CIVIL STRIFES
“It gives me a serious concern to see such a Spirit of Dissention in the Country; not only as it destroys Virtue and Common Sense, and renders us in a manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our Animosities, widens our Breaches, and transmits our present Passions and Prejudices to our Posterity. For my own Part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and therefore cannot but bewail as in their first Principles the Miseries and Calamities of our Children.”—Addison in the Spectator, July 25th, 1711.
During his foreign tour in 1908 Mr. Lloyd George always carried with him a small pocketbook, in which he jotted down ideas and suggestions as they came to him in thought or talk. These were jottings for that great Budget of which he already perceived the necessity.
For when he took over the Treasury in April 1908, he found British finance at the parting of the ways. Old Age Pensions had just been promised; a Bill was already drafted on non-tributory lines. He quite approved. But no provision had been made in the Budget of 1908 to pay for this great social boon.[[57]]
Here was a great opportunity for the Tariff Reform cause, at that time still languishing from the staggering blow of 1906. It was up to Free Trade to show that it could meet the coming deficit.
We all know how Mr. Lloyd George faced that crisis at the Exchequer—by what audacious drafts on the great reserves of our national wealth—by what determined levies on the luxuries of all classes. The Budget of 1909 is still one of the landmarks of English history. Its rejection by the Lords and its final triumph in the first General Election of 1910 are thrice told tales.
How did Mr. Lloyd George bear himself through the stress of these tremendous evils?
He did not spare himself. He bore the burden of the midnight sitting as well as of the day labour. He revolutionised the habits of the Treasury.
He had now left his private house and come to live in Downing Street. His life was practically lived in public. It was at about this time that he instituted his famous habit of breakfast parties at which the affairs of the nation were discussed. Strenuous gatherings were these, opening with merry chaff, but soon passing to earnest debate and discussion over coffee and bacon—debates always human and thrilling, enlivened by the swift jest and epigram of the host, always one of the best of talkers. But he never allowed these talks to drift into triviality. He always directed them to moulding and shaping policy. He compelled his guests to face vital decisions.
Great gatherings! Where the best of the nation met, not with idle gossip or silly scandal, but with high converse and swift, eager discourse, ever touched with hope and light!
He could not have lived this strenuous life without some relaxation. He found it, like so many other busy moderns, in golf. It was shortly after the opening of the twentieth century that he took to this game, and found in it his physical salvation. Up to 1900 he had never been robust. Often he had long periods of ill-health. But the steady tramps round those wonderful courses that now surround London made a great change. Golf has given him a tough physique, equal to resisting great strains.
Those of us who, during 1909, worked in the “Budget League” to help forward this great cause saw something of the energy and resourcefulness which went to achieve the hardly won victory of the first 1910 General Election.
One of our methods was to cover England with posters. I remember one glorious poster of an ermined and coroneted duke. We were very proud of it. But it passed through great troubles. Mr. Winston Churchill protested against it because it was too much like his cousin, the Duke of Marlborough. So we changed the face and darkened the colouring. The result was that the new duke came out precisely like our splendid and energetic chief, Sir Henry Norman, M.P.!
All this poster business was very expensive. We spent till we were exhausted; we swamped the Budget Protest League in paste. But, however much money we spent, we got more money. We only had to send across to Downing Street. Mr. Lloyd George seemed to have the key to the treasures of Golconda. He had the amazing gift of being able to persuade millionaires to subscribe in order to be taxed.
The Liberal Cabinet, as a whole, refused to believe that the Lords would throw out the Budget; and it was steadily set about through the summer of 1909 that Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne were in favour of passing it. But Mr. Lloyd George persisted in believing the contrary. “They will throw it out all right!” he would always say cheerfully enough; and the only shadow that would pass over his face would come when some one would half convince him to the contrary. I believe that up to September there was some real doubt. But then the Tariff Reform League came into the fight; the first flush of the Budget popularity seemed to pass; our street-corner orators were met by rivals—often hired Socialists; and the “Die-hards” grew more powerful. The Lords determined to face the great risk. They threw out the Budget in November; Mr. Asquith was forced to dissolve; and in January 1910 came the General Election.
The Lords nearly won. The Liberals emerged with a diminished majority of 124 as compared with the 1906 majority of 354, meaning a loss of 115 seats, and a turn-over of 230 votes.
For a moment this fall in the majority shook the constancy even of that strong Cabinet. There was talk of resignation. Even Mr. Lloyd George was bitten for a moment by the idea of substituting House of Lords Reform for the policy of the Parliament Bill.
