Chapter 41
CHAPTER 73. The New Government in Britain, December 19, 1916 to May 2, 1917 Part 1. The new ministry in Britain entered upon office faced by a host of vexatious and intricate problems.
Romania had been overrun and was now making a last stand on the lines of the serif. Greece was in a state of naked chaos. In Russia, the incompetence of the bureaucracy was now grossly apparent. The campaign in the West had reached the apparent stagnation which comes with midwinter, and in consequence the attention of the people was diverted to domestic criticism.
The peace overtures of Germany and President Wilson's note had produced a situation which called for a wary and patient diplomacy. At home the increased activity of the German submarines had raised acutely the question of food and supplies. The need of men for the army was more urgent than ever if the strategic purpose of the
forces in the field was not to be compromised. But the new government had one clear advantage. It had been accepted by the people as a government of action, and the country at large was prepared to make any effort which it should direct. It was in the eyes of most men a quote, business government, an executive committee of the
whole nation. Hence when, in his first speech in the House of Commons on December 19, 1916, the new Prime Minister sketched a program of large and drastic measures, his demands were willingly granted. He summoned the country to a national lent, an honorable competition in sacrifice. He asked that every available acre should be used for the production of food, and that
the overconsumption of the rich should be cut down to the compulsory level of the poor. He proposed a system of immediate national service for war. He announced that the government would complete their control over mines and shipping. He warned his hearers that such as gave their trust to the new administration in the hope of a speedy victory would be doomed to disappointment, that there was a long and difficult road still
to travel before victory was won. But his tone was one of grave yet buoyant confidence, and he gave a new encouragement to those who believed that the resources of the whole empire should be mobilized by his promise to summon at an early date an imperial war conference. The country looked kindly at his committee of experts and was ready to grant them a fair
field for their energy. Few ministries have ever entered upon office accompanied by a more general goodwill. The linchpin of the coach was the Prime Minister, and with his accession to the highest place The world became more fully cognizant of one of the most remarkable and potent figures in modern history.
His pre-war record had shown that he had unsurpassed demagogic talents, and that rare gift a sense of political atmosphere. He might err in his ultimate judgments, but rarely in his immediate intuitions. If his strategy was often erroneous, his tactics were seldom at fault. He had been accused both by colleagues and opponents of lack of principle, for in truth
he cared little for dogma and distrusted the Whig Code so far as he troubled himself to understand it. His interest was not in doctrine but in life, and his quick sense of reality made him at heart an opportunist, one who loved the persistency of facts and was prepared to select, if need be, from the repertory of any party.
This elasticity, combined with his high political courage, rendered him, even in his bitterest campaigns, not wholly repugnant to his opponents. He was always human and had nothing of the dogmatic rigidity, the lean spiritual pride of the elder liberalism. In December 1916 Mr. Lloyd George was but partially revealed to his countrymen and to
the world, but enough was known to make it clear that he had great assets for the task. He was a born coalitionist, sitting always loose to parties. A born war minister, for strife was his element. And a born leader of democracy. Of democracy indeed, both in its strength and weakness, he was more than a representative,
he was a personification. He had its fatal facility in general ideas, its sentimentality, its love of picturesque words, and he had also its incongruous realism in action. Devotees of consistency were driven mad by his vagaries, for a tyrant or an oligarchy may be consistent, but not a free people.
He had a democracy short memory and brittle personal loyalties. Perhaps his supreme merit as a popular leader was his comprehensibility. No atmosphere of mystery surrounded his character or his talents. The qualities and the defects of both were evident to all, and the plain man found in them something which he could himself assess, positive merits, positive weaknesses, so that
he could give or withhold his confidence as if he were dealing with a familiar friend. This power of producing a sense of intimacy among millions who have never seen his face or heard his voice is the greatest of assets for a democratic statesman, and Mr. Lloyd George had it not only for Britain, but for all the world. He was a living figure everywhere, as well known in France as Monsieur Brion, an intelligible
character in America as much as Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilson. A reputation such as Mr. Balfour's or Mr. Asquith's was a local thing which grew dim beyond the seas, but Mr. Lloyd George's was like an electric current whose strength was scarcely lessened by transmission over great distances. When he spoke he was understood by the whole round earth.
