From 1906 onwards we are confronted by the meteoric and Protean personalities of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, who between them have held almost all the great offices of State, and ranged over the whole spectrum of Party colours, and lastly of Lord Birkenhead. Mr. Churchill's father had once called Mr. Gladstone "an old man in a hurry." One wonders what Lord Randolph would have called his son Winston, of whom it was said "he likes things to happen, and when they don't happen he likes to make them happen." In comparison with the discreet progress of Reform in the last century the pace became fast and furious. The demands of organized Labour were conceded in the Trade Disputes Bill of 1906--the greatest landmark in industrial legislation of the last half-century--and in 1910 the People's Budget led to the revolt and surrender of the House of Lords. Yet concurrently with the democratic drift of Liberal finance and social reform, the principle of a continuity of foreign policy, initiated by Lord Rosebery, and continued by Lord Salisbury and Lord Lansdowne, was faithfully maintained by Sir Edward Grey, whose sober and frugal expositions contrasted strangely with the vivacity and flamboyant rhetoric of his colleagues. The Anglo-French _Entente_ and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance both came into being when Lord Lansdowne was at the Foreign Office, and the influence of the Liberal Imperialist group in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Cabinet secured a free hand for the Foreign Minister. It is the fashion in some quarters to regard the late King Edward as "the only begetter" of the _Entente_; it is at any rate within the mark to credit him with having missed no opportunity of fostering it by his tact and _bonhomie_. It was no easy task. When he visited Paris in 1902 the official greetings were perfectly correct, but the animosity aroused over the Boer war found vent in outrageous and unseemly caricatures. England was then the most unpopular country in the world; and in allaying this general distrust and dislike, the personal relations of King Edward with foreign statesmen and rulers wrought powerfully for goodwill and a better understanding. [Illustration: STUDENTS ON THE MAKE MR. F. E. SMITH: "Master of epigram--like me!" MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: "Wrote a novel in his youth--like me!" TOGETHER: "Travelled in the East--like us. How does it end?" (Mr. W. F. Monypenny's official "Life of Disraeli" has just been published.)] [Sidenote: _Foes and Friends_]