Lloyd George as Premier

During the next two years the Lloyd George coalition govern ment passed a series of agreed measures on housing, suffrage and land. But as time went on it became clear that the country was financially more exhausted than had been supposed. The first after-War "boom" gradually passed into a "slump," and there arose from the whole country a cry for economy which expressed itself in an "Anti-Waste" campaign of the utmost vigour. By election after by-election was lost to the government, and the country was swept by financial panic. Lloyd George met it by a drastic measure. He appointed a small committee, with Sir Eric Geddes as chairman, to revise the whole of Britain's national finance. As a result of its sweeping report—the "Geddes Axe"— widespread economies were effected in all departments. The agri cultural subsidy was withdrawn and the agricultural wages boards were suspended. A halt was called in housing, pending a fall in prices, and progress involving expenditures on other matters (in cluding education) was checked.

Fall of the Ministry.

Those concessions weakened the radi cal support of the coalition. In the autumn of 1922 a similar weakening occurred on the unionist wing of the Conservative party owing to the policy to which Lloyd George was driven in Ireland by the course of events. The Sinn Fein trouble which had broken out in the later period of the war worked up in 1920-21 to an actual rebellion. All Lloyd George's efforts to effect a com promise between Northern and Southern Ireland proved vain. In the spring and summer of 1921 the condition of Ireland grew rapidly worse. Murder and outrage were rampant. The coalition government initiated a special force, who received the nickname "Black and Tans," to deal with the violent methods of the Sinn Feiners by vigorous reprisals. This produced in England a divided feeling as to the equity of the struggle. In the autumn of 1921 peace overtures began to pass from one side to the other. Lloyd George decided to make a real effort after a settlement. A truce was declared, and the picked leaders of Sinn Fein came to Down ing street, where, after several weeks of discussion, a settlement was reached, at midnight, Dec. 6, 1921. This great concession to Ireland was followed by resistance to the Turks at Chanak on the Dardanelles (September 1922), and the two events produced the downfall of the Lloyd George coalition. The Unionist party, created on the principle of resistance to Home Rule, was riven asunder by so great a concession as that of Dominion Home Rule to Southern Ireland. The threat of renewed war with Turkey was profoundly unpopular, and presented the enemies of the govern ment with an opportunity. Bonar Law, who had retired from the government, returned to a meeting of the Conservative party at the Carlton Club on Oct. 19, 1922, at which it was decided that the conservative party should leave the coalition. Lloyd George instantly resigned, and in the election that followed (1922) Bald win—who succeeded on the death of Bonar Law—obtained a majority. (See ENGLISH HISTORY.) Throughout the vicissitudes of the general elections which followed in the autumns of the following years (1923 and Lloyd George remained a leader of opposition. He reunited his followers with the independent Liberals after the election of 1922, and devoted his energies to identifying the Liberal party with a policy of economic reconstruction. In 1924 he published Coal

and Power, which outlined a comprehensive scheme for the more efficient utilization of the natural resources of the country. Never theless the reunited Liberal party failed to gain strength and in the general election of 1924 its numbers in the House of Com mons, controlled by Asquith and Lloyd George, sank to 4o mem bers. Lloyd George continued his active efforts to rouse the country to the need of further domestic reform to meet the home crisis: and in the early autumn of 1925 he issued a big land pro gramme which he proceeded to advocate throughout the country.

By the elevation of Asquith to the peerage as the Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925) Lloyd George earned the succession to the Liberal leadership in the House of Commons, and was elected to that office in the sessions of 1925 and 1926, and in subsequent sessions. In February 1926 he carried his land proposals, with few modifications, through a Liberal convention assembled at the Kingsway Hall in London. But the Liberal party still showed no signs of revival in the country. His national and parliamentary position was in strange contrast to the size of his following ; and that created a strange diversity of opinion in the forecasts of his future. In May, during the course of the general strike, Lloyd George expressed opinions that were not in accord with those of Lord Oxford and the other Liberal leaders. His idea was that the government should negotiate with the strike leaders without de lay, instead of declining to do so until the strike had been called off. He ridiculed the view that the general strike was aimed at the constitution. A somewhat acrimonious correspondence between him and Lord Oxford followed, and the party, both in and out of the House of Commons, was acutely divided upon the question. At last in October 1926, Lord Oxford resigned the liberal leader ship. For a time worse dissensions followed. Lord Grey's very small but weighty group reprobated Lloyd George. The latter, however, was soon recognized by almost the whole of Liberalism as the indispensable man and he secured its enthusiastic allegi ance. He provided a fighting fund out of the large resources placed under his personal trusteeship by his supporters when prime minister. From the spring of 1927 onwards he threw himself with ceaseless energy into the task of stirring up his party through out the country. An important committee working in the same spirit proposed in the "Yellow Book" an elaborate industrial policy. For some time the by-elections seemed to show signs of a real "Liberal Revival," but at length the Labour party resumed its old rate of progress chiefly at Liberal expense. The position of Lloyd George in the late autumn of 1928 was unprecedented and enigmatical. In the general election of 1929 the Liberal party (q.v.) under his leadership returned 59 members.

After the formation of the National Government, and the gen eral election of 1931, Lloyd George remained in opposition, but held aloof from party politics. In 1935 he submitted to the gov ernment his proposals for the furtherance of peace and recon struction, but these were rejected. His War Memories were pub lished in 1933. (See LIBERAL PARTY.)