ENTERS PARLIAMENT

“The day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”—Lloyd George.

Now (1888) happily married and well started on his legal career, Mr. Lloyd George was able to return to his larger ambition of sitting in Parliament. From this time forward he definitely aspired to sit at Westminister as the representative of his own native constituency, the Carnarvon Boroughs. The achievement was not to be easy. There were many lions in the path.

During the last few years, indeed, he had immensely increased his reputation. He had travelled through many parts of Wales and visited many courts, fighting the cause of the “under-dog.” The tenants of Wales, harried and evicted after 1868 and 1880, had begun to hold up their heads again. They felt that they had a new champion on their side.

But the old habit of sending to Westminster only the powerful and wealthy was not yet dead. Feudalism always dies slowly. It was a very sudden change indeed to pass from the squire and the manufacturer to the cottage-bred lad of Llanystumdwy.

David Lloyd George, indeed, neglected no opportunities. Besides being a lawyer and a public speaker, he was now an active journalist. Working with that fine spirit, Mr. D. R. Daniel—then one of the noblest sons of the Young Welsh movement—David Lloyd George founded at Pwllheli in 1888 a paper called The Trumpet of Freedom—a name which certainly did not lack sound and vigour.

Then, a few months after his marriage, with the consent and support of his fearless wife, he allowed his name first to be put forward as possible Liberal candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs.

Then followed one of those personal struggles which test and try a man.

It is right that all claim to rise above our fellows should be narrowly scrutinised. There is even in jealousy some element of that instinct for equality which gives dignity to the meanest man. Here is a factor that takes multitudinous forms, varying from fair judgment to sheer malice. The strongest man will wince under the scorpions of spite; but he will accept the verdict of a fair jury of his peers. It was to such a jury that young David Lloyd George now fearlessly appealed.

Certainly it was scarcely to be expected that his claims to the seat should pass unchallenged. He was still (1888) only twenty-five years old. He was appealing to his own countryside; and a prophet is recorded to have authority anywhere but there. There was the inevitable question of envious neighbors—“Is not this the bootmaker’s boy?” There was the man who had known “David” with the curls down his back—who had kept a record of his youthful pranks. Then there was “the County”—that fine essence of squiredom which had always regarded “the seat” as one of its own possessions. Above all, there were the little borough circles—the elders in the chapels, the grey-beards in the seats of the saints. There were some such seniors who shook their heads gravely at such madness. The boy must bide his time. Who was he to rule over them? For when David, the shepherd’s youngest son, came up to face the Philistine champion, it was not only the Philistine enemy, but also his own elder brothers who scoffed and doubted.

Against all these doubts and envies only one thing could prevail. It was the new wave of Nationalism which was sweeping over the younger generation throughout Wales, and especially North Wales. Wales was tired of those respectable professional members who were so easily captured by the political machines at Westminster. They wanted some one endowed with the courage to revolt; and already they had a perception that David Lloyd George was such a man. He had shown this in his defence of the fishermen of Nantlle, and in his championship of that poor old quarryman of Llanfrothen. In both cases he had defied authority; and in both cases he had won. He had been the first to break the tradition of fear which brooded over the Welsh people.

He had already roused a new spirit of hope in the younger generation: and they were determined that he should carry their banner forward.

At first his candidature progressed very slowly. It was true that the constituency had fared badly of recent years. In 1886, when Tom Ellis was sweeping all before him in Merionethshire, the Carnarvon Boroughs had put forward an old-fashioned Liberal who had lost the seat to an able Tory.

At this time it was still in the possession of that Tory member—Mr. Swetenham, Q.C. Humdrum Liberalism, as David Lloyd George had already prophesied, had not proved a winning card in the Boroughs. But such an experience does not always remove prejudice. There were those who argued that a Q.C. could only be defeated by another Q.C.—or say, a professor; or perhaps, even better, a millionaire, if he could be obtained. We all know these dreams that haunt the minds of local committee-men in difficult and doubtful constituencies.

The first step towards achievement was taken in the spring of 1888 when he was adopted as candidate by the Liberals in the Borough of Carnarvon.[[25]] But for some months the other four Boroughs held aloof, and it was not until later in the year that he was selected as candidate by the Liberals of Nevin, Pwllheli, and Criccieth. For several months longer there was a hesitation among the respectabilities of that eminent cathedral city of Bangor, where even Liberalism has a tinge of blue. But on December 20th Bangor surrendered, and he was chosen as Liberal candidate for the whole constituency.

