THE HAPPY PREMIER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2041, 14 October 1919, Page 1

THE HAPPY PREMIER.

■•‘CHARACTER SKETCH OF MR. LLOYD GEORGE. IN WAR AND PEACE. In these piping days of peace the Prime Minister lias risen to a degree of popularity rarely readied by son of mortal man (writes Arthur Lynch in the London Sunday Chronicle). This is in part due, of course, to the immense feeling of relief at the conclusion of the war, partly to the great generosity of the British people tonll who have served them; but also —and this is felt as a sort of

pervading genefal sentiment —to the ’extraordinary qualities of the man who has been at the holm in the most difficult hour of tbe hislory of this counii'v.

At such a moment, therefore —rejoicing as I do wholeheartedly, at Mlie splendid achievement of British arms, and revelling in the days of peaee —I cannot lx* othcrwiscMhan appreciative of the Premier, so that what T say now ’ must not be regarded as a critical study, but simply as a friendly tribute to what is best in the splendid qualities of the man. HIS STEADY SPIRIT.

Due of the great assets of the country during the lime of stress was the optimism of the leader of the Government. Optimism —the word, often glibly spoken, sounds light; hut that is when it is used in

the sense of superficial self-confi-dence, arising perhaps.from a blindness to the true condition of affairs. But the optimism of Mr Lloyd George comes not of that false quality.

No one better than himself knew (he force of the “grimmest menace’’ that ever threatened these shores. No one was more convinced that when the Germans were making their last furious onrush - towards Paris, their terrific' thrust for the Channel ports, that -they came, sending (he full and concentrated strength of their Empire into this tremendous blow for victory. The forces of the Allies wore reeling before the shock, and as day by day showed the deadly advance of the German troops on I heir objective, had there been a phase of weakness, doubt, demoralisation in the high council of 11.0 nation, defeat with its grisly horror had slarcdTis in the face. The Prime Minister never wavered, never doubted, never lost courage; on the kings of his stirring words he*sent abroad the influence of his vital optimism; lie braced (he (one of the nation to that of his own undamped courage. These influences'.are indefinable, impalpable, Iml* they are real; battle's are lost or won in the commander’s soul.

The courage of Leonidas, when he met the Persian hosts at Thermopylae, was not higher; and when Danton, in the critical days of the Revolution, roused the French nation to electric energy to repel the invaders, his inspiration was not higher than that of Lloyd George in the gloomiest hour of the war. Had he rendered no other service he would have deserved lhe,gratitude showered upon him. WHEN ASQUITH WENT. But there was also the famous question of the shells. Mr Asquith had gone under because of: his dismal incompetence to see that hemusing Parliament was one 'thing, facing a great external problem another; hut (he task left upon the shoulders of Air Lloyd George was that of a giant. _ _ . Not for a moment did he hesitate or falter. P>y word or deed.he gave an impetus which pulsed throughout every industrial artery of the country. He created new work'; he inspired the workmen of the nation to furnish an output which made them the peers of the heroes of the trenches. It must not he supposed thaf this effort of the Primes Minister always went smoothly. It is not generally known, but it is true, that he carried through his great munition task in the teeth of the opposition of high experts, who ought, from the first, to have been his most fervent helpers. They believed that the enormous increase of shells that he was playing for was unattainable, and they argued, therefore, that he had better abandon his design, and eepr nonilse the strength of the nation. Unacquainted with the technical details, he yet saw the main broad lines' more clearly than his advisers; he had the sure instinct that, in the direction he was heading %r, and in that alone, lay the salvation of the land. He'was right, as the event abundantly proved. A w either men would have succumbed, or hidden his inefficiem-y behind the names of great authorities; but the Premier staked all on his inspiration of victory. That he would display such courage at a crisis I had never doubted,

for I had seen him before facing— and this tries the soul of a man more than a battle —a hostile House of Commons; for it must he remembered that*Mr Lloyd'George’s career has not always run on castors, and that he has had to fight his way through tests that, have tried his mettle. . THE GIANT OF BATTLE. Though not always in sympathy with him yolitically, I used to watch with appreciative delight the manner in which he strode into the ring—l 'mean came to the Treasury Bench —the light of battle in his eye, and a set in the shoulders that meant the knock-out blow. I could tell these big efforts also by another little sign. His hair was more carefully brushed than ordinarily on those occasions. He was like Wb&sworlh’s Happy Warrior, or Ihe Biblical bridegroom going to his joy. As he spoke, indeed, and clenched his list and swung his arms, I thought that he was like due proportions guarded —Jimmy Wilde. Then there was another interesting point. As he became more and more excited by the rapture of the frayf*and as his gestures waxed more pugnacious, so his Welsh accent became more pronounced. When be made bis opponent oat the leak he talked like Fhtellen! • One last trait I will touch upon—his democratic spirit. That has not always been in evidence, but I am convinced that, in spite of everything, he is the essential man. His smile is genial, and his intercourse has a quality that wins him friends.

When lie speaks to a Scotsman he leaves an impression on his mind that he is a kind of Scot himself; in the company of an Irishman he makes (he son of Erin feel that flic Welsh and Irish are the same people; I am certain that he made President Wilson believe that only an accident of birth prevented his being a Yankee. All this, to be just, does not arise from flattery, or cajolery, or pretence; it comes from his sympathetic spirit, aniDfrom the poetic soul which the great little Welsh Wizard derives from his Celtic ancestry.