Mr. Lloyd-George, to judge from a speech he delivered before
the Welsh National Liberal Convention at Rhyl on Wednesday, has two voices,—one for Wales and the other for his official work. In order to convince Welshmen that be is still the old Lloyd-George, he spoke with the old voice. The Lords, he said, blocked the road to Paradise. It was true that they had accepted all the Bills for which he himself was responsible, but that was because they did not understand them. His Bills dealt with trade, and the Lords did not mix with trade. Liquor, game, and parsons were what they did understand and had put under their special protection. This reminds us of the Hyde Park orator who drew a sumptuous picture of the Lords in which they were represented as getting drunk every night on maraschino. We can imagine that with his other voice Mr. Lloyd-George would acknowledge the existence of the large number of Peers who reached their peerages through successful trade, and would even confess that they accepted his Bills, not because they did not under- stand them, but because they thought them good Bills. Seriously, it is astonishing, and not a little humiliating, that a capable and intelligent man like Mr. Lloyd-George should not be able to clear his mind of the cant of the fourth-rate party hack when he is on a public platform. We refuse to believe that he does not know he is talking contemptible nonsense when he indulges in the language he used at Rhyl.
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