Lloyd George
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Frank Dilnot >> Lloyd George
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In low voice and conversational phrase Lloyd George began his speech. He
told of the money that had to be raised, but he did not stop at the
narrative of what may be called ordinary expenditure. He told how the
primary duty of a rich nation was to help those who had been exhausted,
to give a chance to the downtrodden. He related some of the things he
had in his mind--the insurance of workmen against illness and
unemployment, the payment of pensions for persons over a certain age. He
told of how unemployment might be largely eliminated by developments in
the countryside, through new methods of agriculture, through light
railways, through afforestation, through stock-breeding, through the
reclamation of land. Efforts in these directions would not only help a
great many of the population at the present time, but would provide
enormously increased opportunities for coming generations. He proposed
that part of the money of the year should be taken up with these projects.
Very soon he swept into the explanation of how new money was to be
raised. It was necessary to set up a system which would, year by year,
produce an increasing supply of money. When Lloyd George came to the
point of his actual proposals you could have heard the slightest rustle
of an order paper, so keen were the silent Commons. He was going to
raise the income tax, he said, the existing impost on incomes of 160
pounds a year and over. He was going to put a super tax on rich people,
those who had 5,000 pounds a year or more. He was going to make big
additions to the duty charged on great estates when they changed hands.
Demand after demand he showered on the rich and comfortable. The
assembly, expecting surprises, had them in abundance. The Chancellor
drew sheaf after sheaf of notes from the red despatch-box on the table in
front of him and explained with an air of intensive reasonableness the
huge sums he proposed to draw from the property-owners in the country.
New inroads were to be made on the profits of land and liquor.
Coal-mines were to pay royalties. People were to be taxed when they
became rich without any effort on their own part, but by fortunate
accident in the increased value of special localities. There was to be a
complete valuation of every yard of land in the country as the basis for
developments to come.
Although the money to be raised that year by these new proposals would
not much more than cover what was required by immediate necessities, the
taxation was such as to multiply in product as years went on. Finally
the motive behind the revolutionary Budget of Lloyd George came in the
concluding words of his speech. "It is essential that we should make
provision for the defense of our country. But, surely, it is equally
imperative that we should make it a country even better worth defending
for all and by all. And it is that this expenditure is for both these
purposes that alone can justify the Government. I am told that no
Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever been called upon to impose such
heavy taxes in a time of peace. This, Mr. Chairman, is a war Budget. It
is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and
squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this
generation has passed away we shall have advanced a great step toward
that good time when poverty and wretchedness, and the human degradation
which always follows in its camp, will be as remote from the people of
this country as the wolves which once infested its forests."
It took a day or so for the full effect of the Budget to be understood.
And then enthusiasm rose in the breasts of Liberals and Labor men, while
the middle and upper classes poured forth outcries and protests. As the
proposals were discussed in detail, feeling arose on both sides, and
Lloyd George was variously described as a genius who was laying the
foundation of a new Britain and a predatory politician out to catch
votes. Throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom his name
was on the lips of all, either in execration or in praise.
The greatest Parliamentary fight of a generation began to take form in
the House of Commons. The Conservatives, led by Mr. Balfour, put up an
obstructive fight to every line and almost every word of the finance bill
which was founded on the Budget. Departmental duties all day, the onward
fight with his finance measure throughout the night and often the early
hours of the morning, became the routine of Lloyd George's life. I have
seen him at the table at the House of Commons at seven o'clock in the
morning, with ashen face and burning eyes, after a week of all-night
sittings, persuading, explaining, and arguing with determined opponents
of his measure. Often enough in these fatiguing morning hours there
would be sitting up behind the grille in the ladies' gallery an anxious,
but proud, woman watching the Welsh statesman at the table. It was Mrs.
George, the pretty Maggie Owen of years before whom the young Welsh
solicitor had taken from her father's farm.
