Chapter 5

The House of Lords felt they had the country behind them, and they proceeded to the unprecedented and unconstitutional course of killing the Budget. This was exactly what Mr. Asquith and his first lieutenant had been waiting for. Lloyd George saw the fruits of his labor destroyed in a day, but he watched the process, not with despair, but with grim satisfaction.

The Lords had broken their last Liberal bill, for Lloyd George had determined to break the Lords.

VI

HOW LLOYD GEORGE BROKE THE HOUSE OF LORDS

A few days later, with Lloyd George sitting by his side, Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, made the following announcement in Parliament: "The House of Commons would, in the judgment of his Majesty's Government, be unworthy of its past and of the traditions of which it is the custodian and trustee if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear that it does not mean to brook the greatest indignity and the most arrogant usurpation to which for more than two centuries it has been asked to submit. We have advised the Crown to dissolve Parliament at the earliest possible moment."

The preparations for the general election included a campaign of vilification against Lloyd George which shook even some of the Conservatives. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the other hand, was not disturbed, and he did not hesitate to do a little vilification on his own account. "What a low creature!" was the instant retort to any incursions of this kind.

One of the secrets of Lloyd George's career was that he always made his opponents too angry to appraise him correctly. They simply couldn't do it. A little cold-blooded study of him and his past history would have served them well. Because Lloyd George had a peculiarly bitter tongue and a peculiarly stimulating one he was abused as a fluent demagogue with nothing but unscrupulous and violent words to give him prominence. This was not a mere pretense on the part of the upper classes. They seriously believed it. As a result Lloyd George had a tremendous pull over the whole lot of them. One secret of his power was that his real strength lay not in words, but in his capacity for action. Because he talked about things with recklessness and force it was assumed that he could not do things. The hard fact was that he was more effective in doing things and in getting them done than in talking about them. He secured a wonderful advantage from all this. While hard names were being showered on him, and even while he was replying to them, he was at work quietly. I have often thought that as soon as his opponents found him out they felt that this was not fair, that he ought to have played the game and to have shown himself as exactly the kind of man they had portrayed him to be. Yet, at the time, his enemies would probably have been contemptuous of the suggestion that this ranting person could possibly be a man who was specially gifted in carrying plots and plans and big state projects into execution. They had to learn to their cost that he was both resolute and stealthy.

Lloyd George had as his chief Mr. Asquith, a man of crystal intellect, who had won high distinction, first at his university, than at the bar, where he was a famous advocate, and latterly in the House of Commons, where his mastery of Parliamentary arts was only equaled by that of the rival leader, Mr. Balfour. His speeches were powerful, but they appealed to the head rather than to the emotions. Unlike Lloyd George, he was not by way of being a prophet. He could not by sheer intensity sway the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith, moreover, was quite incapable of stirring a public audience on the platform outside the House, and he lacked that terrific energy which distinguished his principal colleague. But he was, nevertheless, a first-rate partner. His steady, cold brain would carry into effect with precision an intricate, delicate, and bold plan of operations. He had hardihood. Every wile in public life was known to him. He had strong will-power. And in sheer brain of what may be called the purely intellectual type he was miles ahead, not only of Lloyd George, but of all the other politicians of the day. I should say here that he undoubtedly felt deeply the slur cast upon the House of Commons by the Lords. And there is one more trait that should be mentioned, his unshakable loyalty to those who served under him, and to his brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer not less than to any of the others.

It implies, however, no disrespect to Mr. Asquith to say that he had become the instrument of Lloyd George. It was the latter's subtle brain that evolved the possible consequences which might ensue after his first stroke in the Budget of April, 1909. It was his bold spirit that urged the desperate course which was presently pursued. He measured the Lords and decided that if they could not be frightened into defeat they could be hustled into a wild attempt which would be equally disastrous to them.

