The War After the War Part 16

"What were Lincoln's views of conscription, and did your soldiers vote during the Civil War?"

There was definite method in these queries, for already the Shadow of Conscription had begun to fall over all England. It was Lloyd George, aided by Northcliffe, who led the fight for it.

The talk always went back to the great war. When I spoke of his speech at Bristol his face kindled and he said:

"Have you stopped to realise that this war is not so much a war of human ma.s.s against human ma.s.s as it is a war of machine against machine? It is a duel between the English and German workman."

You cannot talk long with Lloyd George without touching on democracy.

This is his chosen ground. I shall never forget the fervour with which he said:

"The European struggle is a struggle for world liberty. It will mean in the end a victory for all democracy in its fight for equality."

When I asked him to write an inscription for a friend of mine and express the hope that lay closest to his heart, he took a card from his pocket, gazed for a moment at the rushing country now shot through with the first evening lights, and then wrote: "Let Freedom win."

A few days later Lloyd George made still another appearance in his now familiar role of England's Deliverer. The South Wales coal miners, 2,000,000 in number, went on strike at a time when Coal meant Life to the Empire. There is no need of asking the name of the man who went to calm this storm. Only one was eligible and he lost no time.

Lloyd George did not call a conference at Cardiff: he went straight to Wales and spoke to the workers at the mouth of the pit. What arbitration and conciliation had failed to do, his hypnotic oratory achieved. The men went back to the mines with a cheer.

A week later at the London Opera House he made a notable speech to the Conference of Representatives of the Miners of Great Britain. To have heard that speech was to get a liberal education in the art of phraseology and to carry always in memory the magic of the man's voice.

In this speech he said:

"In war and peace King Coal is the paramount industry. Every pit is a trench: every workshop a rampart: every yard that can turn out munitions of war is a fortress.... Coal is the most terrible of enemies and the most potent of friends.... When you see the seas clear and the British flag flying with impunity from realm to realm and from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e--when you find the German flag banished from the face of the ocean, who had done it? The British miner helping the British sailor."

Small wonder that after this effort the miners of Wales should acclaim their gallant countryman as Industrial Messiah.

You would think that by this time England had made her final tax on the resource of her Ready Man. But she had not. There came the desolate day when the news flashed over England that the "Hampshire" had gone down and with it Kitchener. Following the shock of this blow, greater than any that German arms could deliver, arose the faltering question, "Who is there to take his place?"

It did not falter long. Once more the S.O.S. call of a Nation in Distress flashed out and again the spark found its man. Lloyd George went from Ministry of Munitions to sit in Kitchener's seat at the War Office. Unlike the Hero of Khartoum, he had no service in the field to his credit. But he knew men and he also knew how to deploy them. Just as he brought the Veterans of Business to sit around the Munitions Board, so did he now marshal war-tried campaigners for the Strategy Table. The Somme blow was struck: the new War Chieftain proved his worth.

In the midst of all these new exactions Lloyd George found time for other and arduous national labours. Two more episodes will serve to close this narrative of unprecedented achievement.

When the recent Irish Revolt had registered its tragedy of blood, death and execution, menacing the very structure of Empire, Lloyd George became the Emissary of Peace to the Isle of Unrest.

Again, when prying peacemakers sought to intrude themselves upon the nations engaged in a life and death struggle, it was Lloyd George, in a remarkable interview, who warned all would-be winners of the n.o.bel prize that peace talk was unfriendly, that "there was neither clock nor calendar in the British Army," that the Allies would make it a finish fight.

So it went until gloom once more took up its abode amid the Allies.

Bucharest fell before the German a.s.sault: Greece seethed with the unhappy mess that Entente diplomacy had made of a great opportunity: land and sea registered daily some fresh evidence of Teutonic advance.

What was wrong?

England speculated, yet one man knew and that man was Lloyd George. He realised the futility of a many-headed direction of the war: with his swift insight he saw the tragic toll that all this cross purpose was taking. He made a demand on Asquith for a small War Council that would put dash, vigour and success into the British side of the conflict. The Premier refused to a.s.sent and Lloyd George resigned as War Chief. The Government toppled in a crisis that menaced the very future of the nation.

Great Britain stood aghast. Lloyd George stood for all the popular confidence in victory that the nation felt. For a moment it appeared as if the very foundations of authority had crumbled.

But not for long. When Bonar Law declined to reestablish the Government the oft-repeated cry for action that had invariably found its answer in the intrepid little Welshman, again rose up. Upon him devolved the task of constructing a new Cabinet which he headed as Prime Minister. He now reached the inevitable goal toward which he had unconsciously marched ever since that faraway day when his voice was first heard in Parliament.

Even with Cabinet-making Lloyd George was a Revolutionist. He cut down the membership from twenty-four to five, establishing a compact and effective War Council whose sole task is to "win the war." He centred more authority in the Premiership than the English system has ever known before. He virtually became Dictator.

On the other hand, he raised the number of Ministers outside the Cabinet from nineteen to twenty-eight. He scattered the coterie of lawyers who had so long comprised the Government Trust and put in men with red blood and proved achievement--in the main, self-made like himself. He installed a trained and competent business man of the type of Sir Albert Stanley, raised in the hard school of American transportation, as President of the Board of Trade: he drafted a seasoned commercial veteran like Lord Rhondda (D. A. Thomas), for President of the Local Government Board: he raised his old and experienced aide, Dr.

Christopher Addison, to be Minister of Munitions: he made Lord Derby, who had conducted the great recruiting campaign, Minister of War: he put Sir Joseph Maclay, an extensive ship owner, into the post of Shipping Controller. Everywhere he supplanted politicians with doers.

