"Ah," replied the porter, "remember he's young yet."
When Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Asquith no one was surprised. It is typical of the man that he should have leaped from the lowest to the highest place but one in the Cabinet.
As Chancellor he had at last the opportunity to fulfill his democratic destiny. Whatever Lloyd George may be, one thing is certain: he is essentially a man of the masses. With his famous People's Budget he legislated sympathy into the law. It meant the whole kindling social programme of Old Age pensions, Health and Unemployment insurance, increased income tax and an enlarged death duty. As most people know, it put much of the burden of English taxation on the pocketbooks of the people who could best afford to pay. The Duke-baiting began.
Just as he had fought for a Free Wales so did he now struggle for a Free Land. All his amazing picturesqueness of expression came into play. He contended that Monopoly had made land so valuable in Britain that it almost sold by the grain, like radium. In commenting on the heavy taxes levied by the land autocrats upon commercial enterprise in London he made his famous phrase:
"This is not business. It is blackmail!"
To democracy the Budget meant economic emancipation: the banishment of hunger from the hearth: the solace of an old age free from want. It made Lloyd George "The Little Brother of the Poor." To the Aristocracy it was the gauge of battle for the bitterest class war ever waged in England: violation of ancient privilege.
The fight for this programme made Lloyd George the best known and most detested man in England. To hate him was one of the accomplishments of titled folk to whom his very name was a hissing and a by-word. Massed behind him were the common people whose champion he was: arrayed against him were the powers of wealth and rank.
In this campaign Lloyd George used the three great weapons that he has always brought to bear. First and foremost was the force of his personality, for he swept England with a tidal wave of impassioned eloquence. Second, he unloosed as never before the reservoirs of ink, for he used every device of newspaper and pamphlet to drive home his message. He even printed his creed in Gaelic, Welsh and Erse. Third, he employed his kinship with the people to the fullest extent. The Commoner won. As the great structure of social reform rose under his dynamic powers so did the influence of the House of Lords crumble like an Edifice of Cards. Democracy in England meant something at last!
The tumult and the shouting died, the smoke cleared, and Lloyd George stood revealed as England's Strong Man, a sort of Atlas upholding the World of Public Life and much of its responsibilities.
Now for the first time he was caught up in the fabric of the Crimson Net that a few years later was to haul nearly all Europe into war. In 1911 Germany made a hostile demonstration in Morocco. Although England had no territorial interests there, it was important for many reasons to warn the Kaiser that she would oppose his policy with armed force if necessary. A strong voice was needed to sound this note. Lloyd George did it.