Establishment." Their imagery is similar; their inaccuracy is similar; their humour is similar; even their broad occasional vein of vulgarity is similar. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when thoroughly worked up and in strong rhetorical flight, is an amazing performer. The orator seems to be visibly sobbing his heart out for the poor. Sometimes the tears not merely start but fall, and are splashed from his cheek on to the notebooks of the irresponsive Press beneath. People in the audience are moved to delirious joy. The more emotional are uplifted. In the tabernacle pews the cry goes up, "Thank God for Lloyd George," from the lips of men who would never think of crying "Thank God for Henry Herbert Asquith." The founder of the New Theology informed an audience the other day that when he was tempted to doubt Providence, he bethought him of Lloyd George and his colleagues and the doubts vanished. What easy consolation, but how strong the merit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer !

It would be easy to sneer at this extraordinary influence over the popular heart-for it is far more a matter of the heart than of the mind. But no sensible student of affairs will question the inestimable advantage-at any rate for the time-that it is to the Radical party to possess a leader who is regarded as a sort of Joshua, pledged to lead the Democracy to the Promised Land, where grow the "rare and refreshing fruits. that surpass in flavour the grapes of Eschol. Mr. Lloyd George accepts the rôle with the utmost complacency; he plays up to his followers with zest. We suggest no hypocrisy, but there is a supreme understanding of the influence on votes. He contrives-and we bow before the cleverness of it-to turn a Radical meeting into a sort of politico-religious ceremony, to disturb which, even by so much as a question or a monosyllable, is promptly punished by rough expulsion as an act of sacrilege to the officiating priest. Democracy is always on the look out for a leader who will flatter it, and even more-this is its pathetic side-for one who will feed it with large hopes, and the Chancellor's promises of the immediate realisation of good things in this world are as confident and robust as George Whitefield's ruddy promises for the world to come. Unfortunately, these emotion-mongering prophets usually fall easy victims to self-deception. They believe that all who stand in their way are the enemies of humanity, and that, while to misjudge them is a sin and to refuse them recognition is a crime, it is but a venial offence on their own part to slip into inaccuracy and traduce their opponents. There have been occasions of late when Mr. Lloyd George's platform utterances have savoured strongly of rant, cant, and oily self-righteousVOL. XCI. N.S.

D

ness, and it is not a little significant that the worst of these have been delivered from pulpits.

Inside the House of Commons, as a Minister of the Crown, Mr. Lloyd George is quite another being. There he affects, so long as things go well with him and his cause, an engaging bonhomie which is decidedly attractive to watch, and which his opponents seem to find difficult to resist. He uses no stilts. He is the most approachable Minister that Westminster has known. He invites people to come to him instead of fending and freezing them off. On matters of business he has an American readiness to do a deal. If anyone has a fair proposition to make he will listen to it, and if it be good will probably accept it. More than that, he will give the author full credit for his brains, instead of pretending that the idea was his own. So far from cultivating a soulful idealism on a spare and ascetic diet, the Chancellor of the Exchequer prides himself on being a man, or at least a citizen, of the world, who thoroughly enjoys the marrow of life and can reconcile the narrowest sect of Welsh Calvinism with Persian trappings. He's "a contradiction still," as much as any woman, and that, too, is part of his power.

Nothing is more amusing than to watch the Chancellor cleverly playing his opponents; and they like to be played, just as a trout likes to be tickled. They respond to his invitations; they blush with pride at his compliments. Yet the next minute they damn him for a demagogue! There was a lot of this caressing going on when the Insurance Bill was first before the House. During the early summer the Chancellor purred like a cherub-if cherubs purr-and when he reviewed the situation on August 5th he was all compliments and smiles, thanking one and all-like a tradesman's circular-for their valuable improvements and inestimable suggestions, and begging them to go on as they had begun to the very end.

But fish that like being tickled must expect to be landed, and those who accept the compliments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer must always be prepared for the soft stroke suddenly changing to a sharp scratch. Bien fol qui s'y fie. He will pass at once from praise to bitter satire. At one moment he is the most generous of men in paying tribute to an opponent; the next he will hold him up to public scorn and ridicule, as though he were a man of no principle and less backbone. If you raise a successful agitation against him, you are the "meanest, shabbiest creature" that ever crawled on the earth; if you doubt the wisdom of his methods, he leaps to blacken your motives, and holds you up to detestation as the wilful obstructor of his beneficent purpose.

Usually he keeps these explosions for the public platform, but occasionally he favours the House of Commons with a sample of his righteous wrath and indignant scorn. He did so on the third reading debate, when he made an outrageous personal attack on Lord Robert Cecil. That the Chancellor had some reason to be aggrieved at the leaflets issued under Unionist auspices at recent by-elections cannot be denied. But he was the very last man who had any right to object; he, the acknowledged master of the subtle half-truth and of its presentation in the manner best calculated to inflame the passions and prejudices of the ignorant. As for the Radicals who added the thunder of their indignation to the lightning of his wrath-well! Radical election literature has not a rag to cover its shamelessness. And again, if there is a man in the House of Commons who stands out above the ordinary low level of political morals, it is Lord Robert Cecil, and Mr. Lloyd George's carefully prepared attack upon him was a blatant piece of offensiveness. But he had no joy of the encounter. Lord Robert's hot, contemptuous reply returned him blow for blow.

So while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has acquired this session another flowing feather to adorn his well-plumed hatit is folly to deny what is plain to the sight-the feather is not a little damaged in parts when you come to look into it. His opponents will trust him less and look more narrowly at his offers; they are more convinced than ever of the sheer recklessness of his finance, and that when he pants the hardest in "breathless benevolence" his brain is most coolly calculating votes.

