her father t.i Megan one day, “ which says that there are two bad payers —one who never pays, and one who pays too soon.” “ Isn’t there a third, papa,” asked this wistful little child, with a characteristic smile on her face, “ the man who pays back?” Such is Megan, with already as big a fun I of humour and imagination as her distinguished father; five years old. hut already heiress of all the wisdom of the world.