His speeches made exactly the appeal which he intended, whether heard in London or read in Paris and Petrograd. He used a universal tongue, and his cardinal strength lay in this universality, in his abounding share of a common humanity. It is a rare and happy gift, and while it has been possessed by certain artists and
thinkers, it has been the endowment of but few statesmen. Apart from this special genius, his most notable qualities seemed, at the moment of taking office, to be his courage and energy. His physical appearance was a clue to the man. The thick-set figure, the deep chest, the bright, wary swordsman's eye, all spoke of
an ebullient and inexhaustible life. As the months passed, critics were to be found to depreciate his wisdom, his honesty, even his valor, but no man ever denied his vitality. He was exhilarated rather than depressed by misfortunes, even though he might be also a little frightened.
His strength was that he overflowed at all times with zest and interest and passion. The allied cause now made the same emotional appeal to him that the handicaps and sufferings of the poor had made in earlier days. He was not only energetic himself, but an inspirer of energy in others. Like a gadfly, he stung all his environment to life.
He was inordinately quick at grasping the essentials of a problem, and with him the deed did not wait long on the thought. His well-wishers were less certain whether this instinct for action was combined with an equal sagacity in counsel and prescience in judgment. For it is a rule of mortality that the considering brain and the act of will are not commonly
found together in the same being. It was not enough that such a man should choose able colleagues, for his temperamental dominance was so strong that the subtlest and shrewdest of advisors would be apt to be dragged along at his impetuous chariot wheels. It was clear that he would not falter in the race, but there was the risk that his fine
ardour might be sometimes wasted through misdirection, and that paths might be chosen in haste which would have to be abandoned at leisure. He was above all things the inspirer and comforter of the nation through the medium of the spoken word. As an orator he was in a unique position.
There have been many greater speakers, men who have at their disposal a more complete armory of all the weapons of rhetoric and debate, but there have been few indeed who have had his specific talent. He had not the golden eloquence of Lord Rosebury, rich in historical allusion and imagery, or Mr. Balfour's architectural power, which made each part of the argument fall into its place
with a mathematical precision, or the austere elevation like that of the English Bible, which is found in the best speeches of Abraham Lincoln. His oratory was altogether less accomplished. The product of a native talent rather than of a laborious apprenticeship. At its worst it was merely noisy, the robustious hammer-and-tongues business of the hustings.
In its average quality it was homely, vigorous, hard-hitting, and usually effective, giving the ordinary man something he could readily understand, and providing the answer to his opponents which the ordinary man desired to give. It was platitudinous, but often witty and invariably picturesque. But there were moments when it became poetry, a rare and exquisite music which lingered
on the air like an old song and transformed the dusty arena of politics as a sunset transfigures, a dingy landscape. Such passages were usually illustrations drawn from some episode of the natural world or some recollection of boyhood. Take such a passage as this from his speech at Carnarvon on February 3, 1917, spoken among
the Welsh hills toward the close of a bitter winter. Quote, There are rare epochs in the history of the world when in a few raging years the character, the destiny of the whole race, is determined for unknown ages. This is one. The winter wheat is being sown.
It is better, it is surer, it is more bountiful in its harvest than when it is sown in the soft springtime. There are many storms to pass through, there are many frosts to endure, before the land brings forth its green promise. But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
End quote. End put note. They were never recondite, but their use was so apt, their presentation so beautiful, that they came to the mind of his hearers with the shock of a revelation. It was simplicity itself, but it was the simplicity of genius, and save in a few rare utterances
of Cromwell, the history of British oratory may be searched in vain for a parallel. And because it was poetry, its appeal was worldwide, for true poetry knows no frontiers of race or tongue. The machinery which the Prime Minister had announced on his accession to office seemed at first sight adequate to his purpose.
The old cabinet of 23 had been too large and cumbrous, it had met infrequently, and it had kept no minutes. The special war committee which existed had been too informal and too ill-defined in its powers to be effective. Mr. Lloyd George's war cabinet was five in number, and only one of its members, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, had the cares of a heavy department to distract him. His body of five had their hands free to direct the management of the campaigns. They were picked to men who brought to the common stock a great endowment of consultative and executive competence. Mr. Arthur Henderson was a labor leader with a wide knowledge of the mind of British workers,
and he had the patience and sagacity and unredorical patriotism of the best type of his class. Mr. Bonar Law was a businessman with a high reputation for practical ability, and his remarkable skill in debate made him an admirable exponent of policy in Parliament. Lord Curzon had been the most successful viceroy of India since Dalhousie. Lord Milner had been the civilian leader in a long and difficult war, and had borne the
weight of the reconstruction of South Africa. All who had ever worked with him were aware that he possessed administrative talents which were probably not equaled by any contemporary Englishman. And at the head of this distinguished junta was Mr. Lloyd George, with his magnetic energy and his quick imagination.
