Lloyd George Part 6

In some lights it seems rather a shabby thing that Lloyd George should have ousted Mr. Asquith and taken his place as Prime Minister. Mr.

Asquith, with great intellectual attainments and with the highest attributes of an English gentleman, had been at the head of the British Government for eight years, and during this period big achievements had been inscribed on Britain's story. He had been a strong and constant friend of Lloyd George who, under his leadership, had risen from the position of a minor Minister to giant eminence. Then at a crucial moment Lloyd George overthrew him. Stated baldly like that, the thing doesn't read very well. I believe there are some leaders in England who will never forgive Lloyd George. It remains to be said that they are taking a narrow and immediate view of a drama so immense that its proper perspective will only be available many years hence. They are trying to test men's souls under strain in a small mechanical balance.

Forces were at work such as are only met with once or twice in centuries. You cannot bring a puny, every-day judgment to bear on issues which may mean misery or happiness to millions of people, and life or death to a great proportion of them. In such circ.u.mstances the raw strength of big men comes out, and the spectacle is not always pleasant to the gentle-minded.

I am not one of those who believe that Lloyd George sordidly schemed to become Prime Minister, though I am sure that in some side reflections from time to time he realized quite certainly that one day he would be Prime Minister of his country. I believe that from the moment he decided the war was a right one and must be pressed to victory he concentrated the whole of his heart and soul, all of his bewildering and compelling properties, to the task of securing victory. And that the remarkable success he attained, first in the sphere of finance, then in the provision of munitions, thirdly in the raising of armies and general organization for battle, led him quickly to a vision of the whole contest, a vision unshared by his colleagues, but of dazzling clearness to himself.

His whole being, designed for the emergencies of combat, quivered and thrilled as he saw the hundred directions in which urgency and rapidity and ruthlessness could forge the weapons of success. I believe he was completely selfless about the matter. He made efforts to touch various spheres of war organization with the white-hot spirit which possessed himself, and became partly the terror, partly the admiration, of those among whom he moved. And then, realizing more and more, week by week, what he regarded as the inertia in the departments that ran the country, and seeing the importance of stirring the feelings of his princ.i.p.al Cabinet colleagues to wholesale, pa.s.sionate, fear-nothing strokes which should bring the end of the war within sight, there grew upon him resistlessly the thought that he must himself secure supreme control of the war in Britain. I believe the idea took hold of him, not from any vulgar motive, but in the way that religion grows upon a man, possessing him utterly, leaving him heedless of the criticism directed against his personal aims.

What was the system he was up against? In the British Cabinet each Minister is the head of his own department, and in normal times the Prime Minister doesn't interfere in the departments, although, as chairman of the Cabinet, his consent has to be given to any big national policy initiated by another Minister. Mr. Asquith had strong and clever men around him, and, quite apart from the fact that he was the most chivalrous of chiefs, he trusted their capacity. Strong and capable as they were, they had not the flashing genius of Lloyd George, certainly had not his genius for war, implying large decisions and great risks. They plodded along and threshed out plans and put some of them into execution. To Lloyd George both the plans and the way they were carried out were half-hearted. To him there was always delay, never the stark action which he believed was everywhere necessary.

Decisions were taken too late and were not carried out with prompt.i.tude or thoroughness.

For months Lloyd George was in a state of simmering revolt. He received support from powerful organs in the press, notably from the _Times_ and _Daily Mail_. The tone of their criticism is best summarized in the suggestion that Mr. Asquith was "an amiable old gentleman," unfitted for the position of leader of a nation at war for its life. Far less than justice was accorded him, but under the stress of war the most stolid people became impatient, and there was undoubtedly manifested in many sections of the public a desire for more strenuous leadership. The difficulties with which Mr. Asquith had had to contend were certainly not fully appreciated, though they will be later on. He was the head of a Coalition Government, and had kept that Government together with a managing skill to which everybody paid tribute. The claim of the Lloyd George supporters was that qualities different from those required for the skilful handling of a Government were necessary in a war Prime Minister. It looks as if Lloyd George shared this opinion. He came to the conclusion that he must make his stroke. One fateful day he presented to Mr. Asquith an ultimatum to the effect that the conduct of the war should be placed in the hands of a small committee of three or four members who should have absolute power, and that Mr. Asquith himself should not be on it, or, if so, should be a member in name only.

Mr. Asquith tried to get him to compromise. Lloyd George would have none of it. If Mr. Asquith would not agree he would resign, he said, and he was supported by the Conservative members of the Government.

Mr. Asquith and his supporters would not give way. There were one or two exciting days of secret negotiations, and then, a deadlock being reached, there was but one course to be pursued, and that was for the entire Cabinet to place its resignation in the hands of the King. It must have been a bitter moment for Mr. Asquith. Indeed, it was probably an unhappy time for Lloyd George. Nevertheless, he flinched not.

The whole Cabinet went out of office. The King, who is bound by precedent, sent for the leader of the Conservatives, Mr. Bonar Law, and offered him the position of Prime Minister and the task of forming a Government. Owing to the split-up of the parties and the various cross-currents, Mr. Law felt himself unable to carry out the formal request of the King. Then the expected happened, and the King sent for Lloyd George, who promptly expressed his willingness to try to form a Government, so long as he was a.s.sisted in the task by Mr. Bonar Law.

He was successful. His Cabinet, rapidly brought into being, consisted of several Labor men, several Conservatives, some notable members of the House of Lords, and also, quite a novel feature, some captains of industry, whom Lloyd George took from their private businesses to run the business departments of the state. A war council was formed, consisting of Lloyd George himself; Mr. Arthur Henderson, the leader of the Labor movement; Lord Curzon, and Lord Milner. (The most recent claims to distinction of the latter two was their violent opposition to Lloyd George's Budget and the Parliament bill.) The sum total of arrangements was that the new Prime Minister became virtually a dictator. He rules England to-day.

What will be his record as Prime Minister? It may be taken as a certainty that his tenure of office will be a memorable chapter in English history. That he will use to the utmost his natural powers in bringing the war to a conclusion satisfactory to his country goes without saying. I am inclined to think that there is no one who yet realizes the lengths to which he will go in order to secure victory.

No precedent will stand in his way, no consideration of popularity or unpopularity will deter him. That he may break himself in his attempt is a trifle to him. I do not think he will break himself, for he has reserves not usually found in a single personality. Obloquy may again take the place of the praise which now encircles him. He may yet be a.s.sailed by some of the new colleagues whom he has chosen, and the newspapers which have supported him may turn against him. But if he lives and preserves his health he will win the war. He is not entirely admirable, but nothing will obliterate his powers of success but extinction.

He has the imagination to envisage the uncountable forces at his disposal in the British Empire, and if need be he will use these forces to their very limits. Already he has proceeded on new lines. With that intense practicalness which goes with his spiritual exaltation he has appointed a grocer and a provision-dealer to control the food-supplies of the country, has put a ship-owner at the head of the mercantile marine, has given to a man who was a working steel-smelter the unshackled control of labor, has chosen as another Cabinet Minister a young American who has made a fortune in business--staggering appointments indeed for conservative old England. But that is only a beginning. The Prime Minister has. .h.i.therto been but the t.i.tular head of the various departments of his Government, but now he is going to be the real head, for Lloyd George has set up a Prime Minister's Department which co-ordinates continually all the various Government offices. Lloyd George means to be no mere figure of dignity as a Prime Minister.

What more can he do? There is no end to the war expedients which are to his hand if the conflict with Germany goes on. If more young men are wanted for the army I can see him levying the whole of the women in the country for work on the farms and in the offices or its shops. He may turn his eyes to the overseas dominions, where there are scores of millions of population from which separate vast new armies may be drawn. I have little doubt that erelong the enemies of Britain will come up against the quality of unexpectedness which has so often discouraged his opponents at home. No field of endeavor will be closed to him. I can even see him with a board of inventors and constructors setting to work to provide, let us say, a fleet of one hundred thousand aeroplanes which shall, in truth, make the invasion of Germany possible. There are other novel fields of effort with potentialities of equal or even greater scope.

It was complained of Mr. Asquith that he was too much of a gentleman, too kindly and considerate even to those who hara.s.sed him, that he feared to repress those who strove to make his tenure of office impossible. There will not be any nonsense of that kind about Lloyd George. Heaven help those who, however highly placed and whatever their services to him in the past, now stand in his way. Interesting suggestions have been made that his recent alliance with Northcliffe was a fatal mistake for him, because Northcliffe, in pursuit of newspaper sensations, combined with patriotic aims, having helped to place him in the seat of power, will presently turn on him without scruple and without mercy. Well, there may even be an attempt in that direction. I know both men pretty thoroughly, having been brought into personal contact with each, and watched the work and studied the power of both of them for years. If Northcliffe attempts any action of the kind indicated he will find that he has gone out for a walk with a tiger. He has no dignified Mr. Asquith to deal with now. If Northcliffe, by any journalistic sensations, interferes in what in Lloyd George's opinion is the proper and efficient conduct of the war, Lloyd George will break him like a twig and without a second thought.

