The War After the War Part 15

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 emanc.i.p.ation: 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 cla.s.s 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 t.i.tled folk to whom his very name was a hissing and a by-word. Ma.s.sed 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 impa.s.sioned 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 kins.h.i.+p 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.

Hence it came about that the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood in the Mansion House on a certain momentous day and hurled the defi at the War Lord. It called the Teuton bluff for a while at least. In the light of later events this speech became historic. Not only did Lloyd George declare that "national honour is no party question," but he affirmed that "the peace of the world is much more likely to be secured if all the nations realise fairly what the conditions of peace must be."

Persistent pacifist propagandists to-day may well take warning from that utterance. He still believes it.

The spark that flashed at Agadir now burst into flame. The Great War broke and half the world saw red. What Lloyd George believed impossible now became bitter and wrathful reality. Though he did not know it at the moment, the supreme opportunity of his life lay on the lap of the G.o.d of Battles.

The Lloyd George who sat in council in Downing Street was no dreaming pacifist. He who had tried to stop the irresistible flood of the Boer War now rode the full swell of the storm that threatened for the moment to engulf all Britain.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer he was called upon to shape the fiscal policies that would be the determining factor in the War of Wars. "The last 100,000,000 will win," he said. Only one other man in England--Lord Kitchener--approached him in immense responsibility of office in the confidence of the people. It was a proud but equally terrifying moment.

Then indeed the little Welshman became England's Handy Man. As custodian of the British Pocketbook he had a full-sized job. But that was only part of the larger demand now made on his service. Popular faith regarded him as the Nation's First Aid, infallible remedy for every crisis.

If a compromise with Labor or Capital had to be effected it was Lloyd George who sat at the head of the table: if an Ally needed counsel or inspiration it was the Chancellor who sped across the water and laid down the law at Paris or Petrograd: if the Cause of Empire clamoured for expression from Government Seat or animated rostrum, he stood forth as the Herald of Freedom. So it went all through those dark closing months of 1914 as reverse after reverse shook the British arms and brought home the realisation that the war would be long and costly.

The year 1915 dawned full of gloom for England but pointing a fresh star for the career of Lloyd George. Although the first wave of Kitchener's new army had dashed against the German lines in France and established another tradition for British valour, the air of England became charged with an ominous feeling that something was wrong at the front. The German advance in the west had been well nigh triumphant. Reckless bravery alone could not prevail against the avalanche of Teutonic steel.

All the while the imperturbable Kitchener sat at his desk in the War Office--another man of Blood and Iron. He ran the war as he thought it should be run despite the criticism that began to beat about his head.

To the average Englander he was a king who could do no wrong. But the conduct of war had changed mightily since Kitchener last led his troops.

Like Business it had become a new Science, fought with new weapons and demanding an elastic intelligence that kept pace with the swift march of military events. The Germans were using every invention that marvellous efficiency and preparedness could devise. They met ancient England shrapnel with modern deadly and devastating high-explosives. If the war was to be won this condition had to be changed--and at once.

Two men in England--Lloyd George and Lord Northcliffe--understood this situation. Fortunately they are both men of courageous mould and unwavering purpose. One day Northcliffe sent the military expert of the _Times_ (which he owns) to France to investigate conditions. He found that the greatest need of the English Army was for high-explosives. They were as necessary as bread. Into less than a quarter of a column he compressed this news. Instead of submitting it to the Censor who would have denied it publication, Northcliffe published the despatch and with it the revelation of Kitchener's long and serious omission. He not only risked suspension and possible suppression of his newspapers, but also hazarded his life because a great wave of indignation arose over what seemed to be an unwarranted attack upon an idol of the people. But it was the truth nevertheless.

At a time when England was supposed to be sensation-proof this revelation fell like a forty-two centimetre sh.e.l.l. It was an amazing and dramatic demonstration of the power of the press and it created a sensation.

Sh.e.l.l shortage at the front had full mate in a varied deficiency at home. Ammunition contracts had been let to private firms at excessive prices: labour was restricting output and breaking into periodic dissension: drink was deadening energy: in short, all the forces that should have worked together for the Imperial good were pulling apart.

Northcliffe began a silent but aggressive crusade for reform in his newspapers, while Lloyd George let loose the powers of his tongue. A national crisis, literally precipitated by these two men, arose. The Liberal Government fell and out of its wreck emerged the Coalition Cabinet. This welding of one-time enemies to meet grave emergency did more than wipe out party lines in an hour that threatened the Empire's very existence.

The reorganised Cabinet knew--as all England knew--that the greatest requirement was not only men but munitions. A galvanic personality was necessary to organise and direct the force that could save the day. A new Cabinet post--the Ministry of Munitions--was created. Who could fill it was the question. There was neither doubt nor uncertainty about the answer. It was embodied in one man.

The little Welshman became Minister of Munitions.

Lloyd George had led many a forlorn hope by taking up the task that weaker hands had laid down. Here, however, was a situation without precedent in a life that was a rebuke to convention. To succeed to an organised and going post these perilous war times was in itself a difficult job. In the case of the Ministry of Munitions there was nothing to succeed. Lloyd George had been given a blank order: it was up to him to fill it. He had to create a whole branch of Government from the ground up. All his powers of tact and persuasion were called into play. For one thing he had to fit the old established Ordnance Department rooted in tradition and jealous of its prerogatives into the new scheme of things.

Lloyd George was no business man, but he knew how business affairs should be conducted. He knew, too, that America had reared the empire of business on close knit and efficient organisation. He did what Andrew Carnegie or any other captain of capital would do. He called together the Schwabs, the Edisons, the Garys and the Westinghouses of the Kingdom and made them his work fellows.