In a few weeks they steadied. They found that if they were disappointed, the other side were more so. The Lords had staked all; the Tariff Reformers had assured a win. The Opposition was as much “down” as the Government.
It was fated that a tragic event should give sudden pause to this rending strife. Just when the first shadow of civil war was falling across the nation, on May 6th, 1910, King Edward died. The presence of death brought a calmer mood; men saw realities for a moment, and shrank from the edge of the abyss. They were like travellers from whose path the mist suddenly clears, and lo! they find themselves stumbling along the edge of a precipice.
Mr. Lloyd George made a suggestion to the new King which was taken up and resulted in the remarkable conference of party leaders which lasted from June to November 1910. It was a pause of halcyon calm in the midst of storm.
Mr. Lloyd George was a member of that conference; he was always among those who took a sanguine view of its prospects; and he has always infinitely regretted its failure. He took a long view. He foresaw the civil perils that lay ahead of the country. He was ready to come to a large and comprehensive settlement. He knew that a settlement could not mean a victory for either side. He was ready to accept that view; and there were those on the other side—especially one, Mr. Arthur Balfour—who were large enough to accept it also.
But neither of the great parties, organised for combat and victory, could be brought to the height of so great a treaty. The secrecy of the conference had been perhaps all too faithfully observed. There had been no “spade-work” in preparing the parties for a self-denying ordinance so sweeping. The “Snakes” they say, “committed suicide to save themselves from slaughter.” But in this case both parties still hoped for life and victory.
So, in November 1910, the conflict was resumed; and in December there took place the second General Election—this time, by agreement between the Prime Minister and the King, a test Election on the Veto Bill. The decision of January was practically repeated; and Mr. Lloyd George, again leaving his electioneering chances in Carnarvonshire to his local friends, was returned by a second sweeping majority.[[58]]
The second Election proved too much even for the strength of Mr. Lloyd George. After speaking up in Scotland with a strong fever actually on him, he was struck with a touch of serious throat trouble. His voice was threatened. After many efforts to go on, he finally accepted the verdict of seclusion, and spent a prolonged rest in a spacious, restful mansion behind the Sussex downs, lent to him by Mr. (afterwards Sir Arthur) Markham. He grew to a genuine love of this peaceful life; and when he returned to the turmoil, it was with a certain reluctance.
Driven back on reading as his sole diversion, he rambled widely through literature and read a great deal of history.
But his chief occupation during these months was the preparation of the famous Insurance Bill of 1911.
All who saw much of Mr. Lloyd George at that time knew that that measure was inspired by nothing less than a profound compassion for the sick and the suffering—a passion sobered by reflection, but still burning with an intense fire behind all his cool and calculated moves.
He was moved by a spirit best expressed in Blake’s golden verse:
“I will not cease from mental strife,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.”
Before drafting the Bill he took a prolonged and careful survey of the condition of the people: in Mr. Charles Booth’s books, in the Poor Law Commission Reports, and from every possible source of the written and spoken word. He was appalled; and he expected every one else to be appalled. Carried forward by his own emotion, he did not perhaps realise the power of familiarity, the force of usage, the strength of vested interest.
He was greatly surprised and disappointed by the attitude of the doctors. He had always held the medical profession in the highest admiration[[59]]; and perhaps he expected more from them than any organised profession could supply. He had been so absorbed by conferences with the Friendly Societies that he perhaps did not sufficiently realise the importance of constant consultations with the doctors in the preparation of his schemes.
He was also sincerely surprised at the attitude of the well-to-do classes. He had imagined that the enforcement of contributions would disarm their hostility. As it was, he lost on both sides; though he never regretted his decision in favour of contributions. With all his sympathy—perhaps because of it—he entertained a great horror of a pauperised working-class.
Here, too, he had to face a revolt of the timid within his own party. There arose in the autumn of 1911 the same cry for “postponement”—always the first step to abandonment. He resisted it steadily; pushed forward his Bill, this time with the help of the strongest closures; and in December the House of Lords, perhaps chastened by events, allowed the Insurance Act to pass into law.
So ended the first stage of that great scheme of social reform with which he designed to change the face of England. Insurance against sickness and kindred ills was combined with an Act for insurance against unemployment; and for the first time in our history labour was backed by security.
