MR. LLOYD GEORGE’S SPEECHES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 936, 31 December 1910, Page 4

MR. LLOYD GEORGE’S SPEECHES.

HIS “ VISIT TO AUSTRALIA.” THE RIVAL EXPONENTS. London, November 25. After the great issue at stake, perhaps the most interesting phase to the spectators of the elections in great Britain is the sort of triangular duel between the three exponents of what might be called “the new oratory”—Mr Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, and Mr. F. E. Smith. There is a magnificent intellectual feast for any onlooker in the thought-out, -casoned, brilliant deliveries ol the cider statesmen, such as Mr Balfour and Mr Asquith, which are booming like heavy artillery i v the background. But a good part of the Radical rank and file opens its newspaper to see what are the latest shots by Mr Lloyd George or Mr Churchill, while a section of the Conservatives waits and chuckles in its armchair over re finely-pointed replies of Mr /. E. Smith the only Conservative who approaches this style—and who happens, curiously enough, in private life to be a friend and associate of Mr Churchill. “ The new oratory ” is not altogether popular with the older sections of either party. Mr Lloyd George’s epigrams are becoming known as “ Lime houseries,” after his lamous speech to working men at Limehouse last January. This week, to a similar East End meeting at Limehouse, he delivered a speech of which The Times, detesting the style and despising the matter, admits the brilliancy. The most striking and typical part of that speech was his “ visit to Australia.” It arose this way : Dealing with the House of Lords, Mr LloydGeorge said: “No free country would look at our system,” and as an example of a free country he took Australia, and asked his hearers to imagine they were a mission going there to try to persuade Australians to adopt a House of Lords for their second house. He said:

Let us go to Australia guided by a tariff reform tripper —(laughter)— and before we land we say, “Have you a second chamber here?” and they say “Yes.” Then we say, “ Then we will stay the night. (Laughter). Would you mind telling us how it is composed ?” They say, “Just the class of people you see anywhere round here. It is elected by all the people, male'-'and female, who are of age.” “ But,” our Tariff Reform friend would say, “ surely you give more votes to the owners of property than to the mere man who works for his living ?” And they would say, “No; why? Here we want to be governed by souls and not by sods.” (Cheers). Then our Tory friends would say, “Is life safe here?” “Absolutely.” “Is property secure?” “Absolutely.” “Can a man safely bring his capital to this country?” And the Australian would say, “From all I hear, it would be much safer than in many quarters in the city of London.” “Well, then,” we would say to them —mind you we are on a mission to convert the heathen to the principles of a hereditary second chamber —we would say, “Ah, you must be wrong ; Lord Curzon has assured me, coming fresh from his triumphs in India, with that modesty which perfumes all his utterances —(laughter)— that the best work of the world was always done by members of the aristocracy.” The Australian would be very impressed with that portentous proof, and he would say, “ Ah, what shall Australia do to be saved ? Give us an aristocracy. How are we to get o.:e ?”

We would say, “ Nothing easier m the world. I will give you our in t oldest and ancient stock, and consequently our best. Because an aristocracy is like cheese, the cider it is the better it becomes.” (Laughter). Wc would say to them, “I will tell you how we got our best and full quality. A few