Some people of Britain talk of what will happen to Lloyd George when Northcliffe throws him over. One can only smile. To stop the publication of the _Daily Mail_ and the _Times_, wrecking a million pounds' worth of private property at least, and ruining Northcliffe on the way, will be twenty minutes' cheery work for Lloyd George in his present mood, if he thinks the interests of Britain demand it.

It will be found from now until the treaty of peace is signed that Lloyd George will be the personal director of democratic Britain, as grim an autocrat as was Oliver Cromwell, and when the plenipotentiaries meet around a table to settle terms there will be among them the blue-eyed Welshman, pleasant of manners and with iron will, putting in some commas and taking out the clauses he doesn't like.

XIII

THE FUTURE OF LLOYD GEORGE

When this war is concluded there must be a new era for the world.

Already there are signs of its approach. Generations hence there may again be awful conflicts between nations, spasms of h.e.l.l in which the blood and anguish of millions will pay their tribute to the beast in man, but it will not be in our time, and in the interval, the beginning of which must be upon us very quickly, a new order of things will arise among the civilized people of the globe. Stricken humanity will insist on happier prospects for its children and its children's children. In the formulation of that new order of things I can see Lloyd George as one of the main instruments.

In the first place, Britain will be a revivified country after the war, chastened in some ways, teeming with new thoughts, pulsing with a new virility for at least a generation. Cla.s.s prejudice will be lessened, perhaps in some directions will be completely wiped out. There will probably be a centralized effort after the trials which all the people have suffered together to reconstruct the social fabric so that all the people of the country, with the exception of those who are lazy or criminal, shall have the means by which they may be able to secure a decent livelihood and need have no fear of poverty-stricken old age. I foresee the disintegration of the older political parties and the building up of new ones, in which the great contending features will be the means and methods by which the new Britain shall be established.

The old party shibboleths will be swept away. Mere words and windy generalities will be displaced from influence and the nation's leaders will deal with facts.

The education of the war has brought everybody in the country up against hard realities. While prejudices and so-called principles have been put in the background, there has been going on a learning of new lessons. Lloyd George will undoubtedly be the main figure in the building up of the national edifice. The war will effect political changes which a generation of Parliamentary efforts could not have brought about. Hundreds of thousands of men drawn from shops, factories, offices, who have been hardened and stimulated by their out-of-doors campaigning, will be averse from returning to their old drab conditions, and coincident with this the rich and beautiful farmlands of England will be made available in holdings for such as wish to settle on the land and to establish themselves there. Cottage dwellings and farm buildings will be put up by the thousand with the a.s.sistance of the state. The settlers from the towns will not only find health for themselves and families, but by their activities will add enormously to the food-supplies of the country through their market gardens, their dairy farms, as well as by the extra corn which will be produced by them.

Lloyd George's heart and soul will be in this project, for, country born and bred as he is, he knows not only the troubles, but also the opportunities and the personal joys of the population on the land. I regard a revolution on these lines in England as a practical certainty.

It may be asked, Where is the money to come from for all this? The answer is, that loans from the state are inevitable, but they will be remunerative loans which presently will yield returns, not only in the shape of interest, but in new food-supplies and also, not less important, in the benefits of new physical strength and new happiness in life to big sections of the population. Sacrifices will be asked for from the great land-owners, but they will be sacrifices of sentiment rather than of money, because these proprietors will certainly be well recompensed financially for any land that is taken from them.

But this transformation in the countryside will be only one phase of the new Britain. Virtual revolution is certain in town life--and something like forty millions out of the fifty millions of population have their present homes in towns and cities, and not in the country.

