But Mr. Lloyd George’s defence of Free Trade soon began to develop a character of its own. His tactics gradually began to take on a note of attack. His defensive became an aggressive.
He had recognised, from the opening of the struggle, that the strength of Mr. Chamberlain’s case lay in his frank recognition of the grim, shameful facts that lay beneath the smooth surface of English life. He realised that Mr. Chamberlain was the first great statesman to recognise fearlessly the existence of that England which so few statesmen had yet recognised—the England of the poor. Mr. Chamberlain, in fact, had brought “Darkest England” into the political landscape.
As the campaign went on Mr. Chamberlain grew bolder and bolder along these lines. He contended that tariffs, and tariffs alone, would provide the money for Old Age Pensions. He hinted at even vaster boons which were coming to England if she would only turn her back on that sour and pinchbeck old lady—Free Trade.
Mr. Lloyd George perceived at once the danger of this attack. He, at any rate, knew the “deep sighing of the poor.” He realised the black abyss which lay below the surface of England’s wealth. He feared the appeal to the hungry mouths of our neglected masses.
From that day forward he set out to prove that Free Trade also could remedy poverty—aye! and remedy it all the more easily because it brought wealth in its train. The great need was that that wealth should bear its due burden. That was to be his cure for the trouble.
At that time his phrasing was large and general. He had not yet worked out his later plans. Earlier he had served on the Rothschild Pensions Committee, and he had thrown all his energies into that inquiry. He was ever studying the problems of the land. But he kept a mind open to details. In that year (1904-5) he was storing impulse and collecting knowledge, preparing for the great moment that lay ahead of him.
That moment was now to come.
In December 1905 Mr. Balfour resigned, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman immediately undertook to form a Ministry.
It was already clear that Mr. Lloyd George must be a member of the new Cabinet. Sir Henry offered him the Presidency of the Board of Trade, and he accepted it. To the public the appointment came as a surprise. It seemed the last post for that brilliant parliamentary free-lance, that gay leader of forlorn hopes.
They were to find that, behind that flashing exterior, there was a cooler personality, well fitted for the control of the calmer and shrewder side of our national life.