pping. The liquor trade had been cut down to
narrow limits which, while it benefited the health and efficiency of
the population, ruined financially a great many property-owners. The
trade-unions had relinquished their rights, so that every hour of the
day and night there should be no strong and healthy arm which was not
lending aid to the country in its need. Every man in the country up to
the age of forty was either in the army or doing some useful war work
at home.

Steps had been taken to prevent the price of coal being raised to
consumers, and this was shortly to be followed by the Government
acquisition of the whole of the South Wales coal-field. Already a
movement was afoot to regulate the food-supply and to restrict
expensive luxuries. At the head of these tremendous changes was Lloyd
George, whose so-called socialistic legislation a few years before had
roused spasms of rage among classes which now belauded his every action
and announced him as the coming savior of his country. If there is any
consistency in human nature at all, it is hardly possible that there
were not those who recalled his incendiary speeches, his unsparing
legislative action of the Budget days. And yet there were no
complaints. Millionaires placed their money at his disposal. The
dukes paid him homage. All the while Lloyd George grew harder in the
face. Big changes were still necessary if the war was to be brought to
an end victoriously and rapidly.

I have indicated the Minister for War as the moving spirit in all those
changes of that tangled period, but he was only a single member of the
Ministry which set them in motion, although there could be no doubt in
the mind of any one really acquainted with public affairs in Britain at
this time that his was the driving force behind the reforms, that they
were largely forced on by his resistless spirit, even as he was
desirous to push them further and quicken the pace. Meanwhile in
France, in Italy, and in Russia Lloyd George's name roused enthusiasm
wherever it was mentioned. News from America indicated that he was
well known and much talked of there. In the Scandinavian capitals
which I visited toward the close of 1916 I found that it was Lloyd
George whom the statesmen, the professors, the business men, and the
common people were eager to hear about above all others. In Germany he
was hated and feared more than any other British statesman.

XI

HIS INCONSISTENCIES