ttracted the bolts of abuse. A
campaign meant violent controversy, frequently physical conflict. The
reason was that he always stated his cause so violently as to arouse
bitter resentment.

Into his first election he flung himself with the fury of youth and the
eager passion of a zealot. He threw conventional Liberalism to the wind
and made a fight for a Free and United Wales. He frankly believed
himself to be the inspired leader of his people: often his meetings
became riots. More than once he was warned that the Tories would kill
him and on several occasions he narrowly escaped death. Once while
riding with his wife in an open carriage through the streets of Bangor
he was assailed by a hooting, jeering mob. Some one threw a blazing fire
ball, dipped in paraffine, into the vehicle. It knocked off the
candidate's hat and fell into Mrs. Lloyd George's lap setting her afire.
Lloyd George threw off his coat, smothered the flames and after finding
that the innocent victim of the assault was uninjured, calmly proceeded
to the Town Hall where he spoke, accompanied by a fusillade of stones
which smashed every window in the structure.

In this campaign, as in all succeeding ones, Lloyd George used the full
powers of press publicity. He made reporters his confidants. Often he
rehearsed his speeches before them, striding up and down and declaiming
as passionately as if he were facing huge audiences. In fact he acquired
an interest in a group of Welsh papers.

Already Welsh chieftainship was being crystallised in the aggressive
little fire-eater. Anticipating the coming call of the Mother Country
she was laying her burdens on his stalwart shoulders. And what George
was now doing for Wales he was soon to do in the larger arena of the
Empire.

Once in Parliament Lloyd George was no man's man. He became a free lance
and while sometimes he ran amuck his cause was always the cause of his
people.

In those earlier Parliamentary days you find some of the traits that
distinguished him later on. For one thing he disdained the drudgery of
committee work: he chafed at the confinement of the conference room;
eagle-like he yearned to spread his wings. His forte was talking. He
loathed to mull over dull and unresponsive reports. He frankly admitted
a disinclination to work, and it makes him one of the most superficial
of men in what the world calls culture. His intelligence has more than
once been characterised as "brilliant but hasty."