Chapter 11

With the ban off restriction he likewise clamped the lid down on drink. Munitions workers could only go to the public houses within certain hours: the man who brought liquor into a Government controlled plant faced fines and if the offence was repeated, a still more drastic punishment.

Lloyd George began a censorship of labour which disclosed the fact that many skilled workers were wasting time on unskilled tasks. Lloyd George now began to dilute the skilled forces with unskilled who included thousands of women.

Right here came the first battle. Labour rebelled. It could find a way to get liquor but it resented dilution and cried out against capacity output. The Shell Master again became the Conciliator. He curbed the wild horses, agreeing to a restoration of pre-war shop conditions as soon as peace came. All he knew was the fact that the guns hungered and that it was up to him to feed them.

The wheels were not whirring fast enough to suit Lloyd George. "We must build our own factories," he said. Almost over night rose the mills whose slogan was "English shells for English guns." In speeding up the English output the Welshman was also equipping England to meet coming needs, laying the first stone of the structure that is fast becoming an Empire Self-Contained.

Lloyd George realised that he could not run every munitions plant, whereupon he organised local Boards of Control in the great ordnance centres like Woolwich, Sheffield, Newcastle and Middleboro. Each became a separate industrial principality but all bound up by hooks of steel to the Little Wizard who sat enthroned at Whitehall.

England became a vast arsenal, throbbing with ceaseless activity. The smoke that trailed from the myriad stacks was the banner of a new and triumphant faith in the future.

What was the result? Up and down the western battle front English cannon spoke in terms of victory. No longer was British gunner required to husband shells: to meet crash with silence. He hurled back steel for steel and all because England's Hope had answered England's Call. Lloyd George had done it again.

I first met Lloyd George during those crowded days when he was Commander-in-Chief of the host that fed the firing line. Under his magnetic direction British industry had been forged into a colossal munitions shop. No man in England was busier: not even the King was more inaccessible. Life with him was one engagement after another.

Now came one of those swift emergencies that seems to crowd so fast upon Lloyd George's life and with it arose my own opportunity.

The British Trade Union Congress in annual session at Bristol had expressed Labour's dissatisfaction over its share of the munitions profits. Lloyd George had sent them a letter explaining his proposed excess profit tax, but this apparently was not enough. The delegates still growled.

"Then I'll go down and speak to them in person," said the Minister with characteristic energy.

Thus it happened that I journeyed with him to the old town, background of stirring naval history. On the way down half a dozen department heads poured into his responsive ears the up-to-the-minute details of the work in hand. He became a Human Sponge soaking up the waters of fact.

At Bristol in a crowded stuffy hall he faced what was at the start almost a menacing crowd. Yet as he addressed them you would have thought that he had known every man and woman in the assembly all their lives. The easy, intimate, frank manner of his delivery: his immediate claim to kinship with them on the ground of a common lowly birth: his quick and stirring appeal to their patriotism swept aside all discord and disaffection. As he gave an eloquent account of his stewardship you could see the audience plastic under his spell. The people who had assembled to heckle sat spellbound. When he had finished they not only gave him an ovation but pledged themselves anew to the gospel of "More Munitions."

It was on the train back to London that I got a glimpse of the real Lloyd George. What Roosevelt would have called "a bully day" had left its impress upon the little man. His long grey hair hung matted over a wilted collar: there was a wistful sort of weariness in his eyes. He sank into a big chair and looked for a long time in silence at the flying landscape. Then suddenly he aroused himself and began to talk. Like many men of his type whom you go to interview he began by interviewing the interviewer.

The first two questions that Lloyd George asked me showed what was going on in his mind, for they were:

"What were Lincoln's views of conscription, and did your soldiers vote during the Civil War?"

There was definite method in these queries, for already the Shadow of Conscription had begun to fall over all England. It was Lloyd George, aided by Northcliffe, who led the fight for it.

The talk always went back to the great war. When I spoke of his speech at Bristol his face kindled and he said:

"Have you stopped to realise that this war is not so much a war of human mass against human mass as it is a war of machine against machine? It is a duel between the English and German workman."

You cannot talk long with Lloyd George without touching on democracy. This is his chosen ground. I shall never forget the fervour with which he said:

"The European struggle is a struggle for world liberty. It will mean in the end a victory for all democracy in its fight for equality."

When I asked him to write an inscription for a friend of mine and express the hope that lay closest to his heart, he took a card from his pocket, gazed for a moment at the rushing country now shot through with the first evening lights, and then wrote: "Let Freedom win."

A few days later Lloyd George made still another appearance in his now familiar rôle of England's Deliverer. The South Wales coal miners, 2,000,000 in number, went on strike at a time when Coal meant Life to the Empire. There is no need of asking the name of the man who went to calm this storm. Only one was eligible and he lost no time.

