orm was going rapidly downhill.
Austen Chamberlain, the son of Joseph Chamberlain, strove hard to keep
it to the fore, and frequently at intervals in the House of Commons the
protectionist proposals were brought forward. Lloyd George had a
characteristic word to say about the situation one day. "I do not
blame Mr. Austen Chamberlain for sticking to his father. But the
considerations which have made him protectionist are not fiscal, but
filial. History ever repeats itself, and the boy still stands on the
burning deck."

By rapid steps Lloyd George became the outstanding figure of the
Government in which he occupied a comparatively minor position. Soon
he was as prominent in Britain as, when a youth, he was prominent in
Wales. Hardly a week passed in which he was not by his daring speeches
or actions raising storms of anger among opponents or choruses of
approval among the advanced Liberals. Vital force radiated from him.
When Campbell-Bannerman died in 1908 and Asquith, his Chancellor of the
Exchequer, became Prime Minister, it was on Lloyd George that his
choice fell as the new Chancellor. The public, dazzled at Lloyd
George's swift rise, withheld their judgment as to the wisdom of Mr.
Asquith's experiment in this elevation of the Welshman to the post of
second statesman in the United Kingdom. As for Lloyd George himself,
he took up the position with calmness and a gleaming eye. At last he
had his hand on the helm.

V

THE FIRST GREAT TASK

The biggest day in Lloyd George's life until he was called upon by the
King to form a Government was Thursday, April 29, 1909. On that day he
presented to Parliament and the country his first Budget--the framework
of taxation and legislation which was to be the foundation of a new
social system in Britain--which incidentally was to break the power of
the House of Lords and to lead to such a storm among all classes that the
aid of the King himself had to be invoked in order to carry out the plan
of the Welsh statesman.

A dramatic situation had arisen at Westminster. Up to 1906 when the
Liberals were returned by a large majority the Conservatives, with the
exception of a short break, had been in power for twenty years. Another
generation of the people had come to adult life since the early eighties
when the Liberals were last in real power, and a new set of Liberal
statesmen with advanced ideals had been put into office. The exultation
among the forces of pr