Fortunately England, like the rest of the world, forgets. The mists of unpopularity that hung about the little Welshman vanished under the sheer brilliancy of the man. When the Conservative Government fell after the Boer War he was not only a Cabinet possibility but a necessity. The Government had to have him. From that time on they needed him in their business.
Lloyd George drew the dullest and dustiest of all portfolios—the Board of Trade. He found the post lifeless and academic; he vivified and galvanised it and made it a vital branch of party life and dispute. It is the Lloyd George way.
Here you find the first big evidence of one of the great Lloyd George qualities that has stood him in such good stead these recent turbulent years. He became, like Henry Clay, the Great Conciliator. The whole widespread labour and industrial fabric of Great Britain was geared up to his desk. It shook with unrest and was studded with strife. Much of this clash subsided when Lloyd George came into office because he had the peculiar knack of bringing groups of contending interests together. Men learned then, as they found out later, that when they went into conference with Lloyd George they might as well leave their convictions outside the door with their hats and umbrellas.
To this policy of readjustment he also brought the laurel of constructive legislation. To him England owes the famous Patents Bill which gives English labour a share in the English manufacture of all foreign invention; the Merchant Shipping Bill which safeguards the interest of English sailor and shipper; and the Port of London Bill which made the British metropolis immune from foreign ship menace.
England was fast learning to lean on the grey-eyed Welshman. He came to be known as the "Government Mascot": he was continually pulling his party's chestnuts out of the fire of failure or folly. George had begun to "do it" and in a big way.
Likewise the whole country was beginning to feel pride in his performance as the following story, which has been adapted to various other celebrities, will attest:
Lloyd George sat one day in the compartment of a train that was held up at the station at Cardiff. A porter carrying a traveller's luggage noticed him and called his client's attention, saying:
"There is Lloyd George himself in that train."
The traveller seemed indifferent and again the porter called attention to the budding great man. After persistent efforts to rouse his interest, the tourist, much nettled, said tartly:
"Suppose it is. He's not God Almighty."