It is clear from the letters and diaries of the time that these months marked a period of great stress in his life. When he was selected at Bangor he wrote to his family one of those passionate youthful assertions of “will to win” characteristic of power in the bud:

“Despite all the machinations of my enemies, I will succeed. I am now sailing before the wind, and they against it.”

It is clear from these sentences that there was keen personal opposition to his candidature. It was a moment in Welsh Liberalism of fierce tidal struggle between the old and the new forces. The old forces died hard. That type of Liberalism, still not rare in England, which aims at cashing its seat in Parliament for money favours or local privileges, was by no means yet dead in Wales. The strong wind of that great national spirit which has since swept through the Principality had not yet risen to hurricane force. There were many elements of fear and self-interest which viewed with horror the challenge to powers in high places which David Lloyd George set before Wales as the only sure road to liberty. These men found his doctrine too hard for them. Mr. Doubting and Mr. Feeble-mind hoped still to serve two masters and to get the best of two worlds. It yet required a great struggle before David Lloyd George could convince them that his was a sign in which they could conquer. These great victories are not achieved easily; it is only through great storm and stress that nations attain to freedom of soul.

But a great event in this progress was destined to take place the following year—1889. It was a singular curiosity of this period of reaction in British home affairs that there had crept into the Unionist Government a man of large and progressive views. Mr. C. T. Ritchie[[26]] had emerged from the British middle class to take his seat among the mighty of this land. He had not lost sight of his own people in the process. Mr. Ritchie was a bluff man, rugged of speech and ungainly of appearance. He seemed like a fly in amber in the midst of a Tory Government. But he happened to be very popular with Queen Victoria, and he was a power in the City of London. It has always been in England a part of the compromise of the great aristocrats who dominate the Tory Party that they should promote to high office a few shining lights of the middle class. In an earlier time they had to promote Sir Robert Peel—at a great price to their cause. Now they had to admit Mr. Ritchie; and the penalty was almost as great. For in 1888, by creating the County Councils, he struck a blow at the roots of county feudal government.

Young Lloyd George saw in a flash the tremendous opportunity thus given to Wales. He knew by long experience that the power of the squires was largely based upon their control of county government in Quarter Sessions. He saw that they would endeavour to prolong their power by capturing the new County Councils. He determined to do his utmost to defeat them. He refused to stand for election himself, although he was offered four seats. His own ambition was larger. It was to capture the county. He moved about from place to place speaking everywhere and trying to rouse the whole of Carnarvonshire to the great chance now placed in their hands. He succeeded. He carried the county. Everywhere the candidates of progress were returned. “It is a revolution!” he cried. “The day of the squire has now gone!”[[27]] So profound was the conviction of the Welsh Liberals that he had won their battle for them that he was immediately chosen as county Alderman along with Mr. (now Sir) Arthur Acland, who, at that time, had a house in Carnarvonshire.

“The boy Alderman,” as he was called, instantly threw himself hotly into the new work of the Carnarvonshire County Council. He became a conservator for those native rivers of his which he loved so dearly, soon winning for them that freedom for which he had always striven in other ways. He took an active part in every branch of administration. But his main purpose was directed to using the Welsh County Councils as a political stepping-stone towards the great goal of Home Rule for Wales. He was a prime mover in appointing a Committee to collect evidence for the Royal Commission on the Sunday Closing Act in Wales. He pushed forward the idea of an Association of County Councils for the whole of the Principality. During those months of 1889 David Lloyd George created a Home Rule weapon in Wales of which he was destined to make a mighty use in one of the greatest struggles of his later years. Perhaps he “builded better than he knew.” But it is a very striking evidence of his early political instinct that he should have perceived so soon the full possibilities of the Welsh County Councils.

The tide of events now began to sweep him rapidly towards a larger political career. As recognised candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs he already began to play an important part on the larger political stage. In October 1889 he had supported a Welsh Disestablishment resolution at a meeting of the Welsh National Council. In December he persuaded the National Liberal Federation at Manchester to accept the policy of the Local Veto on the drink traffic. On February 4th, 1890, he made at the South Wales Liberal Federation a brilliant and arresting speech on Welsh Home Rule—a speech which instantly marked him out as a coming figure in Welsh politics. He argued with force and power that, as compared with Ireland, the argument for Welsh Home Rule was stronger because they lacked the specific difficulty of Ireland—the Ulster problem. The speech made a deep mark. Already in his own country he stood for unity and daring, while even in England rumours began to reach the ears of Radical politicians that a new and fiery force was arising hard by the rocks of Snowdon.

