repeated inaccuracies of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer and his gross and unfounded charges upon
individuals." No motion could have pleased Lloyd George better.
Ponderous and dignified were the speeches against him. He replied with
a quizzical lightness, and did not refrain from personal remarks even
in the course of his defense. He demonstrated the general accuracy of
his speeches, ridiculed the indictment against himself, and showed how
it arose partly from political prejudices, partly from the mental
obtuseness and anger of his opponents. A portion of his speech
recalled the things the Conservatives attacking him said about Joseph
Chamberlain, now one of their idols. They were remarks made during
Chamberlain's radical days.

"One Tory Minister said he spoke 'with customary inaccuracy.' Another
Minister talked about 'his habitual incapacity for being accurate.'
Another said he was 'setting class against class.' The _Times_, using
the language of the gentleman in opposition to-night, said he was
'forgetting what was due to his dignity and responsibility as a Cabinet
Minister.' He was compared by the leader of the House to 'Jack Cade.'
Another called him 'an unscrupulous demagogue.' Another said he was
'weeping crocodile tears for electioneering purposes.' I seem to
recognize some of these epithets. I am amazed at the lack of
imagination in the vituperation of honorable men opposite." When the
laughter and cheering had died away Lloyd George said that Chamberlain
was fifty at the time these things were uttered, the age at which he
himself stood. "So there is hope for me," he said. It is difficult to
tackle a man like that.

No one would deny that Lloyd George has gone back on many of the
opinions he used to hold so firmly. The exhilarating names he called
members of the House of Lords have been replaced by invitations to some
of them to join him as Ministers in a Cabinet of which he is the head.
No doubt he would give good reasons for the change, but the fact
remains. His mobile mind is ever adapting itself to what he considers
the exigencies of the times, though no one could with less justice be
named a time-server. "Other times, other means, other manners" may be
described as his attitude of mind. If at the moment the welfare of the
community in his judgment demanded certain courses of action no words
of his in the past, no principles that he had held, would prevent him
from adapting himself or fr