LLOYD GEORGE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 265, 5 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

LLOYD GEORGE.

BY ONE WHO KNOWS HIM. PROPHECY THAT CAME TRUE This is, frankly, a friend's account of a friend. It is not a sober estimate of a statesman. It is not acr ticism of a ruler of Empire, standing in the forefront of world policies It is just table-talk about the man as I knew him, writes the Rev. C. F. Aked, D.D., L.L.D., in the New York Tmes. And it is. all in the past tense. It is all about Lloyd George as he was, not as he is.

T DO not recognise the Briti-h state; man of the "shining armour" an the "mailed 1 fist," any more than recognise the photographs of the ma which have recently found their way t New York. It may be that the demon of the camera responsible for them hav already been clubbed o death by indig nant Welshmen, but if not, if they ar witnesses of truth, they show a mai grown old and stout, bent, picturesqii l only in a third-rate actor stylo, indis putably robbing the barber of the nim bio sixpence, the London 'fee for a crop This is not the man I knew. And memory plays us strange tricks at times. We remember the friend oi other years as lie was in other years, before the world hardened or embitterei him. I see a young, handsome man, ir resistibly attractive, delightfully frank, the sou'! of good comradeship, a man foi all men to admire, for all women tc love. lam back among his enthusiastic followers. lam one with them. Tho last time I saw him he was at his greatest. Of the 5000 persons present that night it is difficult to believe that any one still living has forgotten a smgle incident, a single moment. The censor in these days does not .wholly forbid gossip between England and America. Numerous letters brought by tho last two mails from friends in Liverpool begin : "Do you remember that night in Sun Hall when you prophesied few things so well. And this is the story: It was in 1905 or 1906. I had just returned to Liverpool from my mountain prison in Switzerland. I found Lloyd George with other Welsh members of Parliament advertised to speak at a Liberal demonstration in Sun Hall. I telephoned to Libern'l headquarters and asked if I was too late to secure a seat. The officials courteously invited! mo to tho platform, and asked me to come to tho anteroom before the hour to meet Lloyd George. SUFFERED FROM STAGE FRIGHT. He was suffering from a bad attack of stage fright—or thought he was. He professed to tho utmost misery waiting for tho meeting to begin. He asked' if I ever suffered the same unutterable wretchedness before facing an audience, and went on: "I feel as if I were in tho condemned cell waiting to be led out to be hanged. There (pointing to tho chairman) is tho governor of the gaol, and (to me) there is tho chaplain. And I don't know whether I would not sooner bo led out to the gallows." But wo had caught him in his most glorious hour. I really think his spcecn that night was the greatest <H his amazing career. He was not eloquent but eloquence, not passionate but pure and living passion. When ho reaches the grand style, as hie so often does —or did irt those grand years—there is something weirdiy coercive in the physical qualities of Iris voice, something uncanny, clefyng analysis, indescribable. Tho Welsh have a word for it. I am not sure that I can speH it. I know I cannot pronounce it. But it was there that night! I have listened to speeches all my life. I must have been born in a public meeting! 1 have heard Gladstone and Bright and all the host of lesser men. Thero is not a great Englishman of the last thirty years whom I have not board. There is nothing in my memory to compare—not Bright in tho Freetrado Hall nor Gladstone in Bingley Hall—with Lloyd George's triumph that night.