It was at this critical moment that Mr. Swetenham, the Conservative member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, died; and suddenly the young David Lloyd George was faced with a supreme challenge. Probably, if he had been able to shape events himself, he would have preferred to wait a few years before standing for Parliament. But to some men the call of fate comes early and swiftly, and cannot be denied.

Certainly David Lloyd George showed no sign of hesitating to meet the call. On March 24th, 1890, he issued his Address—a brief, terse, dignified statement of his political faith. It was not the Address of an ordinary Liberal candidate. True, he gave his homage to Mr. Gladstone and the cause of Irish Home Rule; but then he passed on rapidly to a strong assertion of the claims of Wales—first and foremost, for religious liberty and equality; then for sweeping reforms in land and labour laws; last, but not least, for a liberal extension to Wales of the principle of self-government. In other words, Mr. Lloyd George stood for Parliament always before all things as a Welsh Nationalist. In subsequent years, when he was to be so often accused of disloyalty to the Liberal Party, that fact might perhaps have been more often remembered.

The sudden death of the Tory member threw the Unionist organisers into some confusion. At first they pushed forward a Liberal Unionist; but Wales has no liking for the lukewarm in politics. Finally, they selected the local squire, Mr. Ellis Hugh Nanney,[[28]] a strong Tory, but a man of considerable local popularity with those who admired him.

Here, then, was a thrilling contest—between the village boy and the local squire; between the rebel of the village school and its secular ruler; between the Robin Hood of the village woods and their lord and owner.

It was a sharp, keen struggle, fought to all appearances on Irish Home Rule; but the weapons of the fight were edged and pointed by the new spirit of freedom that was blowing hard from the Welsh hills. On Mr. Nanney’s side was the old order, with all its powers and attractions, its graces and its condescensions; on the side of David Lloyd George was the keen, breezy hope of the future, with all its rough and rugged possibilities. In the end the veteran Liberals of Wales rallied to the support of the young David. Both Mr. John Parry and Mr. Thomas Gee—after a searching interrogation—came to his help.

We may be sure that in the fierce atmosphere of that contest there was little effort to spare the humble origins of the Liberal candidate. It was characteristic of David Lloyd George that he met these attacks, not with apology, but with bold defiance.

On March 28th, speaking at Carnarvon, he uttered this ringing reply:

“The Tories have not yet realised that the day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”[[29]]

It is clear that that idea had taken hold of his mind with mastering power.

We can recover a picture of that little by-election as the struggle ebbed and flowed in the streets of those little Welsh townships, far away there between the mountains and the sea. To the great world it was a mere episode in Mr. Gladstone’s last great struggle.[[30]] It was only dimly that the shrewd London special correspondents began to perceive that something else was at stake also—something else for Wales, something else for England also.

We see the slow-moving drama working to a crisis through that far-away Easter-tide—the public still mainly absorbed in their holiday pleasures—the meetings at first feebly attended, and then, as the day of election draws near, more and more crowded—the squire-candidate at first amiably confident and aloof, pleading ill-health, then suddenly appearing constantly in public, feverishly canvassing, plainly alarmed by the reports of his agents. All through we can see the little “hamlet-lad” with the yellow rosette—boldly sporting his colours—flitting from town to town, urging on his supporters, speaking to the Welsh people in that sweet mellifluous, persuasive tongue of theirs, so magical to those who know it.

“A dull election,” said the correspondents at first. The result seemed to them doubtful. These Londoners expected the Welsh to be very excitable; and they were surprised to find them so calm. They forgot that deep waters run still.

Then they began to notice the Liberal candidate. One who heard him speak in Welsh wrote to London: “I never heard any one speak Welsh so charmingly as Mr. Lloyd George. It was the first time I had heard him; and though I could not understand a word of it, it is exceedingly pleasant to listen to him.”[[31]] Truly, a remarkable victory for the power of sound!

