I have indicated the Minister for War as the moving spirit in all those changes of that tangled period, but he was only a single member of the Ministry which set them in motion, although there could be no doubt in the mind of any one really acquainted with public affairs in Britain at this time that his was the driving force behind the reforms, that they were largely forced on by his resistless spirit, even as he was desirous to push them further and quicken the pace. Meanwhile in France, in Italy, and in Russia Lloyd George's name roused enthusiasm wherever it was mentioned. News from America indicated that he was well known and much talked of there. In the Scandinavian capitals which I visited toward the close of 1916 I found that it was Lloyd George whom the statesmen, the professors, the business men, and the common people were eager to hear about above all others. In Germany he was hated and feared more than any other British statesman.
XI
HIS INCONSISTENCIES
According to all the rules which are supposed to guide the rise of a self-made man, Lloyd George should have been a master of routine, with the orderly mind and undeviating habits without which we are sometimes told no person of affairs can secure permanent success. It is much to be regretted that Lloyd George lends no aid to the well-established maxims. The teachers and preachers who seek to implant in the young the principles of continuousness of purpose and of regularity and of kindred qualities must turn their backs on Lloyd George. They will find nothing from him to go into the text-books, for in the course of his career the Welsh statesman has trampled on every sound rule for securing success. That a man with so many contradictions in him should have ever maintained his upward course is not encouraging to the formalists, though it is very interesting to ordinary people.
There never was a man who could more quickly master the intricacies of a business problem, and yet from his very early days he was quite unbusiness-like in many things. He laughingly says that as a young lawyer down in Wales he showed serious incapacity in his profession, at least in one respect: "I never sent in any bill of costs. The result was I never had any money." Later when his brother, three years younger than himself, joined him in partnership matters improved. "The firm did not then suffer from this serious professional drawback," explained Lloyd George. He is an adept at phrases, and yet all through his life he has hated writing. There is a tradition among some of his friends that even in his less busy periods, if you wanted to get a reply from him on any topic you had to send him two postcards addressed to yourself, on one of which was written, "Yes," and on the other, "No." This, it was said, was the only way you could make sure of a prompt response, or indeed of any response at all. He has been the supreme business organizer of Britain during the war—in finance, in industrial operations, and latterly in actual army work—and in each direction he has sketched out and carried into effect an intensive efficiency which it is not too much to describe as the admiration of the world, yet all the time his office day-by-day arrangements would certainly shock the ordinary merchant or banker. He makes contingent appointments and forgets all about them. Some incidental scheme adopted by him on a Saturday is on Monday thrust into limbo by the pressure of other schemes. If he were to schedule his office day into five-minute appointments he would still be unable to see only a proportion of the important men and executive chiefs who desire to get in touch with him, and yet he will allow himself to be drawn into an hour's keen discussion with persons who have some minor topic which appeals to him. Withal, he gets things done. Some intuition, some instinct for right action, takes him to his goal. The task in hand is always accomplished to the limit of efficiency. You may seek his secret in vain. Probably part of it lies in his natural power of selecting his instruments. All the same I do not envy the lot of his two principal private men secretaries and the girl stenographer whose business it is to follow and, to some extent, direct his erratic course throughout his office hours.
His speeches which in their printed form sell literally by the million, are scarcely prepared at all before he gets on the platform. Sometimes the wording as it appears in cold black and white lacks a little polish, but it has a vital and stimulating force marking it out as distinctive literature. He has a few notes as to facts and figures and weaves them into a picture as he stands before his audience. When his famous speech at Limehouse thrilled England a London newspaper proprietor went down to see him in the House of Commons. "Why didn't you let me know you were going to make that speech?" he said. "I would have had special arrangements made for reporting it and describing it." "There was nothing special in it," said Lloyd George, in genuine surprise. "It was just an ordinary talk about the Budget. I went down to Limehouse and spoke to an audience I found there, that's all."
No one will deny Lloyd George's courage. On a hundred stricken fields he has shown it. Yet he confesses to a timorousness and nervousness whenever he is waiting on a public platform with a speech ahead of him. This proven, stern man of action is just a trembling bunch of nerves, afraid of the people in front of him, afraid of the people by his side on the platform, as he sits waiting the fateful second when the chairman shall announce his name.
Lloyd George's unexpectedness comes from the fact that he is a many-sided man. Success has not atrophied either his manners or his impulses. He is not ashamed to be very human because he has become very important. I remember how, during the stress of the Budget fight, when, if ever, he was at a tension, he went off for a week-end with the Attorney-General and a distinguished journalist. They had a railway compartment to themselves on the journey from London. Part of the time was passed in singing popular songs, the choruses of which Lloyd George trilled out enthusiastically. And yet Lloyd George is not a stranger to the formalities. High office brought to him a marked care for those little chivalries which are part of Parliamentary warfare. In the height of the fight fatigue sometimes overwhelmed even his sturdy frame and spirit, and he would snatch half an hour's respite from the Treasury bench in his own room behind the Speaker's chair. But he would break off this short indulgence instantly when the ticker indicated that his principal opponents had begun to speak. Directly it was shown that Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour, or some other leader was on his feet Lloyd George would hurry into the chamber to listen, even though he might know perfectly well that they had nothing to say that mattered at the moment. He regarded it as important to pay them the courtesy of listening to any speech they made, however casual or trivial.
One of the charges against Lloyd George during his public life has been his inaccuracy in small things, his disregard of detail, and in some ways this is a justifiable charge. And yet the man has a perfect passion for detail when he is aroused and when he believes detail necessary. In instituting the Department of Munitions he made himself in the course of only a week or two a real expert in the hundred intricacies connected with the manufacture of shells. Short of handling the steel himself I doubt if there was any man in the country, who knew more about the nature of all the deadly missiles, from the small rifle bullet up to the great shell which weighs a ton and travels some fifteen miles. Delicate chemical processes connected with high explosives rapidly became an open book to him. As new discoveries were made incidental difficulties connected with the filling of shells occupied the concentered study of the manufacturers. Lloyd George plunged into the new arrangements. One morning he had an appointment in London with a group of half a dozen munition-makers from the north of England and the Midlands for the purpose of investigating some special difficulties in a new process. The matter was one of importance as well as of difficulty. Point by point was taken and lunch-time arrived without a complete elucidation. Lloyd George swept aside all other appointments for the day. The thing had got to be mastered. He took the six experts out with him to lunch and went on with the discussion over the meal. He brought them back to the Munition Department afterward and he went on with the matter all the afternoon. Tea was served, and still he would not let his advisers escape. It was nearly dinner-time before the difficulties were conquered and the tired experts were permitted to go. Lloyd George, cheered by the achievement, had a little food, and then proceeded to work far into the night to clear up some of the arrears of the day's routine. As for the staff, they had to work, too. There are no easy times for those associated with Lloyd George when he is under pressure.