Joyfully he entered the fray as soon as the Lords threw out the Budget. In a public speech made immediately after the Lords' action he said: "I come here to-day not to preach a funeral oration. I am here neither to bury nor to praise the Budget. If it is buried it is in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection. As to its merits, no one appreciates them more sincerely than I do, but its slaughter has raised greater, graver, and more fruitful issues. We have got to arrest the criminal. We have to see he perpetrates no further crime. A new chapter is now being written for the sinister assembly which is more responsible than any other power for wrecking popular hopes, but which, in my judgment, has perpetrated its last act of destructive fury. They have slain the Budget. In doing so they have killed the bill which, if you will permit me to say so, had in it more promises of better things for the people of this country than most things which have been submitted to the House of Commons. It made provision against the inevitable evils which befall such large masses of our poor population, through old age, infirmity, sickness, and unemployment. The schemes of which the Budget was the small foundation would, in my judgment, if they had been allowed to fructify, have eliminated at least hunger from the terrors that haunt the workman's cottage. Yet here you have an order of men blessed with every fortune which Providence can bestow on them grudging a small pittance out of their super-abundance in order to protect those who have built up their wealth against the haunting terror of misery and despair. They have thrown it out, and in doing so they have initiated one of the greatest, gravest, and most promising struggles of the time. Liberty owes as much to the foolhardiness of its foes as it does to the sapience and wisdom of its friends. At last the case between the peers and the people has been set down for trial in the great assize of the people, and the verdict will be given soon."

The country was quickly in the midst of the election. It cannot be said that Lloyd George dealt lightly with the House of Lords. Here is a typical reference: "Who are the guardians of this mighty British people? I shall have to make exceptions, but they are men who have neither the training, the qualifications, nor the experience which would fit them for such a gigantic task. The majority of them are simply men whose sole qualification is that they are the first-born of persons who had just as little qualifications as themselves. To invite this imperial race, this, the greatest commercial nation in the world, the nation that has taught the world in the principles of self-government and liberty--to invite this nation itself to sign a decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the guardianship of such people, that is an insult which I hope will be thrown back with ignominy."

Not only the upper classes, but a great many of the lower classes stormed and raged at these and similar words. The _Daily Mail_ went so far as to give a column of titbits from Lloyd George's speeches in order to show what a really vulgar and detestable person he was, and how unfit to occupy any leading position in the state.

The election results as they began to come in indicated that while the Liberals were losing a number of seats which in years gone by had been Conservative strongholds, they were, nevertheless, going to retain the confidence of the country. In the result Mr. Asquith found himself once again in command of the House of Commons with a majority of one hundred and twenty-four.

The cards were placed in the hands of the Liberals now, but they had to be very carefully played. The House of Lords swallowed its humiliation as best it could and passed the famous Budget on April 28, 1910, exactly one year after its introduction into the House of Commons. They did not make any fuss about it, because, as I shall show, they had other things to think of. I remember the day on which the bill became law in the House of Lords. There were very few peers present. Several of the members of the House of Commons walked across from the Commons to witness the culmination of their effort. Among them was Lloyd George. He came in under the gallery, sprucely dressed in a morning coat, his long hair brushed back from his forehead and above his ears with a neatness which was not observable in his moments of excitement. To-day he had no work to do: one job was finished and he was only on the threshold of another. As he stood at the bar he looked over the members of the House of Lords with a grave and benignant expression which reminded one of a fond father regarding erring children. I thought of the studious expression which usually characterized the face of that daredevil boy down at Llanystumdwy all those years ago. I am quite sure that the peers who observed him surveying them did not think he was benignant. If I am any judge of feelings, they looked upon him, as he stood there at the bar, as a particularly malignant type of viper. With a genial smile Lloyd George exchanged a chatty word or two with an M. P. at his side. No one would have guessed that there was bitterness in his soul at this assembly or that with grim purpose he was even now marking out the destruction of their powers.

It is the fashion in the House of Lords to give the King's consent to legislation by proxy. The consent, moreover, is given now, as for many hundreds of years past, not in the English language, but in the language of the old Norman-French conqueror of nearly a thousand years ago. A bewigged clerk read out in resonant tones the title of the bill and from another official there came the answer of the King, "Le Roy le veult" ("The King wills it"). The Budget of 1909 had become part of the law of the United Kingdom. Lloyd George, still chatting cheerfully with a fellow-member of the House of Commons, walked back to the Lower Chamber.