shiploads of French filibusters came over from the coast of Normanby. They killed all the owners of property, and levied for their own use death duties of 100 per cent- upon them. (Laughter). Unfortunately, ever since their descendants have been cutting each others throats. And there are very few of them leff, and they are very costly. I need hardly assure you that the common and vulgar doctrine as to the survival of the fittest does not apply to them.” “ Now, that is how we started.” We would say to the Australians, “ Have you anything like that ? ” And they would say, “ We had a few years ago some bushrangers—(laughter)—but they only stole cattle.” “ Oh,” we say, “ cattle 1 won’t do, it must be land, and on a large scale.” (Laughter.) Well, says tne Australian, “it really does not matter. We banged the last of them before they had an opportunity 0/ founding a family. Have you anything else ? ” (Laughter.; Well, we would say, “Our second quality arose in this way. We had a great religious reformation, and we had a certain number of people who took advantage of i.tto appropriate to their own uses land and buildings which had been consecrated to feed the needy, and to attend the sick. The poor never knew where to turn, and alter years of discontent and famine and rebellion at last they set up a system whereby these poor people were provided for out of the rates. And they are people whose descendants hurl at us the epithets of robbers, thieves, spoliators, because we dare put a half-penny tax on the land they purloined. The Home Secretary (Mr Winston Churchill) and I the other day paid a visit to Dartmoor. On the bleak mistrodden upland there was an old man of 65. in the convict garb. He had been sentenced to 13 years’ penal servitude, because, under the influence of drink, he had broken into a church poorbox and stolen two shillings. (Shame.) The next time I am called a thief and robber by one of the descendants of those noblemen, because I propose a tax upon the wealthy, I will say; “You are living upon the proceeds of the poor-box which your ancestors robbed.” (Cheers), Well, then, after that brief historical explanation I would spread out that record quality of goods, and say, ‘‘Have you anything to match that.” And they would say, “We have never been quite as bad as that in our worst days in this country.” “Well, then,” I would say, “1 am afraid we cannot help you. We have given you oar two best qualities.” We might go on and spread out a few more—the peerages created to ennoble the indiscretions of kings. We could go on—but it is hopeless —“Don’t you think you could found an aristocracy out of something of that sort ?’ ’ They would say, “Rather than be governed by men like that, we would have a Senate of kangaroos.” (Loud laughter and cheers). I would give them up as a bad job, and go on to Canada. I would say ;—“Have you a second Chamber here ?” and they would say, “Yes” ; and 1 would turn to my porter and say ; “Then you can pass my luggage through the Customs what sort of second Chamber?” And they would say: “It is nominated by the Prime Minister ; he is a Liberal.” “Then do you mean to say that both Chambers are Liberal ?” “Yes.” “I then tell you, on the authority of the Daily Mail, that this country is not fit for a civilised person to live in. You must have a hereditary Chamber at once.” (Laughter), They would say: “How would you set about it ?” “Pick up the most ancient stock in this land. They must have something to do with the land, but they have never cultivated it themselves. They must not do any work ; they must hunt, ride, shoot, recreation ol that sort,” “At the end,” says the Canadians, “wc have got the people who exactly meet this description ; they have never done any work ; they are the most ancient stock in our country ; they do nothing all day

long except hunt, and shoot, and ride ; they are very stately, dignified, and idle ; they have every qualification of an aristocracy ; but we shut them up in reservations, to keep them out of mischief.” (Laughter and cheers). The old Dartmoor prisoner to whom Mr Lloyd George referred has since been released by Mr Churchill. But it is characteristic of Mr Lloyd George’s speeches that while his arguments were brilliant the facts were that the old prisoner had had nine previous convictions, and that ten years of his sentence were what is called preventive detention on conviction as a habitual criminal, and three years werejor stealing. The next evening Mr Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, addressed a meeting at Islington. He said that four or five different lords were bm r,iug forward resolutions to reform the Lords. The downward path of the House ol Lords was paved with resolutions. Lord Lansdowne offered them a reformed House of Lords, rather like a Carlton Club. These resolutions were nothing more than “vague, complicated, panic - stricken trash.” Mr Churchill was not by any means at his best, but the Times put from its own point of view what many people feel about Mr Churchill’s speeches, when it said next day, “so far as we can judge of that particular kind of political output, we should say that Mr Churchill comes a long way after his great exemplar. The difference is to be felt rather than defined, but there is a spontaneity about the abusiveuess of Mr Lloyd George which we miss in Mr Churchill’s declaration. It is the difference between the natural genius and cultivated talent.” In the same hall in which Mr Churchill spoke, Mr F. E. Smith spoke the next night. They were having an election, he said, because Mr Redmond had ordered it. They were a “Toe-the-line Government.” (Cheers). “They are all toeing the line —the fireeater, the Limehouser —■ he is toeing the line too. They cannot with a very ancient people play the confidence trick twice over in one year. (Cheers). Years ago Mr Lloyd George raced all over England chasing up his old vulgarities. (Laughter). I daresay you remember the choicest flowers of his rhetoric. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the grave representative of the national finance, spoke of a Hamilton —a family which, after all, did something for the welfare of England before Mr Lloyd George was thought of. (Cheers). He spoke of him as a mongrel. That was dignified language for the Chancellor of the Exchequer of England, Mr Lloyd George said he made 50 speeches at the last election. The Unionists won too seats —two for every speech. (Laughter). He spoke at Banbury, and the Unionist cause never looked back. He went to Droitwich, and the Unionists said, ‘Thank Heaven, we are saved,’ and they were. He spoke at Reading, and nearly ruined Sir Rufus Isaacs. We never had any luck at Liverpool. We cannot get him there.” Mr Balfour is certainly at the head of the orators of the old style —and that makes his opinion of Mr Lloyd-George’s speech an interesting one. He obviously replied to that speech in these words on Wednesday. He said : “When a man tells me he is a democrat, and then goes from that interview and makes speeches which can illuminate no intelligence, can add nothing to knowledge, but which can only Inflame passion and set one citizen of this country against another, then I say he is no democrat, but a traitor to the very cause of democracy.”—Sydney Morning Herald’s correspondent.