In justice I ought to summarize in a few sentences written at the time
the attitude of the opponents of the Budget. "Why put forward these
extraordinary changes? Here was an unequaled nation, the richest and
greatest in existence, which by its character and energy had built up an
empire reaching across the globe, with Parliamentary institutions which
were the admiration of every state. The millions of our population were
welded in a common sentiment, unsurpassed since history began, making
unshakable the foundations of our nationality. We had fought our way to
modern conditions very slowly, and now, class for class, we were perhaps
the most contented and prosperous people on the face of the earth.
Admitted that we had vast crowds of silently enduring poor. (The poor we
have always with us, as has every great nation.) But the way to
ameliorate the evils among them was not to disturb the comfort,
convenience, or property of the rich, but to increase the prosperity of
rich and poor alike by putting a tax on foreigners' goods coming into
this country, thus providing revenue and increasing home manufactures at
one stroke. That was the course to pursue, not to disturb the elaborate
and happy system, the pride of the world, by sudden incursions into the
liberty of the individual and by depredations on the privileged in order
to benefit the unhappy. Property, whether obtained without effort or
built up by the hardest of labor, had its inalienable rights, and
violently to outrage those rights was not only unjust to the persons
chiefly concerned, but dangerous to the state at large."
The campaign which was set in motion against Lloyd George has not been
equaled in violence since the old free-speaking days of a century ago.
He was called a vulgar Welsh attorney. He was accused of having every
kind of attribute which was contemptible and hateful. One of the things
urged against him was that he was no gentleman and could not understand
the feeling of gentlefolk, owing to his unfortunate upbringing. His
opponents thus attacking him went into paroxysms of rage over a speech he
made at Limehouse in the East End of London, where he defended his
Budget. The Limehouse speech has become famous as an example of Lloyd
George's oratory. I give a few extracts to enable an idea to be formed
about it.
"The Budget is introduced, not merely for the purpose of raising barren
taxes, but taxes that are fertile taxes, taxes that will bring forth
fruit--the security of the country which is paramount in the minds of
all, provision for the aged and deserving poor. It was time it was done.
It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours, probably the richest
country in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen, that it
should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and
possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have
to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore through
the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a new path through, an easier
one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising
money to pay for the new road, aye, and to widen it, so that two hundred
thousand paupers shall be able to join in the march. There are many in
the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are
among them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution toward
the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen, they are shabby rich men.
"We propose to do more by the means of the Budget. We are raising money
to provide against the evils and sufferings that follow from
unemployment. We are raising money for the purpose of assisting our
great friendly societies to provide for the sick, the widows, and the
orphans. We are providing money to enable us to develop the resources of
our own land. I do not believe any fair-minded man would challenge the
justice and the fairness of the objects which we have in view of raising
this money. But there are some who say that the taxes themselves are
unjust, unfair, unequal, oppressive, notably so the land taxes. They are
engaged, not merely in the House of Commons, but outside the House of
Commons, in assailing these taxes with a concentrated and sustained
ferocity which will not even allow a comma to escape with its life.
"We claim that the tax we impose on land is fair, just, and moderate.
They go on threatening that if we proceed they will cut down their
benefactions and discharge labor. What kind of labor? What is the labor
they are going to choose for dismissal? Are they going to threaten to
devastate rural England while feeding themselves and dressing themselves?
Are they going to reduce their gamekeepers? That would be sad. The
agricultural laborer and the farmer might then have some part of the game
which they fatten with their labor. But what would happen to you in the
season? No weekend shooting with the Duke of Norfolk for any of us. But
that is not the kind of labor they are going to cut down. They are going
to cut down productive labor--builders and gardeners--and they are going
to ruin their property so that it shall not be taxed. All I can say is
this: the ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is
stewardship. It has been reckoned as such in the past, and if they cease
to discharge their functions, which include the security and defense of
the country and the looking after the broken in their villages and
neighborhood, those functions which are part of the traditional duties
attaching to the ownership of land and which have given to it its title,
if they cease to discharge those functions, the time will come to
reconsider the conditions under which land is held in this country. No
country, however rich, can permanently afford to have quartered upon its
revenue a class which declines to do the duty which it is called upon to
perform. And, therefore, it is one of the prime duties of statesmanship
to investigate those conditions.