If any of the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith with regard to the Lords. The plan was no less than this--to take away from the peers their constitutional rights to do more than to hold up for three successive sessions any legislation passed by the House of Commons. They were not to have the power of killing bills, though they might retard them a little. And so far as money bills were concerned they were not to be allowed to delay them at all. The Commons were to be given power to pass any money bill over the head of the Lords if the latter did not agree to it immediately it was sent up to them. In these cases the King and Commons between them were to be the lawmaking power, and as the King's assent is always automatically given to the proposals of Ministers in power the net result would be the complete supremacy of the Commons in Government.

But how were these changes to be made effective? They could, of course, only be brought into force by legal enactment, and it was impossible to expect the Lords to sign their own death warrant. It was settled between Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith to take the House of Lords by the throat. Lloyd George was prepared for extreme measures, and Mr. Asquith, a student of English history, found out a way by means of ancient precedent. Twice before in the story of the British Parliament there had been similar episodes. In the reign of Queen Anne and in the reign of William IV. the Prime Minister of the day, encountering opposition from the House of Lords, had gone to the reigning sovereign and secured the promise of the creation of enough new peers to turn the minority in the House of Lords into a preponderance of votes. This was the plan now agreed upon, only the audacity of it was far greater than on previous occasions, because Queen Anne's new peers numbered but twelve and the number of new peers proposed to be created in 1832 to pass the Reform bill under William IV. was limited to eighty. Mr. Asquith and Lloyd George faced the fact that on this occasion it would be necessary to create something like five hundred new peers.

I pass over some of the intervening stages--the howls that came from the Lords, who saw their prestige departing with this wholesale dilution of their order; the choking attempts which the peer leaders made to be civil of tongue and to arrange a compromise. Merciless was the determination of Lloyd George. Another general election on the specific issue of the power of the Lords again resulted in the return of the Liberals to office.

The Government proposals for the restriction of the future functions of the Lords were embodied in a measure called the Parliament bill, and it was for the Lords to pass this measure or else to suffer the immediate creation of the army of new peers who had been nominated by Mr. Asquith and who would immediately vote down the existing Conservative majority in the gilded chamber.

The climax was reached on August 9, 1911, when the bill, having passed through the Commons, was brought up to the House of Lords for their decision. The peers by this time were torn between two impulses. One, the most natural, was to defy Mr. Asquith and Lloyd George and all their wicked companions, and let them create what peers they liked, and the other to swallow the medicine, pass the Parliament bill, and thus, while limiting their own powers for the future, preserve their ancient caste and dignity.

It was touch and go throughout an excited discussion. Lord Morley, plain John Morley of the years gone by, made a speech of three sentences in which he said he was authorized to state that the King would assent to the creation of the extra peers if the bill were not passed. Wild hopes that the King would stand by the Lords were thus extinguished. There were dramatic scenes never to be forgotten by those who witnessed them, and then finally the bill was accepted by a majority of seventeen votes. The power of the House of Lords, strong for centuries, had been broken. The man who had broken it was Lloyd George.

VII

AT HOME AND IN DOWNING STREET

In the midst of all the stormy times of the fight with the House of Lords and afterward up to the present moment Lloyd George's personal life in its simplicity and happiness has been a standing contrast to the turmoil and passion of his public energy. Meet Lloyd George among his family, and it is hard to realize that such a homely, genial person could be the man who tackled so rancorously the House of Lords. I went to 11 Downing Street one day after the Budget fight was over, and when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George was preparing further legislative changes. Eleven Downing Street, it should be explained, is the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and joins number 10, where the Prime Minister lives. It is a dingy, ugly-looking building, attractive only by reason of its associations. In the year that America declared her independence number 10 Downing Street was the residence of Lord North, and it may then, as now, have had connecting doors which made the two houses into practically one official home.

Lloyd George discussed public affairs in a corner of the old library lined with books which Gladstone used to consult half a century ago and his predecessors before him. A glance round the rows of volumes, nearly all of them ponderous and many of them venerable, caused me to ask Lloyd George who was his favorite author. He gave me no philosopher, not even a poet, in reply. "I like romance," he said, "historical romance. I am fond of Dumas and of modern writers like Stanley Weyman." Possibly Lloyd George has never looked into those old, handsome, leather-covered volumes at his official residence. His secretaries may have pondered over them in securing material for their chief, but Lloyd George has been too busy doing things to devote much time to ancient philosophical reflections or to learned economic theories. It is easy to understand how his temperament found satisfaction and relaxation at the same time in the cut-and-thrust work of Dumas and Weyman. I ought, perhaps, to add that he explained with a smile how politics did not leave him much time for serious reading just then. They have certainly left him still less since that time.

We were in the thick of talk about the busy political era when a little girl of twelve, with a ribbon of blue round her tumbling hair, came running into the room, not knowing that a visitor was present. She would have run out again, upon seeing me, if her father had not stopped her and caught her into his arms. For the rest of the interview she sat on his knee, listening with big, live eyes to the conversation. Once she cuddled closer to her father and laughed merrily as he confessed to me that his next bill before Parliament was one to prohibit the holidays of little girls at school from lasting more than six weeks. Megan was the darling of her father's heart. Two or three mornings of the week you could have seen them hand in hand walking from 11 Downing Street across St. James's Park to watch the ducks feeding in the lake. With sparkling blue eyes, a sensitive mouth, and vivacious manner, little Megan had some of her father's characteristics. She was a daughter any father might be proud of. I guarantee Lloyd George was prouder of her--and still is--than of his epoch-making Budget or his historic victory over the House of Lords. Just now in Parliamentary session, or indeed out of it, Lloyd George has not very much time for walks in the parks--but I am sure Megan gets her share of attention in spite of the European war.

The war has, of course, intensified Lloyd George's life and somewhat altered its channels, but its main directions are preserved. At all hours of day and night he must be prepared for service. He could not, however, carry on his work without proper rest and sleep, and the following is the kind of routine to which he has accustomed himself. Awakening at seven in the morning, he has a quick glance through the principal newspapers, not only of London, but those from the provinces and from abroad as well. Occasionally while he is dressing, and always before he leaves his room, he looks through documents and papers which he has brought up to his bedside on the previous night. (They are arranged in their proper order on a table by the side of his bed so that in any waking fit at night he can put his hand on them readily.)

Visitors begin to arrive early, because Lloyd George has re-established the practice of Victorian statesmen in having guests to breakfast with him and his family. By this means he not only saves time from many social functions, but gets through a lot of business as well, for his breakfast guests include politicians, editors, leading officials, prominent travelers from overseas, indeed practically the whole range of persons who for state or private reasons he desires to meet.

Soon after ten o'clock he is busy with his secretaries. These have already been at work on the morning letters, which in the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer numbered a thousand a day and are now probably three or four times as many. Work of a widely different kind keeps Lloyd George on the go till lunch-time--departmental conferences, visits from or to Cabinet Ministers, the supervision of answers to questions to be put to him in the House of Commons that afternoon, the reception of deputations from various interests affected by current proposals or future proposals that he is making. At least once a week, and sometimes more frequently, there is a Cabinet meeting in the morning that probably lasts well into the afternoon. On days when there is no Cabinet meeting there will be other visitors at lunch-time, and these are generally of an official character. Big plans affecting the social future of England have undoubtedly been worked out over Lloyd George's lunch-table. He is a vivid talker himself, but he is also a good listener, and there is not any one more ready to give an ear to tactful and helpful advice--only those who offer it must have something to say.

At a quarter to three in the afternoon the House of Commons assembles, and from that time onward to eleven o'clock at night Lloyd George is to be found either on the Treasury bench or in his private room behind the Speaker's chair. Endless are the occupations for a busy Minister in Parliament, and whether he is answering questions, expounding policy, fighting through details of proposals, or merely listening to the speeches of opponents, he is pretty well on the stretch the whole time. Even in his own room there is business to be done, deputations to be received, "whips" to be consulted, friendly or hostile talks to be gone through with members, and frequently also the reception of individual visitors. All this takes no account of social usages, the little hospitalities which must not be forgotten--the accompanying of groups of constituents to the public galleries, the entertainment of other groups to tea on the Terrace overlooking the river. Sometimes an hour may be seized for the House of Lords at the other end of the corridor when they are dealing with Commons legislation.

I asked Lloyd George how he managed to sleep after such days as these, and he said: "I never have any difficulty about that. Downing Street is only about four minutes' walk from the House of Commons. If the House adjourns at eleven I am usually away by twenty minutes past, and at a quarter to twelve I am in bed--probably asleep. This power for quick sleep has always been a great help to me."