Northcliffe acclaimed this message heavens high. Some Liberals, on the other hand, began to see in Lloyd George an intriguer for the position of Prime Minister, and Lloyd George, not the first time in his life, throwing past prejudices and principles to the winds, came out as a strong supporter of conscription for the nation. Every young man must be serving his country either in the munition-factory or on the field of battle. X AT HIGH PRESSURE The fundamental difficulty between Lloyd George and some of his colleagues was that he had ideas about running the country which were at variance with theirs. His Celtic temperament could not tolerate the slow muddling-through process, was impatient for daring new methods. He was disinclined for step-by-step procedure, and found reason for anger in the officials and Ministers who thought the war ought to be conducted according to book. There has yet to be told the full story, not only of all the obstacles which Lloyd George had to remove from his path in organizing the munition supply, but also of the hindrances which fettered the prosecution of the war as a whole with every ounce of strength, every shilling of money, at the disposal of the British nation. I can imagine that Lloyd George was not a very pleasant colleague in the Cabinet during these intervening months. When the records come to be given it will be seen that he was constantly and furiously striking at the iron bars of custom and routine, that he was trying to turn the lip service of individuals to practical service. At times he reached the edge of desperate action. It was in the thick of his other work that a crisis arose in South Wales, where the miners, numbering two hundred thousand, responsible for the supply of coal to the British navy, refused to work unless the employers conceded certain demands about pay and conditions. The seriousness of the position was appalling. The president of the Board of Trade, Mr. Runciman, struggled hard to bring about a settlement. He failed. Something had to be done and done at once. The country, looking around for a man to come to the rescue, fixed on Lloyd George. He left the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall, took a train down to South Wales, had a straight talk with the employers, another straight talk with the men, and in one day settled affairs and got the men to continue their work. I cite this as a passing illustration of how Lloyd George was Britain's man-of-all-work, and of how the nation had to turn to him practically every time it was in difficulty.