■ that day in England a positively eno I mons fee. Only onoe in my English li: did I pay as large a sum to a speake This was to Dean Farrar —but that , anothor story. The treasurer offerc George a cheque. He looked at it an , turned to me: "Aked, what is t!i!s?" said, "It is the amount I offered yo , when I lirst asked you to come." E turned upon me fiercely : " What c , you take mo for —a pickpocket? E . you think I am going to take monc tor making a rotten speech like that I'vo made a fool oi myself and you l , tc< but I am not going to be paid for it. I admitted that the speech was nc tho greatest ho had made in his advei turous career, and he scoffed; but I ii sisted that a bargain is a bargain, an he must take the money. i "Don't play the goat," he said; "if had enough to make a speech like tha 1 without taking money for it." i And .so the contest went on. Fina'lj i I demanded .wheher he wished to pa his own railway faro and hotel biK, an he said, " Well, you can give me a £ 1 note." So tho big fee has not been pai to this day. I HERO OF FORLORN HOPES. i It was like him, as I knew km then Ho was always unselfish. He spen himself with nrodigal extravagance i the service of good movements. B seemed not to know what self-seekin; was. He carried himse'f superbly— m different to the money prizes he conlt so easily have won. He was the soul o . chivalry, the champion of unpopula | causes, the hero of forlorn hopes. Even when he became a member o the Government the compromises com pelled now and again by the exigence of party politics were irksome to him. I ; ho could not speak he could smile! Am his smile was oracuiar. Augustine Bir iel, afterwards Chief Secretary for Ire ■ land, had introduced the Government' Education Bill, supposed to be designee | to redress the grievienccs of us Free j Churchmen, and at the same time co , ordinate England's bewildering sc-hoo systems. I was a member of the vari ous committees which for years had agi tated this matter. | So I was in the House of Commons tc hear Birrcil explain the Government'! 1 proposal. Tho member foi- Blaekburr had secured for me a seat, not in the Strangers' Gallery, but actually in the House, "under the gallery," as it h called, where the lucky stranger car talk ti members during the progress o! the debate. Lloyd George came to me after Birrell had spoken and asked what I thought of the Bill. I did not like tc tell a momber of tho Government how deeply the Government had disappointed my hopes, and I hesitated and boggled over a reply. "Out with dt," Llovd George said"you don't like it?" And then I said what I had to say. He listened, smiled sardonically, and wont his way. Ho found it difficult to defend that Bill,and when, after much chopping and changing the Government formally withdrew it, I called to mincl his smile which said nothing—and said so much. Really, his frank speech has been * part cf his strength. It is not Welsh; it is English. His intellect is swift. It pounccv; on a fact like a hawk on its prey. And this is not Welsh, cither. But tho directness of speech, the demand for an honest avowal of conviction, the relentless candour which offers and which compels straightforwardness aro a>l typically English. And they havo expressed themselves through the medium of his indoscrib ble Welsh eloquence, with its pathos and pleading and persuasiveness, and guilelessly guileful sweet reasonableness. It is a curious combination. There is nothing like it in British statesmanship. It is d'fficult to understand bow this great man ; a convinced and ardent woman suffragist, who had nobly stood for the women's cause when its friends were few, could ever haw come to be regardodl as the most sinister foe the woman's cause had to fear. It is very feeble to say, "He shines 'n repartee." Every great Englishman does. It is in the blood of the British orator. Interruption of a speech bv the man on the floor or up in the gallery is expected, is looked for, and it is part of the successful speaker's equipment that ho can set the crowd roaring with laughter by his reply. Sometimes the interrupter is a fool but even that gives the speaker a chance. HIS SWIFT REPARTEE. I remember when I was a boy listening to Sir William Harcourt in Derby. It was after Joseph Chamberlain's s'eress.:on from tho Liberal ranks-, and Harcourt was roasting him to aj-urn. Promptly came the interruption : "Why did lie marry an American wife?" The everlasting laughter which died down and rose again, and lasted interminable minutes, which seemed hours, must havo surprised the follow who had yelled what he thought a pretty bit of insult. And Sir William Harcourt, beaming all ever his big broad face and rollicking with his huge body over tjie platform, .at last made his voice heard in answer: "Now. don't say anything about that. I did it myself." oi with all the-e memories—scores that (onio back to me as I lapse into an cdotagi—l seriously think that n swift, thrust by Llovd George holds the world's !■<"•;:(]. He won discussing project then Known as -Home Huh- All Round"- i. at is to say, a separate Parliament ior Ireland, a Parliament for Scotland, a Parliament for Wales, a Parliament for England, and an Imperial Parliament for imperial affair--, Lloyd George triumphant: "1 stand for homo rule lor Ireland"—great cheering. ••Homo rule for Scotland"—some cheers. "Hi me rule for gaflanl little W.-rf-es" - thunders of applause. and a voice: 'Ohio rule for 'ell" und veils of laughter, hi.-ses, and catcalls. "Right." said IJoyd Geirge, "quit" rhdifc. I bl;e to see a man stand up for his own country 1"

It semed to u.s, as we came away, that nothing finer could ever hhve fallen from human lips than his peroration about the streams gathering among his own Welsh mountafns until a torrent swept through the valleys, and, of course, the gathering floods df righteous sentiment which were to sweep privilege and obstruction and ail the rest of it into oblivion. Commonplace? I'amiliar stuff tor perorations! Quite so; but the thrill and the leap and the gladness and the glory an it were—superhuman.

The speaker who followed George had, to bo sure, an impossible task. The audience grew restive and shouted my name. Tho Chairman called on me, and, having no moment for preparation, I have no doubt I spoke even more foolishly than usual. But the thrill of Lloyd George's peroration was still in the air, and so—l fell on prophecy. A PROPHECY FULFILLED. It must bo remembered that he was not then a member of any Government. He had not lioon a member of any Government. Tho Libera? Party, his party was still in opposition. And l George was only one of tue rank and hie. But ttie spirit came upon me and as I spoke 1 put my hand on his shouTcbr, and declared that many of us in 'Sun Hall in that hour would live to see Lloyd Georgo Prime Minister of Great Britain. It i>s this dramatic moment of ten years ago that English correspondents keep on askng me if T remember. If I have heard Lloyd George at his best. I am quite sure that I have heard him at hi- worst, It was in my own church at Liverpool. We had persuaded him to come from London to address a great meeting on tho report of the Peel Commission on liquor restrictions. Early in the afternoon ho wired that be could not come; ho was detained by an ini. portant case in tho law courts. He was only a little lawyer at that time, without any distinguished postinn. Mis failure t> attend our mooting meant ruin, and I wired li'in a message all compounded of coaxing and coercion, tears and terrors, entreatinii him to <on:c. He cann —late. We Icoot the meting waiting for him. SomolwxVy met him at the stit'on and brought him to the church. Wearied bv a day of conflict in the courts and bv I fie- iourney, hungry, fagged, exhausted, his brain seemed paralysed. A corpse could have spoken as well. In tho minister's vestry after the meeting I introduced lum'to our treasurer. | |, il( ] offered George, when inviting bun to the meeting, what was in