"We are placing the burdens on the broad shoulders. Why should I put
burdens on the people? I am one of the children of the people. I was
brought up among them. I know their trials, and God forbid that I should
add one grain of trouble to the anxiety which they bear with such
patience and fortitude. When the Prime Minister did me the honor of
inviting me to take charge of the national Exchequer at a time of great
difficulty I made up my mind in framing the Budget which was in front of
me that at any rate no cupboard should be barer, no lot should be harder
to bear. By that test I challenge them to judge the Budget."
The passion among the middle classes and the upper classes rose to such a
pitch against Lloyd George's proposals as to cause more than one serious
and religiously minded person to write and express wonder that Heaven did
not strike dead such a wicked man before he could accomplish his fell
purpose in the ruin of the country.
There is a story told about a man who jumped from the pier at Brighton
into the sea to rescue a drowning person. In describing his experience
the rescuer said: "It was easy enough. Only a few strokes were necessary
to reach him. I got hold of him by the collar just as he was going down.
Having turned him over on his back to see that it wasn't Lloyd George, I
then brought him to the pier."
The House of Lords felt they had the country behind them, and they
proceeded to the unprecedented and unconstitutional course of killing the
Budget. This was exactly what Mr. Asquith and his first lieutenant had
been waiting for. Lloyd George saw the fruits of his labor destroyed in
a day, but he watched the process, not with despair, but with grim
satisfaction.
The Lords had broken their last Liberal bill, for Lloyd George had
determined to break the Lords.
VI
HOW LLOYD GEORGE BROKE THE HOUSE OF LORDS
A few days later, with Lloyd George sitting by his side, Mr. Asquith,
the Prime Minister, made the following announcement in Parliament: "The
House of Commons would, in the judgment of his Majesty's Government, be
unworthy of its past and of the traditions of which it is the custodian
and trustee if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear
that it does not mean to brook the greatest indignity and the most
arrogant usurpation to which for more than two centuries it has been
asked to submit. We have advised the Crown to dissolve Parliament at
the earliest possible moment."
The preparations for the general election included a campaign of
vilification against Lloyd George which shook even some of the
Conservatives. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the other hand,
was not disturbed, and he did not hesitate to do a little vilification
on his own account. "What a low creature!" was the instant retort to
any incursions of this kind.
One of the secrets of Lloyd George's career was that he always made his
opponents too angry to appraise him correctly. They simply couldn't do
it. A little cold-blooded study of him and his past history would have
served them well. Because Lloyd George had a peculiarly bitter tongue
and a peculiarly stimulating one he was abused as a fluent demagogue
with nothing but unscrupulous and violent words to give him prominence.
This was not a mere pretense on the part of the upper classes. They
seriously believed it. As a result Lloyd George had a tremendous pull
over the whole lot of them. One secret of his power was that his real
strength lay not in words, but in his capacity for action. Because he
talked about things with recklessness and force it was assumed that he
could not do things. The hard fact was that he was more effective in
doing things and in getting them done than in talking about them. He
secured a wonderful advantage from all this. While hard names were
being showered on him, and even while he was replying to them, he was
at work quietly. I have often thought that as soon as his opponents
found him out they felt that this was not fair, that he ought to have
played the game and to have shown himself as exactly the kind of man
they had portrayed him to be. Yet, at the time, his enemies would
probably have been contemptuous of the suggestion that this ranting
person could possibly be a man who was specially gifted in carrying
plots and plans and big state projects into execution. They had to
learn to their cost that he was both resolute and stealthy.
