HANDBOUND AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Toronto http://www.archive.org/details/mrlloydgeorgebiOOraym \ 0^dtoaru/ih 'i^4£ac<Uf Mrn^-cm- . LLOYD GEORGE A BIOGRAPHY by E. T. RAYMOND Author of " Mr. Balfour," "Uncensored Celebrities,' etc. Illustrated THE RYERSON PRESS TORONTO A%^-^^^ K^ t- Dfl w' UT5" Copyright 1922. Manti/aciuied in Great Britain — The Author freely acknowledges his debt to Mr. Hugh Edwards, M.P., Mr. H. Duparcq, Mr. Harold Spender, and Mr. Walter Roch, whose works will be in their various ways invaluable to the writer of THE Biography of Mr. Lloyd George. Nothing could be more admir- able than the industry which has been expended in gathering facts concerning Mr. George's early life while the witnesses still live; and little remains for research in this direction. It would be impossible to enumerate all the authorities,—British, foreign, and American, consulted as to the later activities of the Subject, and the Author must content himself with indicating the source of any specific borrowing. He has to thank Mr. D. Willoughby for valuable co-operation with regard both to the plan and the material of the work. For the very interesting photographs illustrating incidents of the Subject's career the Author is indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. E. Hulton & Co., Ltd. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Mr. Lloyd George Frontispiece Mr. Lloyd George at the age of i8 Facing page 24 Mr. Lloyd George as President of the Local Government Board (1905-8) „ 96 Mr. Lloyd George addressing an open-air meeting at Criccieth in the early days of the War „ 176 Mr. Lloyd George during his Highland holiday in the Autumn of 1921. The Duke of Athol is leading his pony. „ 281 Mr. Lloyd George, Dame Lloyd George, and their grandchild at the laying of the foundation stone of the War Memorial Hall at Criccieth (June, 1922) „ 296 Mr, Lloyd George, Marshal Foch, and M. Briand on the Terrace at Chequers (1921) „ 313 Mr. Lloyd George, Dame Lloyd George, and Miss Megan Lloyd George in the Long Gallery at Chequers (1921) „ 328 CHAPTER I The Coalition Mind, so eminently illustrated in the subject of this study, is no new thing. Towards the close of the third century of the Christian era the son of a Dalmatian slave, profiting no less by the lack of commanding talent in his competitors than by his own great abilities, attained supreme power in the Roman world, effected a union of parties, skilfully converted actual and possible rivals into obedient lieutenants, contrived an elaborate bureaucratic system, and became in effect the founder of a new Empire. 'As the reign of Diocletian,' remarks Gibbon, 'was more illustrious than that of any of his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure. The strong claims of merit and of violence had frequently super- seded the ideal prerogatives of nobility; but a distinct line of separation was hitherto preserved between the free and the servile part of mankind.' The historian of the British Empire, equally impressed with a sense of significant novelty in the contrast between the unnotable origin and the illustrious achievement of the Right Honourable David Lloyd George, may be tempted to one of those fanciful parallels which are the besetting weakness of the historical im- agination. The task would be neither more difficult nor more futile than many actually attempted. It could be shown that the British statesman, like the Roman, was helped by the failure of a predecessor whose qualities were 'rather of the contemplative than the active kind.' It could be argued that both showed 'dexterity and application in business; a judicious mixture of mildness and rigour; steadiness to pursue ends; flexibility to vary means,' a disposition, moreover, never to employ force, when a purpose could be effected by policy. It could be maintained that each 'ensured his success by every means that prudence could suggest, and displayed with ostentation the consequences of his victory.' Stress might be laid on the dexterity with 2 MR. LLOYD GEORGE which both co-ordinated apparently obdurate and dis- cordant elements, so that the 'singular happiness' of their administrations could (for a time at least) be 'compared to a chorus of music whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the skilful hand of the first artist.' The successor of Gibbon might, indeed, lack the fortune to discover in any British Field-Marshal the analogue of that 'faithful soldier' employed by Diocletian, who was 'content to ascribe his own vic- tories to the wise counsels and auspicious influence of his benefactor.' But while noting how the Roman Senate was deprived of its 'small remains of power and consideration' he would