But it will be asked whether any reputations have been made or confirmed on the Unionist side while the Insurance Bill has been passing through the House? They have-but not on the Front Opposition Bench. The fact is that the Front-Bench Unionists have avoided the Insurance Bill. We do not forget the speech in which Mr. Balfour tore to pieces the time-limit resolution moved by the Prime Minister at the commencement of the autumn session. That was a masterly performance, like Mr. Bonar Law's spirited attack on the Government on the third reading. But Mr. Balfour made no pretence to have studied the details of the Insurance Bill, a task abhorrent to one who always moved uneasily among precise figures and always quoted statistics with the air of having got them up specially for the occasion. The duty of leading the Opposition on the Insurance Bill was deputed to Mr. H. W. Forster, until lately one of the Unionist Whips and a persona gratissima in all quarters of the House. Mr. Forster was given his chance of distinction, because

4

he had been marked out for future promotion and was understood
to have specialised on social questions. He has performed his
task blamelessly. That he mastered and knew his way about the
Bill-in itself no mean achievement-will be fully admitted. But
he was no match for his terrible opponent. Mr. Forster re-
mained throughout the conscientious amateur. Even his best
suggestions were made tentatively and with a modest hesitation,
as though he feared to give offence. His very attitude when
speaking suggested that he clung to the table for support. And
on the other side was the redoubtable Chancellor, who listened
politely, took an occasional note, but never looked distressed.
Only once did Mr. Forster rouse himself to deliver a piece of
carefully prepared invective, and then the Chancellor of the
Exchequer treated the ebullition as a cat might treat the
frantic effort of a mouse to hurt. He openly jeered at the
effort and feigned astonishment that beneath such a placid
exterior for weeks together the member for Sevenoaks had
been nursing a volcano of angry resentment. Impar con-
gressus Achilli.
Mr. Lloyd George carried too many guns for

Mr. Forster.

Now and then on rare occasions Mr. Austen Chamberlain intervened. But he had not got up the Bill, and the Insurance Bill was just one of those measures on which no man, whatever his improvising ability, could speak for five minutes without showing whether he really knew it or not. So Mr. Chamberlain wisely let it alone, and only took a hand when the occasion demanded heat rather than light. Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, again, who might very well have lent Mr. Forster powerful assistance, delivered one night a loose rambling attack on the Chancellor, but was so severely mauled and savaged on the following day that he did not repeat the performance. The Chancellor's onslaught was so personal that many who heard it thought that he was taking the opportunity of paying off some old scores, for Mr. Lyttelton's criticisms on the previous evening had hardly caused a ripple on the surface. As for the rest of the occupants of the Front Opposition Bench, they eschewed the Bill and took their ease. Perhaps they are saving themselves for next session! At any rate, they have done nothing in this. Why this lassitude among the Olympians? We do not, of course, include the new Leader of the Opposition in this criticism; but what of all the other members who fill the Front Opposition Bench to overflowing whenever there is promise of an animated debate, but leave it deserted when there is thankless work to be done? It speaks but poorly for the zeal of the Unionist ex-Ministers in the cause of social reform that not one of them took the trouble to stand effectively by

Mr. Forster's side. It does him infinite credit that he emerged from so trying a session as well as he did.

Nor did Mr. F. E. Smith, who has just been invited to take a place on the Front Bench, join in the real hard work of Committee. No; he carefully reserves himself for the "star" turns. There must be a full House before he will blaze or twinkle. Even more surprising was the marked abstention of Lord Hugh Cecil and the little group of "eldest sons" who sit near him, notably Lord Castlereagh and Lord Helmsley, both prominent in the Budget debates. But if these hung back, from whatever cause, there were other Unionist members who stuck to the Insurance Bill all through and worked at it with unflagging zeal. There is no doubt who deserves best of his party. By universal consent that distinction belongs to Mr. Worthington Evans. The member for Colchester has made a real reputation over the Insurance Bill, which he probably knows better than any one in the House, after the Chancellor himself. He has sat through the session day by day, intervening continually but never needlessly in the discussion, and invariably listened to with close attention and respect. For there has never been a suspicion of obstruction in his methods. His aim throughout has been to improve the Bill, to make it more workable, to remove anomalies between class and class. Traces of his activity are to be found in almost every important clause of the measure as it stands. Then, too, he can put his case tersely and vigorously, and he does not shrink either from a stand-up encounter with the Chancellor or from pointed abstention from his friends when he does not approve their course. No one on the Unionist side has earned official recognition so conspicuously as Mr. Worthington Evans.

And he has been well seconded. Mr. Hills is another Unionist who has mastered the Bill and frequently moved useful amendments. Mr. Charles Bathurst has been the principal spokesman of the agricultural labourer, and it was his pertinacity which drew the important concession enabling the small agricultural societies to combine and form an approved society under the scheme. Sir Alfred Cripps has been another constant attendant, and proved himself one of the best-equipped general debaters on his side; Mr. Cassel has kept the Attorney-General busy; Mr. Lawson's pithy and practical speeches have shown his mastery of every detail of the working of the friendly societies and the intricacies of municipal administration; Mr. Astor made a notable speech on the sanatoria part of the scheme; and Mr. Godfrey LockerLampson, Mr. Amery, and Mr. Joynson-Hicks have not spared themselves at any period of the session. There may be a few others whose names have been overlooked in this enumeration :