Lloyd George had as his chief Mr. Asquith, a man of crystal intellect,
who had won high distinction, first at his university, than at the bar,
where he was a famous advocate, and latterly in the House of Commons,
where his mastery of Parliamentary arts was only equaled by that of the
rival leader, Mr. Balfour. His speeches were powerful, but they
appealed to the head rather than to the emotions. Unlike Lloyd George,
he was not by way of being a prophet. He could not by sheer intensity
sway the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith, moreover, was quite incapable
of stirring a public audience on the platform outside the House, and he
lacked that terrific energy which distinguished his principal
colleague. But he was, nevertheless, a first-rate partner. His
steady, cold brain would carry into effect with precision an intricate,
delicate, and bold plan of operations. He had hardihood. Every wile
in public life was known to him. He had strong will-power. And in
sheer brain of what may be called the purely intellectual type he was
miles ahead, not only of Lloyd George, but of all the other politicians
of the day. I should say here that he undoubtedly felt deeply the slur
cast upon the House of Commons by the Lords. And there is one more
trait that should be mentioned, his unshakable loyalty to those who
served under him, and to his brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer not
less than to any of the others.
It implies, however, no disrespect to Mr. Asquith to say that he had
become the instrument of Lloyd George. It was the latter's subtle
brain that evolved the possible consequences which might ensue after
his first stroke in the Budget of April, 1909. It was his bold spirit
that urged the desperate course which was presently pursued. He
measured the Lords and decided that if they could not be frightened
into defeat they could be hustled into a wild attempt which would be
equally disastrous to them.
Joyfully he entered the fray as soon as the Lords threw out the Budget.
In a public speech made immediately after the Lords' action he said: "I
come here to-day not to preach a funeral oration. I am here neither to
bury nor to praise the Budget. If it is buried it is in the sure and
certain hope of a glorious resurrection. As to its merits, no one
appreciates them more sincerely than I do, but its slaughter has raised
greater, graver, and more fruitful issues. We have got to arrest the
criminal. We have to see he perpetrates no further crime. A new
chapter is now being written for the sinister assembly which is more
responsible than any other power for wrecking popular hopes, but which,
in my judgment, has perpetrated its last act of destructive fury. They
have slain the Budget. In doing so they have killed the bill which, if
you will permit me to say so, had in it more promises of better things
for the people of this country than most things which have been
submitted to the House of Commons. It made provision against the
inevitable evils which befall such large masses of our poor population,
through old age, infirmity, sickness, and unemployment. The schemes of
which the Budget was the small foundation would, in my judgment, if
they had been allowed to fructify, have eliminated at least hunger from
the terrors that haunt the workman's cottage. Yet here you have an
order of men blessed with every fortune which Providence can bestow on
them grudging a small pittance out of their super-abundance in order to
protect those who have built up their wealth against the haunting
terror of misery and despair. They have thrown it out, and in doing so
they have initiated one of the greatest, gravest, and most promising
struggles of the time. Liberty owes as much to the foolhardiness of
its foes as it does to the sapience and wisdom of its friends. At last
the case between the peers and the people has been set down for trial
in the great assize of the people, and the verdict will be given soon."
The country was quickly in the midst of the election. It cannot be
said that Lloyd George dealt lightly with the House of Lords. Here is
a typical reference: "Who are the guardians of this mighty British
people? I shall have to make exceptions, but they are men who have
neither the training, the qualifications, nor the experience which
would fit them for such a gigantic task. The majority of them are
simply men whose sole qualification is that they are the first-born of
persons who had just as little qualifications as themselves. To invite
this imperial race, this, the greatest commercial nation in the world,
the nation that has taught the world in the principles of
self-government and liberty--to invite this nation itself to sign a
decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the
guardianship of such people, that is an insult which I hope will be
thrown back with ignominy."
Not only the upper classes, but a great many of the lower classes
stormed and raged at these and similar words. The _Daily Mail_ went so
far as to give a column of titbits from Lloyd George's speeches in
order to show what a really vulgar and detestable person he was, and
how unfit to occupy any leading position in the state.
