tragic toll that all this cross purpose was
taking. He made a demand on Asquith for a small War Council that would
put dash, vigour and success into the British side of the conflict. The
Premier refused to assent and Lloyd George resigned as War Chief. The
Government toppled in a crisis that menaced the very future of the
nation.

Great Britain stood aghast. Lloyd George stood for all the popular
confidence in victory that the nation felt. For a moment it appeared as
if the very foundations of authority had crumbled.

But not for long. When Bonar Law declined to reestablish the Government
the oft-repeated cry for action that had invariably found its answer in
the intrepid little Welshman, again rose up. Upon him devolved the task
of constructing a new Cabinet which he headed as Prime Minister. He now
reached the inevitable goal toward which he had unconsciously marched
ever since that faraway day when his voice was first heard in
Parliament.

Even with Cabinet-making Lloyd George was a Revolutionist. He cut down
the membership from twenty-four to five, establishing a compact and
effective War Council whose sole task is to "win the war." He centred
more authority in the Premiership than the English system has ever known
before. He virtually became Dictator.

On the other hand, he raised the number of Ministers outside the Cabinet
from nineteen to twenty-eight. He scattered the coterie of lawyers who
had so long comprised the Government Trust and put in men with red blood
and proved achievement--in the main, self-made like himself. He
installed a trained and competent business man of the type of Sir Albert
Stanley, raised in the hard school of American transportation, as
President of the Board of Trade: he drafted a seasoned commercial
veteran like Lord Rhondda (D. A. Thomas), for President of the Local
Government Board: he raised his old and experienced aide, Dr.
Christopher Addison, to be Minister of Munitions: he made Lord Derby,
who had conducted the great recruiting campaign, Minister of War: he put
Sir Joseph Maclay, an extensive ship owner, into the post of Shipping
Controller. Everywhere he supplanted politicians with doers.

What was equally important he continued his role of Conciliator, for he
placated Labour by giving it a large representation and he took a
definite step toward the solution of the Irish problem by making Sir
Edward Carson First Lord of the Admiralty.

Even as he stood at what seemed th