MR. LLOYD-GEORGE. Mr. Lloyd-George's intervention was apparently equally cogent. There
remains the struggle in the engineering trades in the North of England, where the issue wavers. Possibly in that difficult corner also the President of the Board of Trade will emerge, as before, triumphant, suave, conciliatory, for the next success, acclaimed as the placating arbiter pugnae among interests almost hopelessly opposed, the tactful man of business approved and trusted by business men. He has been hailed as more than that, even, by some of his own party ; he is the " one man " who unites to courage and tenacity the power to steer ; he is " already spoken of " in the Manchester Guardian " as a coming Liberal Prime Minister."
The change is perplexingly sudden, but is it complete ? Has the vehement, impetuous, occasionally irresponsible party raider entirely disappeared ? Is the fierce partisan wholly metamorphosed ? It would be extremely reassuring if that were an established political fact. If it were one of the commonplaces of political argument—one of the bases on which parties and measures could be calculated— that Mr. Lloyd-George was always to be reckoned with in the character which he carved for himself out of the recent trade disputes, the Liberal Party would stand on much firmer ground than it occupies to-day. Possibly Mr. Lloyd-George may yet establish such a character, but at present he has not done so. Instead, for all the tact and adroitness of his management during his term of office, he is still a party politician rather than a statesman. He cannot yet convey, he has not yet surrounded himself with, that atmosphere of judicial aloofness which the British people love to recognise in their repre- sentatives and spokesmen. He is too much the pro- fessional politician, who must make his party capital at a sacrifice of personal dignity, even with a carelessness as to fact. He will still speak with two voices, and the people always look for one voice only. They will not accept whole-heartedly the guidance or the counsel of a politician who does not try to keep true to the character which he seems to wish them to accept. When they see him one day dealing with important national affairs, such as a possible railway strike, and handling his difficulties well, and when the next day they find him back at the old game, treating equally important public questions in the spirit of the partisan, they cannot help being puzzled, and when they are puzzled they mistrust. They were given an illuminating example of Mr. Lloyd- George's double voice last autumn. The President of the Board of Trade was on the eve of his triumphant success with the railways ; he was engaged, day after day, in receiving deputations and holding conferences, and was obviously conducting an extremely difficult operation with no little circumspectness, skill, and tact. Yet in the very middle of his admirably businesslike and judicial handling of these negotiations he made at the Welsh National Liberal Convention an almost childishly ridiculous attack upon the House of Lords. The House of Lords blocked the way to all reform ; it was true they had accepted his own Bills, but that was because they did not understand them ; liquor, game, and parsons were all that they did understand,—and so forth. Yet Mr. Lloyd-George knew well enough how many Peers owed their position solely to success in business. He was even meeting busi- ness Peers day after day in the railway negotiations. It was capital proof that the change from irresponsibility. to responsibility was still incomplete,—or worse, that if the sense of responsibility had in fact been acquired, it could for party convenience be completely kept under by the old harum-scarum invective and rhetorical clap-trap.
Mr. Lloyd-Geome's position, if not as yet his career, has had a remarkable parallel in the Unionist Party. He has yet to approach Mr. Chamberlain's record ; but the likeness between the positions of the two politicians in their parties is, as we pointed out last week, very striking. For Mr. Chamberlain, with all his acquiescence in the Unionist leadership, was always obviously a leader. He found some scope for his capacities in his enduring work at the Colonial Office, but his restless spirit was never at ease in the confines of a Department ; and when he broke away it was on lines which were wholly opposed to the settled policy of the party with whom be bad been working. If Mr. Lloyd-George's previous record and present outlook upon the policy of his 'pitrty allow any inferences- as to the future, the likelihood is that- he will break away, forward or to the side, as Mr. Chamberlain did. As we see him, be is less an extremist at heart than one who is willing to be a leader of extremists, and has only been restrained from an outburst of energy in some fresh direction by the activities, rather unusual to his office, and rather markedly appealing to the public attention, in which he has been enabled or compelled to interest himself outside the mere routine of depart. mental work. He himself suggested some such view of his position the other day at Carnarvon, when he remarked that partisan feelings did not enter into the work of the Board of Trade, and that on the whole nothing had shown more clearly the Scotch shrewdness of the Prime Minister than that he should have put him in a position where none of his prejudices were engaged. Whether the President of the Board of Trade will con- tinue to occupy the precise position which was possibly intended by the Prime Minister time will show. But his own hints as to the future can hardly be reassuring to those of his colleagues who believe in Free-trade as the orthodox policy of their party. Mr. Lloyd-George has definitely stated that he does not believe that Free-trade alone is sufficient. Free-traders must have in addition "a great trade policy," or they will find that " the commercial community will fly to Protection as a city of refuge against foreign competition." What is the additional "great trade policy " to be ? Apparently some form of State inter- ference with trade such as the nationalisation of the railways. If that is Mr. Lloyd-George's creed, we may wonder whether he discussed with his colleagues the advisability of a Cabinet Minister adding so remarkable a rider to the Free-trade proposition,—unless, indeed, we are to take a somewhat ambiguous passage inildr. Asquith's speech on Friday week as an indication that he, too, has been bitten by the desire to nationalise the means of transport.
It is, indeed, difficult to regard Mr. Lloyd-George as a convinced upholder of the principle of government by Cabinet. Impatient of control, fretting at the subordina- tion of his own programme to that of his party as a whole; he is supreme in his own Department, and has his own idea as to the place which his Department should occupy. Above all, and pervading all his outlook upon the future and his relations with the present, Mr. Lloyd-George's nationality adds a complexity, almost a fascination, to his position. He is a Celt, he has the genius of the Celt ; the Celtic fire glows in his oratory, and the Celtic mystery deepens and illumines the shade and light in which he moves. His leader and his colleagues admire him; but are they sure of him ? He may be plain-spoken to-day, but to-morrow he will be hinting at they hardly know what ; he moves somewhere on a plane apart; he cannot help having a secret. A party politician in the very fullest sense, who is by nature a Celt—and yet is also said to be sprung from. that Fleming stock which is embedded in Wales like a fly in amber—must of all political uncertainties be the most uncertain. He might go far, but he would not follow far, and he might lead far on the wrong road. He may have steering-power, but that will not make his directions the less dangerous. He will prosecute any search on which he decides with infinite energy, but his closest and most businesslike search may easily be the chase of the rainbow, or rather of his own rainbow.
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