A great stimulation of production may be looked for under the lessons of war-time. Scores of inventions have been devised under the strain of the war's demands and the discoveries in chemistry, in mechanics, and in other directions will remodel certain industries and create fresh ones. Novel methods of organization have been brought into use and have greatly aided efficiency, but even these developments will be but supplementary to the changes in the methods of British industrial life. The Labor movement of Britain, which has obtained during the war a political power previously unknown in British Government, has altered its modes of procedure, subordinated its laws, and generally transfigured itself. The position can never be readjusted to the old basis. This will carry with it remarkable results. Something like three million trade-unionists const.i.tute the effective Labor movement of Britain, and the unions, with their rights and privileges, have only been built up by half a century of struggle against prejudice, against material interests, against opposition in Parliament. In the last ten years, however, enormous progress has been made. Forty Labor men have seats in the legislature, and the combination of trade-union rules and regulations safeguarding workmen and restricting employers has become as effective as a legal charter. Hours and conditions of labor as well as wage rates in the various trades have been set up and continually strengthened with a view to prevent exploitation by employers, and though there is necessarily a running struggle with regard to isolated matters, there has come to exist, on the whole, amicable relations between the great unions, on the one side, and the great employers, on the other. Under Lloyd George's appeals during the war trade-unions have flung overboard the restrictions they had imposed, have permitted unskilled people to come in and do parts of their work, permitted women to take a hand, allowed employers to increase hours of work, and voluntarily have taken upon themselves the old burdens which they had fought so long to shake off. They have had at least this recompense that, so far as money is concerned, they have not been badly off. In important industries, notably in munition-making, piece-work--payment according to work accomplished--is the rule, with the result that large sums are earned by those who choose to work hard and to work early and late. The general result of all this has been a marvelously accelerated output of material as compared with that which would have been produced under old conditions. The unions have the promise of the Government that all their old rules shall be restored after the war if they want them. It has become inconceivable that incidental advantage secured in these abnormal times shall be thrown away when peace comes just because of a traditional adherence to principle. Employers, also, seeing the tremendously increased results, will be eager to maintain the new acceleration. Are the unions, for the sake of old prejudices, to put back the clock and throw out all the employment of the women who have entered the hitherto-reserved industries, and to abolish the overtime work? Are they, moreover, to return to the old principles of prohibiting an operative from doing more than a certain amount of work in a certain time--a practice quite defensible so far as it arose from the greed of employers who, with their men on piece-work, finding the rate of production increased, promptly put back the rate of payment so that workpeople should never earn more than a certain amount by day or by week? Is there to be a reaction in all these directions? There is not. Unions will not want all their old provisions, but they will want new ones in their places. And the arrangements which will have to be made, and which Lloyd George will undoubtedly have a large share in making, will lead to the establishment of an entirely new system which, while giving employers a wider field of labor and an immensely increased production, will, at the same time, provide working-men and women with greatly enlarged earning capacity, an earning capacity which will be largely based on their own energy, initiative, and persistence.

A wide extension of what may be called co-operative payment by results may be looked for.

The good-will among cla.s.ses introduced by the war will certainly help the changes. The net result to be looked for is a practical abolition of unemployment, the extension of the area of labor to great numbers of women, increased earning powers for individuals, and still more for the families as a whole, and a greater output of all kinds of products, not only manufactured articles, but also food products from the land.

Accompanying all this will be higher profits for employers.

That this revolution can be accomplished in a day or even in a year is not to be expected. That it is the direction in which British social life is bound to trend cannot be doubted. I see Lloyd George as the engineer-in-chief of the whole operation. In conjunction with the new national land scheme the industrial reformation will provide a policy with a far-reaching scope and a practicability which will appeal to his long-sighted vision, his active mind, his scorn of past usages which litter the road of progress. That he will attempt to recreate the new social system on the wreckage of that which has been destroyed by the war I think is beyond all question.

But Lloyd George's future destiny is not confined to his work for his own race and nation. The war has lifted him to international prominence. He is now and will be henceforth the most-talked-of British statesman in all other civilized countries. He will still have enemies who will detest him, but no one in the future will attempt to deny his effectiveness. Respect will be accorded him by the statesmen of other nations and the democracy of other nations, the latter of whom will remember his lifelong fight for the poor. Such a man may well be of influence in determining not only the fate of his own people, but also the fate of the civilized community at large. I see approaching him, when this war is over, an opportunity far greater than anything fate has yet placed in his way. The world will be shuddering at the ghastliness of its recent experiences and asking if there is no way of guarding against the possibility of such a catastrophe in the years ahead. Among all the nations lately at war there will be but one desire--namely, the insuring of the enjoyment of peace for the generations to come. If that mood comes to exist, as it surely will, among all the nations when this present conflict is over, there are two men who, working together, may write their names indelibly on the history of the world. President Wilson's uplifting vision of an enduring peace by a mutually protective combination of nations is regarded by many as impracticable even as an illusion. I do not believe Lloyd George will regard it either as impracticable or as an illusion. His spirit will glow at the thought of it. The magnitude of the proposal will encourage him rather than check him. As to the difficulties in the way, he will tackle them with a confident smile.

The tenacity and high-mindedness of President Wilson are qualities which will especially appeal to him. He will be able to supplement them with that ingenuity and practicalness which are an integral part of his genius for getting things done. I can see these two men, therefore, as collaborators in days not so very far ahead. In the collaboration Lloyd George will probably find his culminating task.