What was equally important he continued his role of Conciliator, for he placated Labour by giving it a large representation and he took a definite step toward the solution of the Irish problem by making Sir Edward Carson First Lord of the Admiralty.

Even as he stood at what seemed the very pinnacle of his power Destiny once more marked him for its own. He had scarcely announced his Cabinet when the world was electrified by the news of the German peace proposal.

By his own action Lloyd George had placed himself at the head of the Council charged with the conduct of the war. To the Wizard Welshman therefore was put squarely the responsibility of continuing or ending the stupendous struggle.

Never before in the history of any country was such momentous responsibility concentrated in an individual. The dramatic element with which Lloyd George had become synonymous, found an amazing expression.

He was ill in bed when the German suggestion was made. No official announcement of England's position in reply could be made until he had recovered. In the interim the whole world trembled with suspense while stock markets shivered. The Premier's name was on every tongue: the eyes of the universe were focussed on him. It was indeed his Great Hour.

In what was the most significant speech of his career, and with all the force and fervour at his command, he stated the Empire's determination to fulfill its obligations to the trampled and ravaged countries. On that speech hung the stability of international financial credit, the lives of millions of men and the whole future security of Europe.

You have seen the moving picture of a tumultuous life: what of the personality behind it?

Reducing the Prime Minister to a formula you find that he is fifty per cent Roosevelt in the virility and forcefulness of his character, fifteen per cent Bryan in the purely demagogic phase of his makeup, while the rest is canny Celt opportunism. It makes a dazzling and well-nigh irresistible composite.

It is with Roosevelt that the best and happiest comparison can be made.

Indeed I know of no more convincing interpretation of the Thing that is Lloyd George than to point this live parallel. For Lloyd George is the British Roosevelt--the Imperial Rough Rider. Instead of using the Big Stick, he employs the Big Voice. No two leaders ever had so much in common.

Each is more of an inst.i.tution than a mere man: each dramatises himself in everything he does: each has the same genius for the benevolent a.s.similation of idea and fact. They are both persistent but brilliant "crammers." Trust Lloyd George to know all about the man who comes to see him whether he be statesman, author, explorer or plain captain of industry. It is one of the reasons why he maintains his amazing political hold.

Lloyd George has Roosevelt's striking gift of phrase-making, although he does not share the American's love of letter writing. As I have already intimated, whatever may be his future, Lloyd George will never be confronted by accusing epistle. None exists.

Like Roosevelt, Lloyd George is past master in the art of effective publicity. He has a monopoly on the British front page. Each of these remarkable men projects the fire and magnetism of his dynamic personality. Curiously enough, each one has been the terror of the Corporate Evil-doer--the conspicuous target of Big Business in his respective country. Each one is a dictator in the making, and it is safe to a.s.sume that if Lloyd George lived in a republic, like Roosevelt he would say: "My Army," "My Navy" and "My Policies."

Roosevelt, however, has one distinct advantage over his British colleague in that he is a deeper student and has a wider learning.

In one G.o.d-given gift Lloyd George not only surpa.s.ses Roosevelt but every other man I have ever met. It is an inspired oratory that is at once the wonder and the admiration of all who hear it. He is in many respects the greatest speaker of his day--the one man of his race whose utterance immediately becomes world property. The stage lost a great star when the Welsh David went into politics. There are those who say that he acts all the time, but that is a matter of opinion dictated by partisan or self-interest.

Lloyd George is what we in America, and especially those of us born in the South, call the "silver-tongued." His whole style of delivery is emotional and greatly resembles the technique of the Breckenridge-Watterson School. In his voice is the soft melodious lilt of the Welsh that greatly adds to the attractiveness of his speech.

Before the public he is always even-tempered and amiable, serene and smiling, quick to capitalize interruption and drive home the chance remark. He invariably establishes friendly relations with his hearers, and he has the extraordinary ability to make every man and woman in the audience before him believe that he is getting a direct and personal message.

Lloyd George can be the unfettered poet or the lion unleashed. Shut your eyes as you listen and you can almost hear the music of mountain streams or the roar of rushing cataracts. In his great moments his eloquence is little short of enthralling, for it is filled with an inspired imagery.

No living man surpa.s.ses him in splendour of oratorical expression. His speeches form a literature all their own.

When, for example, yielding to that persistent Call of Empire for his service he interpreted England's cause in the war at Queen's Hall in London, in September, 1914, in what was in many respects his n.o.blest speech, he said in referring to Belgium and Servia:

"G.o.d has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries His choicest wines to the lips of humanity, to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to stimulate and strengthen their faith; and if we had stood by when two little nations were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarism, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages."

In closing this speech which he gave the characteristic Lloyd George t.i.tle of "Through Terror to Triumph," he uttered a peroration full of meaning and significance to United States in its present hour of pride and prosperity. He said:

"We have been living in a sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable and too indulgent, many, perhaps, too selfish, and the stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the everlasting things that matter for a nation--the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honour, Duty, Patriotism, and, clad in glittering white, the towering pinacle of Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.

"We shall descend into the valleys again; but as long as the men and women of this generation last, they will carry in their hearts the image of those mighty peaks whose foundations are not shaken, though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war."

Now take a closing look at the man himself. You see a stocky, well-knit figure, broad of shoulder and deep of chest. The animated body is surmounted by a face that alternately beams and gleams. There are strength and sensitiveness, good humour, courage and resolution in these features. His eyes are large and luminous, aglow at times with the poetry of the Celt: aflame again with the fervour of mighty purpose. He moves swiftly. To have him pa.s.s you by is to get a breath of life.