The election results as they began to come in indicated that while the
Liberals were losing a number of seats which in years gone by had been
Conservative strongholds, they were, nevertheless, going to retain the
confidence of the country. In the result Mr. Asquith found himself
once again in command of the House of Commons with a majority of one
hundred and twenty-four.
The cards were placed in the hands of the Liberals now, but they had to
be very carefully played. The House of Lords swallowed its humiliation
as best it could and passed the famous Budget on April 28, 1910,
exactly one year after its introduction into the House of Commons.
They did not make any fuss about it, because, as I shall show, they had
other things to think of. I remember the day on which the bill became
law in the House of Lords. There were very few peers present. Several
of the members of the House of Commons walked across from the Commons
to witness the culmination of their effort. Among them was Lloyd
George. He came in under the gallery, sprucely dressed in a morning
coat, his long hair brushed back from his forehead and above his ears
with a neatness which was not observable in his moments of excitement.
To-day he had no work to do: one job was finished and he was only on
the threshold of another. As he stood at the bar he looked over the
members of the House of Lords with a grave and benignant expression
which reminded one of a fond father regarding erring children. I
thought of the studious expression which usually characterized the face
of that daredevil boy down at Llanystumdwy all those years ago. I am
quite sure that the peers who observed him surveying them did not think
he was benignant. If I am any judge of feelings, they looked upon him,
as he stood there at the bar, as a particularly malignant type of
viper. With a genial smile Lloyd George exchanged a chatty word or two
with an M. P. at his side. No one would have guessed that there was
bitterness in his soul at this assembly or that with grim purpose he
was even now marking out the destruction of their powers.
It is the fashion in the House of Lords to give the King's consent to
legislation by proxy. The consent, moreover, is given now, as for many
hundreds of years past, not in the English language, but in the
language of the old Norman-French conqueror of nearly a thousand years
ago. A bewigged clerk read out in resonant tones the title of the bill
and from another official there came the answer of the King, "Le Roy le
veult" ("The King wills it"). The Budget of 1909 had become part of
the law of the United Kingdom. Lloyd George, still chatting cheerfully
with a fellow-member of the House of Commons, walked back to the Lower
Chamber.
If any of the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the
course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to
get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have
been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the
presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A
cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith with
regard to the Lords. The plan was no less than this--to take away from
the peers their constitutional rights to do more than to hold up for
three successive sessions any legislation passed by the House of
Commons. They were not to have the power of killing bills, though they
might retard them a little. And so far as money bills were concerned
they were not to be allowed to delay them at all. The Commons were to
be given power to pass any money bill over the head of the Lords if the
latter did not agree to it immediately it was sent up to them. In
these cases the King and Commons between them were to be the lawmaking
power, and as the King's assent is always automatically given to the
proposals of Ministers in power the net result would be the complete
supremacy of the Commons in Government.
But how were these changes to be made effective? They could, of
course, only be brought into force by legal enactment, and it was
impossible to expect the Lords to sign their own death warrant. It was
settled between Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith to take the House of Lords
by the throat. Lloyd George was prepared for extreme measures, and Mr.
Asquith, a student of English history, found out a way by means of
ancient precedent. Twice before in the story of the British Parliament
there had been similar episodes. In the reign of Queen Anne and in the
reign of William IV. the Prime Minister of the day, encountering
opposition from the House of Lords, had gone to the reigning sovereign
and secured the promise of the creation of enough new peers to turn the
minority in the House of Lords into a preponderance of votes. This was
the plan now agreed upon, only the audacity of it was far greater than
on previous occasions, because Queen Anne's new peers numbered but
twelve and the number of new peers proposed to be created in 1832 to
pass the Reform bill under William IV. was limited to eighty. Mr.
Asquith and Lloyd George faced the fact that on this occasion it would
be necessary to create something like five hundred new peers.
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