Then, as the election goes forward, we can see pale fear gradually creeping through the ranks of Tuscany. The Welsh Tory agent was hurriedly sent down from headquarters and wired back that the situation was serious. Exertions were redoubled. On those last days this election certainly was not dull. Deep cried unto deep; and the Welsh crowds began to murmur like the restless sea which beats on their shores.

Then comes the polling day—Friday, April 4th. Up to the last the issue is doubtful. It is a neck-and-neck struggle. The poll is very heavy. Carnarvon votes to a man—and Bangor almost to a man.[[32]] The shrewd observers are puzzled. They feel like those who watch the meeting of the tides. The signs are not clear. One coming from Nevin finds David Lloyd George in Carnarvon the solitary wearer of his own favours. He cannot understand it.

Then, the closing scene—the counting of the votes on the polling day in the room beneath the town hall at Carnarvon. It is midday of a beautiful spring day, and the street outside is packed with seething, expectant humanity. How slow they are inside there! How wearily the minutes drag on! But far away, over Criccieth, Snowdon shines, still snow-crowned, beautiful and serene.

Inside the town hall the issue wavers to and fro. From hour to hour fate oscillates in the balance.

The votes have now been counted. The Nanney heap is one side of the table, and the Lloyd George heap on the other. The heaps seem almost equal. But to the trained eyes of close observers the papers on the Nanney heap rise above his rival’s by just a shadow of a shade. There can be no doubt about it—David Lloyd George is beaten. Better tell him at once.

David Lloyd George smiles bravely. His friends gather round him with sober solace. “Better luck next time”—when suddenly there is a stir in the throng which surrounds the ballot papers.

One of David Lloyd George’s vigilant agents has been better occupied than in uttering words. He stands eagerly scrutinising the piles of papers: and now his keen eye has noticed something doubtful about one of the packets of papers on Mr. Nanney’s heap. He picks it up and glances rapidly through the voting-papers. Below one or two Nanney votes there is a little unnoticed series of votes for Lloyd George. It is enough to make the difference, and to return David Lloyd George as member by a majority of 20.

Stung by frustrated hope, the Nanney agents insist on a recount; and one vote is transferred from Lloyd George to Nanney, reducing the majority to 18.

David Lloyd George is M.P. for the Carnarvon Boroughs!

The word goes swiftly forth. As soon as he appears, he is received by that hitherto silent crowd with tumultuous acclaim. The still waters break into foam. He is drawn in a carriage through the town by a tremendous crowd. At Castle Square he addresses them in Welsh: “My dear fellow-countrymen,” he says, “the county of Carnarvon to-day is free. The banner of Wales is borne aloft, and the boroughs have wiped away the stains!”

Eighteen votes[[33]]—not a very large gap between defeat and victory. But it is enough. ’Twill serve. The moving finger has written.

[25] Now (1920) as then a constituency consisting of five Welsh Boroughs—Carnarvon, Bangor, Criccieth, Pwllheli, and Nevin. Out of consideration for the Prime Minister the constitution was left unaltered by the Act of 1918.

[26] Afterwards Lord Ritchie.

[27] In a speech at Liverpool on February 18th, 1889. The first mention of Mr. Lloyd George in a leading article was in the Carnarvon Herald over this speech.

[28] Now Sir Ellis Hugh Nanney.

[29] These words are taken from the verbatim report of his speech in the Carnarvon Herald.

[30] Mr. Gladstone wrote the following by-election letter:

“Dear Sir,

“Your sanguine anticipations do not surprise me. My surprise would be this time, if a Welsh constituency were to return a gentleman who, whether Tory or Liberal, would vote against the claims which Wales is now justly making, that her interests and feelings should at length be recognised in concerns properly her own. Even if he reserved or promised you his individual vote, by supporting the party opposed to you and keeping it in power, he would make that favourable vote perfectly nugatory.

“I remain,

“Your faithful servant.

“W. E. Gladstone.”

[31] The Daily News, April 2nd, 1890: “He has a flexible, sympathetic voice, a silvery, mellifluous articulation, and his action is that of an accomplished orator.”

[32] The Carnarvon Herald records that the Tories polled every possible man. One voter was brought all the way from Wolverhampton. Three Carnarvon plasterers were brought by car to Carnarvon from the beach at Pwllheli, where they were working.

[33] The full figures were:

David Lloyd George1,963
Ellis Nanney1,945
——
Majority18
——

MRS. WILLIAM GEORGE,
THE MOTHER OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN