The Prime Minister. Harold Spender

      DAVID LLOYD GEORGE AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN

CHAPTER VII

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FIRST SKIRMISHES

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      “And now,

      Out of that land where Snowdon night by night

      Receives the confidences of lonely stars,

      And where Carnarvon’s ruthless battlements

      Magnificently oppress the daunted tide,

      There comes, no fabled Merlin, son of mist,

      And brother to the twilight, but a man.”

      William Watson on Mr. Lloyd George.

      Entering the House of Commons in April 1890, David Lloyd George walked straight into one of those great party struggles which in those days supplied the British public with an efficient substitute for the Prize Ring. The subject was a clause in the Budget of 1890 compensating the Drink Trade for abolished licences. The whole Liberal Party attacked this clause hotly under the leadership of Mr. Gladstone. The whole Unionist Party supported it.

      On the face of it, the young Lloyd George, hot with temperance enthusiasm, could not have found a more congenial theme. But his letters and diaries reveal that he felt an immediate chill on contact with the House of Commons. He found the drink question being used as a great party weapon on both sides. Shrewd political calculations had annexed one party to drink and another party to temperance. But the young Lloyd George, drunk with the temperance faith, detected no real enthusiasm on either side.

      “The debate,” he wrote to his uncle on May 16th, “was rather an unreal one, no fervour or earnestness characterising it. The House does not seem at all to realise or to be impressed with the gigantic evils of drunkenness.”

      It was characteristic of young Lloyd George that he hoped for a great change in the atmosphere when the country was really aroused; and he proceeded to do his best to arouse it.

      Often in the years that followed the young Lloyd George felt the same chill in the atmosphere of Westminster. He often used to say in those days that he found it necessary to renew his strength by constantly visiting the constituencies. He was always rather a platform man than a House of Commons man: he was never a great lobbyist. Often in those early years he used to find that he gained more inspiration from great popular meetings than from a week in the House of Commons.

      He was a little timid of the House of Commons—perhaps wisely so. He saw in a moment that the House liked to be wooed carefully. “I shan’t speak in the House this side of the Whitsuntide holidays,” he wrote to his uncle. “Better not appear too eager. Get a good opportunity and make the best of it—that’s the point.” There, at any rate, he showed that he had the first qualification for parliamentary success—respect for his audience.

      I can remember the ferment of expectation that gathered round Mr. Lloyd George among those of us who, in those days, watched the House of Commons from the gallery. We had heard vaguely of him as a great “spell-binder” in North Wales. We had been told that no man equalled him in his power of rousing Welsh crowds in the Welsh tongue. We had heard that he had the gift of the “hwyl”; and, not knowing quite what that meant, we expected to see something resembling a Druid appear on the floor of the House of Commons. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when we saw a slim, well-groomed young lawyer in a frock coat and with side-whiskers. The few questions he asked in the first week revealed that he had a soft, rather sweet voice, and was more inclined to speak in a whisper than a shout. All these things seriously upset our calculations, and considerably disappointed the hopes of all fervid sketch-writers.

      It was on June 13th, 1890, that he first broke his parliamentary silence by a speech on the compensation clauses. He supported Mr. Acland’s amendment for diverting Mr. Goschen’s grant from liquor compensation to technical education.

      It was by no means the speech of a fanatical Druid. It was a soft-spoken, skilful piece of debating expressed in excellent idiomatic English. It was full of swift debating thrusts and sharp-edged jests. It was in this speech that he described Lord Randolph Churchill and Joseph Chamberlain as “political contortionists who can perform the great feat of planting their feet in one direction and setting their faces in another.” Here was just the kind of humour that the House of Commons loves. It came well within the line of that traditional parliamentary wit which has to be appreciated even by its victims.

      In fine, Mr. Lloyd George’s maiden speech seemed a good start for a promising parliamentary career. It was approved by Mr. Gladstone, praised by Sir William Harcourt, and cheered by the House itself.

      For the moment the young Welsh victor was a conspicuous figure. He stood in the limelight. He received from many quarters those purple favours which have turned the heads of so many young members fresh from a by-election. For this return, coming after several defeats of other candidates, was a notable