It seemed on paper an ideal arrangement for the conduct of campaigns. It was a proof of the elasticity of the British constitution that a wholly novel machinery could come into being at once, without legislative sanction, without debate in Parliament or in the country, on the authority of one man. But those who examined the scheme closely, while fully alive to its merits, saw certain
dangers in the near future. The new war cabinet was the only cabinet. The other members of the ministry were departmental heads, without opportunity for consultation or collective decision except insofar as they might be summoned to attend the war cabinet at odd meetings.
But the British constitution is based on collective resolutions and collective responsibility. Again, while the major business was the war, the normal government of the country had to be carried on. Important decisions must be taken in such matters as finance, education, and labor, which might be purely domestic in character, but which required the assent of the whole
government. And even in internal affairs, many questions might bear a war complexion. Hence, it seemed certain that the war cabinet would not only have to perform the special functions for which it was created, but to do the work of the old cabinet as well. In practice, its membership could not be limited to five, for other ministers would require
to be constantly in attendance. And in practice, it could not confine itself to problems directly arising out of the war, but must include in its province the whole government of Britain. Finally, one of Mr. Lloyd George's first acts was to create a number of new departments – shipping control, national service, food control, pensions – which were not branches
of old departments, but directly responsible to the war cabinet itself. It looked as if the Committee of Five might be swamped with endless matters of detail, referred to them because there was no other mode of reference. At first, however, the danger was not pressing, and the war cabinet, sitting in almost continuous session, endeavoured to draw together the threads of war administration.
It showed courage and energy in grappling both with internal and foreign problems. The Prime Minister went to Paris and Rome. Lord Milner was dispatched to Russia. Conferences of the Allies became frequent. And, most vital of all, a war conference of the British Empire was called for the early
This conference took the form of a temporary enlargement of the war cabinet, the Dominions Prime Ministers or their representatives, and the Indian delegates being included for the purpose in its membership. It was the eighth conference of the Empire, which had been held since the first Jubilee Conference of 1887.
At the earlier ones, the main questions discussed had been imperial defence, imperial reciprocity, and imperial consolidation. But the vital question of cooperation in war had not been seriously raised till the conference of 1909. It had been developed at the Coronation Conference of 1911, when Sir Edward Grey took the representatives
of the Dominions into his confidence on matters of foreign policy. But up to the outbreak of hostilities, these deliberations had not resulted in the devising of any real machinery for united effort. The old doctrine of a loose partnership of self-governing peoples held its ground, a friendly partnership based on frequent consultations, but a partnership in which the main burden
both of responsibility and of action lay upon Britain herself. The war had wholly changed the outlook both of the mother country and of the Dominions. Cooperation in the field, in finance, and in all forms of war activity had become a tremendous reality. But the machinery of cooperation was still faulty.
The conduct of the campaigns and of foreign policy still rested exclusively with the British government. This would have been well enough had the Dominions' contribution been made merely out of loyalty and friendship for the parent land. But that was not the main motive.
Australian and Canadian, New Zealander and South African fought side by side with British troops, not primarily in defence of Britain, but in defence of their own homelands and on behalf of those ideals of civilisation and international honour which they realised to be the only securities for their future freedom and peace. Hence there must be cooperation not only in effort, but in the direction of that effort.
And from this practical and responsible partnership in the conduct of war, there must follow a true partnership in the conduct of peace. The Prime Minister was under no delusion. Quote, you do not suppose that the overseas nations can raise and place in the field armies containing an enormous proportion of their best manhood, and not want to have a say,
and a real say, in determining the use to which they are to be put. Up to the present the British government has shouldered the responsibility for the policy of the war practically alone. It now wishes to know that in its measures for prosecuting the war to a finish, and in its negotiations for peace, it will be carrying out a policy agreed upon by the representatives
of the whole empire, sitting in council together. Of this I am certain. The peoples of the empire will have found a unity in the war such as never existed before it, a unity not only in history but of purpose. Do you tell me that the peoples who have stood together and staked everything in order to
bring about the liberation of the world, are not going to find some way of perpetuating that unity afterwards on an equal basis? End quote. End of chapter 73, part 1. Read by Jenny, 2023.