From every corner of the Empire he drafted brains and experience. He wanted workers without stint, so he started a Bureau of Labor Supply: he needed publicity, so he set up an Advertising Department: to compete with the Germans he realised that he would need every inventive resource that England could command, so he founded an Invention and Research Bureau: he saw the disorganisation attending the output of sh.e.l.ls in private establishments, so he planted the Union Jack in nearly every mill and took over the control of British Industry: he found labour at its old trick of impeding progress, so with a Munitions Act he practically conscripted the men of forge and mill into an industrial army that was almost under martial law. He cut red tape and injected red blood into the Department that meant national preservation. In brief, Lloyd George was on the job and things were happening.

The Minister established himself in an old mansion in Whitehall Garden where belles and beaux had danced the stately minuet. It became a dynamo of energy whose wires radiated everywhere. "More Munitions" was the creed that flew from the masthead.

A typical thing happened. The working force of the Ministry grew by leaps and bounds: already the hundreds of clerks were jam up against the confining walls of the old grey building. Lloyd George sent for one of his lieutenants and said:

"We must have more room."

"We have already reported that fact and the War Office says it will take three months to build new office s.p.a.ce," was the reply.

"Then put up tents," snapped the little man, "and we will work under canvas."

Realising that his princ.i.p.al weapons were machines, Lloyd George took a census of all the machinery in the United Kingdom and got every pound of productive capacity down on paper. He was not long in finding out why the ammunition output was shy. Only a fifth of the lathes and tools used for Government work ran at night. "These machines must work every hour of the twenty-four," he said. Before a fortnight had pa.s.sed every munitions mill ground incessantly.

These machines needed adequate manning. Lloyd George thereupon created the plan that enlisted the new army of Munitions Volunteers. Nelson-like he issued the thrilling proclamation that England expected every machine to do its duty. It meant the end of restricted output.

With the ban off restriction he likewise clamped the lid down on drink.

Munitions workers could only go to the public houses within certain hours: the man who brought liquor into a Government controlled plant faced fines and if the offence was repeated, a still more drastic punishment.

Lloyd George began a censors.h.i.+p of labour which disclosed the fact that many skilled workers were wasting time on unskilled tasks. Lloyd George now began to dilute the skilled forces with unskilled who included thousands of women.

Right here came the first battle. Labour rebelled. It could find a way to get liquor but it resented dilution and cried out against capacity output. The Sh.e.l.l Master again became the Conciliator. He curbed the wild horses, agreeing to a restoration of pre-war shop conditions as soon as peace came. All he knew was the fact that the guns hungered and that it was up to him to feed them.

The wheels were not whirring fast enough to suit Lloyd George. "We must build our own factories," he said. Almost over night rose the mills whose slogan was "English sh.e.l.ls for English guns." In speeding up the English output the Welshman was also equipping England to meet coming needs, laying the first stone of the structure that is fast becoming an Empire Self-Contained.

Lloyd George realised that he could not run every munitions plant, whereupon he organised local Boards of Control in the great ordnance centres like Woolwich, Sheffield, Newcastle and Middleboro. Each became a separate industrial princ.i.p.ality but all bound up by hooks of steel to the Little Wizard who sat enthroned at Whitehall.

England became a vast a.r.s.enal, throbbing with ceaseless activity. The smoke that trailed from the myriad stacks was the banner of a new and triumphant faith in the future.

What was the result? Up and down the western battle front English cannon spoke in terms of victory. No longer was British gunner required to husband sh.e.l.ls: to meet crash with silence. He hurled back steel for steel and all because England's Hope had answered England's Call. Lloyd George had done it again.

I first met Lloyd George during those crowded days when he was Commander-in-Chief of the host that fed the firing line. Under his magnetic direction British industry had been forged into a colossal munitions shop. No man in England was busier: not even the King was more inaccessible. Life with him was one engagement after another.

Now came one of those swift emergencies that seems to crowd so fast upon Lloyd George's life and with it arose my own opportunity.

The British Trade Union Congress in annual session at Bristol had expressed Labour's dissatisfaction over its share of the munitions profits. Lloyd George had sent them a letter explaining his proposed excess profit tax, but this apparently was not enough. The delegates still growled.

"Then I'll go down and speak to them in person," said the Minister with characteristic energy.

Thus it happened that I journeyed with him to the old town, background of stirring naval history. On the way down half a dozen department heads poured into his responsive ears the up-to-the-minute details of the work in hand. He became a Human Sponge soaking up the waters of fact.

At Bristol in a crowded stuffy hall he faced what was at the start almost a menacing crowd. Yet as he addressed them you would have thought that he had known every man and woman in the a.s.sembly all their lives.

The easy, intimate, frank manner of his delivery: his immediate claim to kins.h.i.+p with them on the ground of a common lowly birth: his quick and stirring appeal to their patriotism swept aside all discord and disaffection. As he gave an eloquent account of his stewards.h.i.+p you could see the audience plastic under his spell. The people who had a.s.sembled to heckle sat spellbound. When he had finished they not only gave him an ovation but pledged themselves anew to the gospel of "More Munitions."

It was on the train back to London that I got a glimpse of the real Lloyd George. What Roosevelt would have called "a bully day" had left its impress upon the little man. His long grey hair hung matted over a wilted collar: there was a wistful sort of weariness in his eyes. He sank into a big chair and looked for a long time in silence at the flying landscape. Then suddenly he aroused himself and began to talk.

Like many men of his type whom you go to interview he began by interviewing the interviewer.

The first two questions that Lloyd George asked me showed what was going on in his mind, for they were: