“Mr. M. is one of your most ardent admirers; and if you do not know it let me tell you that their number in this country is legion.”
There he certainly spoke the truth.
Sir Richard Flavelle, the famous Canadian financier, was present in London during the great financial crisis. On returning to Canada, in a speech at Ottawa on September 26th, 1916, he spoke as follows:
“During those days the men who met the Chancellor (Mr. Lloyd George) in Committee were struck with one or two personal characteristics. One of the noted ones was the man’s self-effacement. He sought for no glory for himself. He sought for no recognition for himself. One of the early evidences of the measure which he had taken of the situation was found, by the gentlemen who waited upon him, that Mr. Austen Chamberlain sat by his side. He crossed over to the other side of the House, and he said—‘I need your assistance.’ ”
Less expected than the praise of Canada is the admiration of India. Mr. Lloyd George has never visited India, and he would not claim any special knowledge of India. But India is the country of the poor man; and the poor man all over the world has heard in his speeches a new call of hope. To him Mr. Lloyd George seems a light in great darkness, the glimmering of a new dawn. Writing before the war, the Indian Patriot said:
“Of all the statesmen at the head of affairs in England to-day no one exercises the imagination of India so much as Mr. Lloyd George. He is not known as ‘Mr.’ here, but has gone over to the ranks of greatness, and is called simply ‘Lloyd George.’ His force and his earnestness always appeal to the imagination. His speech is carefully read and treasured up. The cry of India is—‘When shall we have a Lloyd George over here?’ and the story of his pensions for the old, his insurance for the sick has become a legend from the West.
“When will he come as our Viceroy?” is what a poor man asked the writer. And he was disappointed to be told that he may not come at all. ‘But then Mr. Lloyd George has many followers, and any one of them, trained as he is, may come!’ And here was consolation!”
“They all love him, and are ready to lay down life for him; and all because he has done so much for the poor.” That is the verdict of India, where kindness to the poor is a first call on all religions, and not a pious aspiration controlled by the Poor Law.
Then there are the little “Neutrals.” They ought, by all the rules, to have seen the best of the game. There is a remarkable article in the Journal de Genève of May 15th, 1917, which seems to embody the judgment of the most cautious and level-headed of all the neutral observers of the war:
“Mr. Lloyd George has been called ‘the Prime Minister of Europe.’ There is truth in that utterance. Of all the statesmen who exercise to-day an influence over the destinies of the world, Mr. Lloyd George is the most attractive, the most personal, the most wilful, the most audacious. More than all the others, he sees the future and prepares for it.