Then, in 1912, amid the distractions of the growing crisis in Ireland, Mr. Lloyd George proceeded to approach the greatest of all fastnesses of privilege—the English Land Laws. Here was a more formidable enterprise than any he had yet undertaken. He had to carry out his own inquiries—for it had been proved by experience that the tenants of English land were in too precarious a position to venture an open disclosure of their wrongs to an open Commission. He appointed an able Land Committee, of which Mr.(now Sir) Arthur Acland became the Chairman. That Committee carried out its work with great courage and ability, and published two books which are still classical summaries of the main features of our land system, stated with fairness and thoroughness.[[60]] In a series of great speeches, Mr. Lloyd George in 1912 and 1913 announced his intention of making legislative proposals and carrying out the conclusions of this Committee.
But, in the meantime, across this great endeavour, there had arisen a hue and cry which had given new hope to the friends of the existing order. The great controversy of the Marconi shares seems now very far away. The whole case fabricated against Mr. Lloyd George in those days seem very ridiculous now. The perspective has changed very much since one of the great English political parties could deliberately set out to ruin a political opponent on account of one act of carelessness.[[61]]
But it does not do to throw stones. Party strife is an ugly business at best; and he would be a bold man who should say that, in similar circumstances the Liberal Party would have shown a spirit very much better. In this matter of rushing readily to false accusations we have all sinned pretty deeply in our public life. Suspicion is the peculiar vice of democracies; and he would be bold who should say that the real scandal of the Marconi affair—the scandal of accusation so poisoned and exaggerated as to amount to calumny adopted as a policy and a cause—will not occur again.
Mr. Lloyd George suffered very much through this affair. For the moment it achieved its object of holding up his whole activities in furthering his Land Campaign. But at last the fever of the assault died away, and men began to return to the light of common reason, and to see the thing in its real proportions. Then there succeeded in the public mind a fit of remorse which worked in Mr. Lloyd George’s favour; and both in London and in Wales he was banqueted and acclaimed. For, if the victims survive the rigours of the “ordeal by torture,” then the populace applauds.
From another campaign of the same sort at an earlier date (1908) Mr. Lloyd George had emerged victorious in the Courts with damages of £1,000, which enabled him to adorn his native village of Llanystumdwy with a very handsome Institute, where all his fellow villagers can now read the newspapers and enjoy the advantages of a well-chosen library. So out of evil sometimes good proceeds.
In 1914 Mr. Lloyd George resumed the preparations for his Land Bills. It was his intention to introduce them into the House of Commons during the Session of this year, thus placing them before the country with a view of the General Election already looming ahead.
But across all these designs there came, in June and July 1914, a flood of reverberating events—the Ulster crisis, the officers’ revolt, the gun-running, first of Larne and then of Dublin. Like other Ministers, Mr. Lloyd George was absorbed in a situation which threatened instant civil war.
Then once more, across the threat of civil war, came the even greater menace of an even vaster peril—world-war.
In the tremendous crisis that followed Mr. Lloyd George took the middle course. He was not for war against Germany at all costs. On Saturday, August 2nd, he was inclined to vote for peace; and if, necessary, to resign for peace.
On that day—as he has told the world—the biggest financiers in the City, including the Governor of the Bank of England, came to him, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and urged that peace should be preserved, and that we should stand aside from the strifes of Europe. On Monday it was known that Germany had invaded Belgium. At once all these men swung over to the side of war.
Mr. Lloyd George himself, separately and independently, followed the same course. Eager as he had been in the past for peace, he had no hesitation from the moment that Germany invaded Belgium.
We had pledged our word; and we must keep it.
On Monday he was for war.
He had definitely chosen his part.
[57] Old Age Pensions were then estimated to cost £9,000,000, but were found to cost £13,000,000 (now (1920) £28,000,000). There was also the new Dreadnoughts, and so forth. The deficit for 1909 thus amounted to £16,000,000 even in prospect.
[58] His majorities in the Carnarvon Boroughs have been rising on the whole steadily since the first election in 1890. In 1892 he defeated Sir John Puleston by 196, as against 18 in 1890. In 1895 he again defeated Mr. Nanney by 194. In 1900 he defeated Colonel Platt by 296. In 1906 he won by 1,224; January 1910 by 1,078; in December by 1,208.
[59] There is a remarkable and eloquent passage on the doctor’s work in the Limehouse speech.
[60] The Land. The Report of the Land Inquiry Committee, Vol. I. Rural, and Vol. II, Urban. (Hodder & Stoughton, 1913.)
[61] It is a strange fact that nothing worse was ever distinctly charged against him by his worst foes, although much was insinuated.