hardly ignore the coincidence of a rapid if accidental decline in the prestige and autho- rity of the House of Commons during the period of Mr. George's ascendancy. Observing that both the Dalmatian and the Welshman made ostentation one principle of rule, and division another, and that both 'multiplied the wheels of government,' he might show that in each case the system involved a 'very material disadvantage' —that is to say, 'a more expensive establishment and consequently an increase of taxes,' which became in a brief space an 'intolerable and increasing grievance.' So far the parallel is Uttle more strained than most things in this vain kind. Nor is it impossible that time may further fortify it. In the full blaze of his glory Diocletian commanded the respect of the philosophic and the astonishment of the vulgar by a voluntary retirement. The modern statesman has more than once hinted that he, also, may some day withdraw to await, in rural seclusion, the day when he is laid, in accordance with wishes he has sometimes expressed, in a simple tomb under the shadow of his own mountains.* Antique record leaves it uncertain whether Diocletian's interest in the cabbage ante-dated his removal to Valona. Mr. George, in the plenitude of his powers, has already revealed an interest, rare in urban man- kind, in the still humbler mangel-wurzel. * Mr. A. G. Gardiner ('Pillars of Society') relates that on the day of the memorial service to the Marquess of Ripon a companion laugh- ingly remarked to Mr. George, 'When you die we'll give you a funeral like that.' 'No, you won't,' was the swift, almost passionate reply. 'When I die you will lay me in the shadow of the mountains.' MR. LLOYD GEORGE 3 It is only when we approach the matter of birth that the parallel fails. Mr. George's extraction might be held 'obscure/ though only in a sense embracing all but a tiny minority of his fellow-citizens. In no sense could it be deemed 'abject,' still less 'servile.' It was not even in the genuine sense poor. In speaking of himself as a 'cottage-bred man' and a 'child of the people,' Mr. George has contributed to a popular mis- understanding. By a tragic but common accident he spent his early years in close contact with the true poor. But his pedigree and family traditions, and even his upbringing, were authentically middle-class, and his own plans and ideas, from the first awakening of ambition, were those appropriate to the order which of all others offers the largest freedom and widest choice of self-development. Yet in some sense Mr. George's rise to supreme power does in truth present a significance such as Gibbon finds in the contrast between Diocletian's origin and destiny. It marks the end of a definite order of things. It does not necessarily herald the triumph of 'demo- cracy.' It does, with almost ritual emphasis, break the continuity of 'gentlemanocracy.' The true dis- tinction between Mr. Lloyd George and his predecessors has relation neither to birth nor to early poverty. It is simply a difference in training and tradition. Before him—with the exception of Disraeli—every British Prime Minister possessed the outlook of the English upper classes. When Mr. George went to 10 Downing Street in the last month of 191 6 that dreary threshold was passed for the first time by an official tenant who had missed, or escaped, the varnish of English higher culture. Of his predecessors some might, by chance, have lacked a public school or university education. But they were still gentlemen, because they had either family, or money, or both. Those, on the other hand, who possessed neither money nor coat armour were gentle- men by virtue of their passage through one of the national factories for the manufacture of gentle- men. But David Lloyd George, belonging to no family, possessing no money, was also deprived of what is called 'formal education.' It was indeed no ill-informed or 4 MR. LLOYD GEORGE ill-bred man who mused, perhaps in the very chair on which Pitt used to sit astride in the eager perusal of despatches, on problems vaster and more desperate than even Pitt had to revolve. Thirty years in the practice of politics and of a learned profession had given him a social ease and flexibiUty adequate to all the probable demands of his station. A strong memory, a rapid perception, wide if desultory reading, constant converse with the most considerable minds of his time had supplied the defects (easily exaggerated) of his schooling. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the varied experiences of a life spent in close contact with every kind of superiority could have left a singularly adaptable nature more deficient in the social arts and graces than a professor or a country clergyman.