Lloyd George did not call a conference at Cardiff: he went straight to Wales and spoke to the workers at the mouth of the pit. What arbitration and conciliation had failed to do, his hypnotic oratory achieved. The men went back to the mines with a cheer.

A week later at the London Opera House he made a notable speech to the Conference of Representatives of the Miners of Great Britain. To have heard that speech was to get a liberal education in the art of phraseology and to carry always in memory the magic of the man's voice. In this speech he said:

"In war and peace King Coal is the paramount industry. Every pit is a trench: every workshop a rampart: every yard that can turn out munitions of war is a fortress.... Coal is the most terrible of enemies and the most potent of friends.... When you see the seas clear and the British flag flying with impunity from realm to realm and from shore to shore--when you find the German flag banished from the face of the ocean, who had done it? The British miner helping the British sailor."

Small wonder that after this effort the miners of Wales should acclaim their gallant countryman as Industrial Messiah.

You would think that by this time England had made her final tax on the resource of her Ready Man. But she had not. There came the desolate day when the news flashed over England that the "Hampshire" had gone down and with it Kitchener. Following the shock of this blow, greater than any that German arms could deliver, arose the faltering question, "Who is there to take his place?"

It did not falter long. Once more the S.O.S. call of a Nation in Distress flashed out and again the spark found its man. Lloyd George went from Ministry of Munitions to sit in Kitchener's seat at the War Office. Unlike the Hero of Khartoum, he had no service in the field to his credit. But he knew men and he also knew how to deploy them. Just as he brought the Veterans of Business to sit around the Munitions Board, so did he now marshal war-tried campaigners for the Strategy Table. The Somme blow was struck: the new War Chieftain proved his worth.

In the midst of all these new exactions Lloyd George found time for other and arduous national labours. Two more episodes will serve to close this narrative of unprecedented achievement.

When the recent Irish Revolt had registered its tragedy of blood, death and execution, menacing the very structure of Empire, Lloyd George became the Emissary of Peace to the Isle of Unrest.

Again, when prying peacemakers sought to intrude themselves upon the nations engaged in a life and death struggle, it was Lloyd George, in a remarkable interview, who warned all would-be winners of the Nobel prize that peace talk was unfriendly, that "there was neither clock nor calendar in the British Army," that the Allies would make it a finish fight.

So it went until gloom once more took up its abode amid the Allies. Bucharest fell before the German assault: Greece seethed with the unhappy mess that Entente diplomacy had made of a great opportunity: land and sea registered daily some fresh evidence of Teutonic advance. What was wrong?

England speculated, yet one man knew and that man was Lloyd George. He realised the futility of a many-headed direction of the war: with his swift insight he saw the tragic toll that all this cross purpose was taking. He made a demand on Asquith for a small War Council that would put dash, vigour and success into the British side of the conflict. The Premier refused to assent and Lloyd George resigned as War Chief. The Government toppled in a crisis that menaced the very future of the nation.

Great Britain stood aghast. Lloyd George stood for all the popular confidence in victory that the nation felt. For a moment it appeared as if the very foundations of authority had crumbled.

But not for long. When Bonar Law declined to reestablish the Government the oft-repeated cry for action that had invariably found its answer in the intrepid little Welshman, again rose up. Upon him devolved the task of constructing a new Cabinet which he headed as Prime Minister. He now reached the inevitable goal toward which he had unconsciously marched ever since that faraway day when his voice was first heard in Parliament.

Even with Cabinet-making Lloyd George was a Revolutionist. He cut down the membership from twenty-four to five, establishing a compact and effective War Council whose sole task is to "win the war." He centred more authority in the Premiership than the English system has ever known before. He virtually became Dictator.

On the other hand, he raised the number of Ministers outside the Cabinet from nineteen to twenty-eight. He scattered the coterie of lawyers who had so long comprised the Government Trust and put in men with red blood and proved achievement--in the main, self-made like himself. He installed a trained and competent business man of the type of Sir Albert Stanley, raised in the hard school of American transportation, as President of the Board of Trade: he drafted a seasoned commercial veteran like Lord Rhondda (D. A. Thomas), for President of the Local Government Board: he raised his old and experienced aide, Dr. Christopher Addison, to be Minister of Munitions: he made Lord Derby, who had conducted the great recruiting campaign, Minister of War: he put Sir Joseph Maclay, an extensive ship owner, into the post of Shipping Controller. Everywhere he supplanted politicians with doers.

What was equally important he continued his rôle of Conciliator, for he placated Labour by giving it a large representation and he took a definite step toward the solution of the Irish problem by making Sir Edward Carson First Lord of the Admiralty.

Even as he stood at what seemed the very pinnacle of his power Destiny once more marked him for its own. He had scarcely announced his Cabinet when the world was electrified by the news of the German peace proposal. By his own action Lloyd George had placed himself at the head of the Council charged with the conduct of the war. To the Wizard Welshman therefore was put squarely the responsibility of continuing or ending the stupendous struggle.

Never before in the history of any country was such momentous responsibility concentrated in an individual. The dramatic element with which Lloyd George had become synonymous, found an amazing expression. He was ill in bed when the German suggestion was made. No official announcement of England's position in reply could be made until he had recovered. In the interim the whole world trembled with suspense while stock markets shivered. The Premier's name was on every tongue: the eyes of the universe were focussed on him. It was indeed his Great Hour.

In what was the most significant speech of his career, and with all the force and fervour at his command, he stated the Empire's determination to fulfill its obligations to the trampled and ravaged countries. On that speech hung the stability of international financial credit, the lives of millions of men and the whole future security of Europe.

You have seen the moving picture of a tumultuous life: what of the personality behind it?

Reducing the Prime Minister to a formula you find that he is fifty per cent Roosevelt in the virility and forcefulness of his character, fifteen per cent Bryan in the purely demagogic phase of his makeup, while the rest is canny Celt opportunism. It makes a dazzling and well-nigh irresistible composite.

It is with Roosevelt that the best and happiest comparison can be made. Indeed I know of no more convincing interpretation of the Thing that is Lloyd George than to point this live parallel. For Lloyd George is the British Roosevelt--the Imperial Rough Rider. Instead of using the Big Stick, he employs the Big Voice. No two leaders ever had so much in common.

Each is more of an institution than a mere man: each dramatises himself in everything he does: each has the same genius for the benevolent assimilation of idea and fact. They are both persistent but brilliant "crammers." Trust Lloyd George to know all about the man who comes to see him whether he be statesman, author, explorer or plain captain of industry. It is one of the reasons why he maintains his amazing political hold.

Lloyd George has Roosevelt's striking gift of phrase-making, although he does not share the American's love of letter writing. As I have already intimated, whatever may be his future, Lloyd George will never be confronted by accusing epistle. None exists.

Like Roosevelt, Lloyd George is past master in the art of effective publicity. He has a monopoly on the British front page. Each of these remarkable men projects the fire and magnetism of his dynamic personality. Curiously enough, each one has been the terror of the Corporate Evil-doer--the conspicuous target of Big Business in his respective country. Each one is a dictator in the making, and it is safe to assume that if Lloyd George lived in a republic, like Roosevelt he would say: "My Army," "My Navy" and "My Policies."

Roosevelt, however, has one distinct advantage over his British colleague in that he is a deeper student and has a wider learning.

In one God-given gift Lloyd George not only surpasses Roosevelt but every other man I have ever met. It is an inspired oratory that is at once the wonder and the admiration of all who hear it. He is in many respects the greatest speaker of his day--the one man of his race whose utterance immediately becomes world property. The stage lost a great star when the Welsh David went into politics. There are those who say that he acts all the time, but that is a matter of opinion dictated by partisan or self-interest.

Lloyd George is what we in America, and especially those of us born in the South, call the "silver-tongued." His whole style of delivery is emotional and greatly resembles the technique of the Breckenridge-Watterson School. In his voice is the soft melodious lilt of the Welsh that greatly adds to the attractiveness of his speech.

Before the public he is always even-tempered and amiable, serene and smiling, quick to capitalize interruption and drive home the chance remark. He invariably establishes friendly relations with his hearers, and he has the extraordinary ability to make every man and woman in the audience before him believe that he is getting a direct and personal message.

Lloyd George can be the unfettered poet or the lion unleashed. Shut your eyes as you listen and you can almost hear the music of mountain streams or the roar of rushing cataracts. In his great moments his eloquence is little short of enthralling, for it is filled with an inspired imagery. No living man surpasses him in splendour of oratorical expression. His speeches form a literature all their own.

When, for example, yielding to that persistent Call of Empire for his service he interpreted England's cause in the war at Queen's Hall in London, in September, 1914, in what was in many respects his noblest speech, he said in referring to Belgium and Servia:

"God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries His choicest wines to the lips of humanity, to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to stimulate and strengthen their faith; and if we had stood by when two little nations were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarism, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages."

In closing this speech which he gave the characteristic Lloyd George title of "Through Terror to Triumph," he uttered a peroration full of meaning and significance to United States in its present hour of pride and prosperity. He said:

"We have been living in a sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable and too indulgent, many, perhaps, too selfish, and the stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the everlasting things that matter for a nation--the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honour, Duty, Patriotism, and, clad in glittering white, the towering pinacle of Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.

"We shall descend into the valleys again; but as long as the men and women of this generation last, they will carry in their hearts the image of those mighty peaks whose foundations are not shaken, though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war."

Now take a closing look at the man himself. You see a stocky, well-knit figure, broad of shoulder and deep of chest. The animated body is surmounted by a face that alternately beams and gleams. There are strength and sensitiveness, good humour, courage and resolution in these features. His eyes are large and luminous, aglow at times with the poetry of the Celt: aflame again with the fervour of mighty purpose. He moves swiftly. To have him pass you by is to get a breath of life.

To all this strength and power he brings undeniable charm. In action he is like a man exalted: in repose he becomes tender, dreamy, almost childlike. His whole nature seems to be driven by a vast and volcanic energy. This is why, like Roosevelt, he has been able to crowd the achievements of half a dozen careers into one. He is indeed the Happy Warrior.

Yet Lloyd George knows how to play. I have known him to work incessantly all day and follow the Ministerial game far into the night. Ten o'clock the next morning would find him on the golf links at Walton Heath fresh and full of vim and energy. At fifty-three he is at the very zenith of his strength.

Why has he succeeded? Simply because he was born to leadership. Without being profound he is profoundly moving: without studying life he is an unerring judge of men and moods. Volatile, masterful and above all human he is at once the most consistent and inconsistent of men.

But it is a new Lloyd George who stepped from unofficial to official stewardship of England: a Lloyd George with the firebrand out of his being, purged of bitter revolt, chastened and mellowed by the years of war ordeal. Out of contact with mighty sacrifice has come a kinship with the spirit. He is to-day like a man transformed. "England hath need of him."

There are those who see in the new Lloyd George a Conservative in evolution. But whatever the political product of this change may be, it represents the equipment necessary to meet the shock of peace. For peace will demand a leadership no less vigorous than war.

The lowly lad who dreamed of power amid the Welsh Hills is to-day the Hope of Empire.

VIII--_From Pedlar to Premier_

The great General who once said that war is the graveyard of reputations might have added that in its fiery furnace great careers are welded. Out of the Franco-Prussian conflict emerged the Master Figure of Bismarck: the Soudan brought forth Kitchener and South Africa Lord Roberts. The Great Struggle now rending Europe has given Joffre to French history and up to the time of this writing it has presented to the British Empire no more striking nor unexpected character than William Morris Hughes, the battling Prime Minister of Australia--the Unknown who waked up England.

Even to America where the dramatisation of the Self-made Idea has become a commonplace thing the story of his rise from pedlar to premier has a meaning all its own. Elsewhere in this book you have seen how he stirred Great Britain to the post-war commercial menace of the German. It is peculiarly fitting therefore that this narrative, dedicated as it is to the War after the War, should close with some attempt at interpretation of the personality of the man who sounded its first trumpet call.

Like Lloyd George, Hughes is a Welshman. These two remarkable men, who have done so much to rouse their people, have more than racial kinship in common. They are both undersized: both rose from the humble hearth: both made their way to eminence by way of the bar: both gripped popular imagination as real leaders of democracy. They are to-day the two principal imperial human assets.

Hughes will tell you that he was born frail and has remained so ever since. This son of a carpenter was a weak, thin, delicate boy, but always a fighter. At school in London he was the only Nonconformist around, and the biggest fellows invariably picked upon him. He could strike back with his fists and protect his narrow chest, but his legs were so thin that he had to stuff exercise books in his stockings to safeguard his shins.

Hughes was trained for teaching, and only the restlessness of the Celt saved him from a life term in the schoolroom. At sixteen he had become a pupil instructor. But the sea always stirred his imagination. He would wander down to the East India Docks and watch the ships load with cargoes for spicy climes. One day as he watched the great freighters a boy joined him. He looked very sad, and when Hughes asked him the reason he said he wanted to go home to visit his people, but lacked the money.

"I'll lend you some," said Hughes impulsively.

He went home and out of the lining of an ancient concertina he produced thirty shillings, all the money he had in the world. He handed this hoard over to his new-found friend and promptly forgot all about it. He kept on teaching.

I cite this little episode because it was the turning point in a great man's career. The boy who borrowed the shillings went to Australia. Several years later he returned the money and with it this message: "This is a great country full of opportunity for a young man. Chuck your teaching and come out here." Hughes went.

Three months later--it was in 1884--and with half a crown in his pocket he walked ashore at Brisbane. He looked so frail that the husky dock labourers jeered at his physical weakness. Yet less than ten years from that date he was their militant leader marching on to the Rulership of all Australia.