and most puissant houses whose history for an aeon was the history of
Europe.

Such topsy-turvydom, such historical anarchy, tilts the figure of Mr.
Lloyd George into a salience so conspicuous that for a moment one is
tempted to confuse prominence with eminence, and to mistake the slagheap
of upheaval for the peaks of Olympus.

But how is it that this politician has attained even to such
super-prominence?

Another incident of which the public knows nothing, helps one, I think,
to answer this question. Early in the struggle to get munitions for our
soldiers a meeting of all the principal manufacturers of armaments was
held in Whitehall with the object of persuading them to pool their trade
secrets. For a long time this meeting was nothing more than a succession
of blunt speeches on the part of provincial manufacturers, showing with
an unanswerable commercial logic that the suggestion of revealing these
secrets on which their fortunes depended was beyond the bounds of
reason. All the interjected arguments of the military and official
gentlemen representing the Government were easily proved by these
hard-headed manufacturers, responsible to their workpeople and
shareholders for the prosperity of their competing undertakings, to be
impracticable if not preposterous.

At a moment when the proposal of the Government seemed lost, Mr. Lloyd
George leant forward in his chair, very pale, very quiet, and very
earnest. "Gentlemen," he said in a voice which produced an extraordinary
hush, "have you forgotten that your sons, at this very moment, are being
killed--killed in hundreds and thousands? They are being killed by
German guns for want of British guns. Your sons, your brothers--boys at
the dawn of manhood!--they are being wiped out of life in thousands!
Gentlemen, give me guns. Don't think of your trade secrets. Think of
your children. Help them! Give me those guns."

This was no stage acting. His voice broke, his eyes filled with tears,
and his hand, holding a piece of notepaper before him, shook like a
leaf. There was not a man who heard him whose heart was not touched, and
whose humanity was not quickened. The trade secrets were pooled. The
supply of munitions was hastened.

This is the secret of his power. No man of our period, when he is
profoundly moved, and when he permits his genuine emotion to carry him
away, can utter _an appeal to conscience_ with anything like so
compelling a simplicity. His failure lies in