APPENDIX

MR. LLOYD GEORGE ON AMERICA AND THE EUROPEAN WAR

On the anniversary of President Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1916, Mr. Lloyd George sent a remarkable message to the American people comparing the American Civil War with the European conflict. By the courtesy of the New York _Times_ this message is presented here.

A LINCOLN DAY MESSAGE

I am very glad to respond to your request for a message for publication on Lincoln Day. I am glad because to my mind Abraham Lincoln has always been one of the very first of the world's statesmen, because I believe that the battle which we have been fighting is at bottom the same battle which your countrymen fought under Lincoln's leadership more than fifty years ago, and most of all, perhaps, because I desire to say how much I welcome the proof which the last few days have afforded that the American people are coming to realize this, too.

Lincoln's life was devoted to the cause of human freedom. From the day when he first recognized what slavery meant he bent all his energies to its eradication from American soil. Yet after years of patient effort he was driven to realize that it was not a mere question of abolishing slavery in the Southern States, but that bound up with it was a larger issue: That unless the Union abolished slavery, slavery would break up the Union.

Faced by this alternative, he did not shrink, after every other method had failed, from vindicating both Union and freedom by the terrible instrument of war. Nor after the die for war had been cast did he hesitate to call upon his countrymen to make sacrifice upon sacrifice, to submit to limitation upon limitation of their personal freedom, until, in his own words, there was a new birth of freedom in your land.

Is there not a strange similarity between this battle, which we are fighting here in Europe, and that which Lincoln fought? Has there not grown up in this continent a new form of slavery, a militarist slavery, which has not only been crushing out the freedom of the people under its control, but which in recent years has also been moving toward crushing out freedom and fraternity in all Europe as well?

Is it not true that it is to the militarist system of government which centers in Berlin that every open-minded man who is familiar with past history would point as being the ultimate source of all the expansion of armaments, of all the international unrest, and of the failure of all movements toward co-operation and harmony among nations during the last twenty years?

We were reluctant, and many of us refused to believe that any sane rulers would deliberately drench Europe in its own blood, so we did not face the facts until it was almost too late. It was not until August, 1914, that it became clear to us, as it became clear to Lincoln in 1861, that the issue was not to be settled by pacific means, and that either the machine which controlled the destinies of Germany would destroy the liberty of Europe or the people of Europe must defeat its purpose and its prestige by the supreme sacrifice of war. It was the ultimatum to Serbia and the ruthless attack upon Belgium and France which followed because the nations of Europe would not tolerate the obliteration of the independence of a free people without conference and by the sword, which revealed to us all the implacable nature of the struggle which lay before us.

It has been difficult for a nation separated from Europe by three thousand miles of sea and without political connections with its peoples, to appreciate fully what was at stake in the war. In your Civil War many of our ancestors were blind. Lord Russell hinted at an early peace. Even Gladstone declared "we have no faith in the propagation of free inst.i.tutions at the point of the sword." It was left for John Bright, that man of all others who most loved peace and hated war, to testify that when our statesmen "were hostile or coldly neutral the British people clung to freedom with an unfaltering trust."

But I think that America now sees that it is human unity and freedom which are again being fought for in this war.

The American people under Lincoln fought not a war of conquest, but a war of liberation. We to-day are fighting not a war of conquest, but a war of liberation--a liberation not of ourselves alone, but of all the world, from that body of barbarous doctrine and inhuman practice which has estranged nations, has held back the unity and progress of the world, and which has stood revealed in all its deadly iniquity in the course of this war.

In such wars for liberty there can be no compromise. They are either won or lost. In your case it was freedom and unity or slavery and separation, in our case military power, tyrannously used, will have succeeded in tearing up treaties and trampling on the rights of others, or liberty and public right will have prevailed. Therefore, we believe that the war must be fought out to a finish, for on such an issue there can be no such thing as a drawn war.

In holding this conviction, we have been inspired and strengthened beyond measure by the example and the words of your great President.

Once the conflict had been joined, he did not shrink from bloodshed. I have often been struck at the growth of both tenderness and stern determination in the face of Lincoln, as shown in his photographs, as the war went on.

Despite his abhorrence of all that was entailed, he persisted in it because he knew that he was sparing life by losing it, that if he agreed to compromise, the blood that had been shed on a hundred fields would have been shed in vain, that the task of creating a united nation of free men would only have to be undertaken at even greater cost at some later day. It would, indeed, be impossible to state our faith more clearly than Lincoln stated it himself at the end of 1864.

"On careful consideration," he said, "of all the evidence it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union, precisely what we will not and cannot give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves; . . . between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided by victory."

That was the judgment of the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century during the last great war for human liberty. It is the judgment of this nation and of its fellow-nations overseas to-day.