The Mirrors of Downing Street: Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a DusterBegbie, Harold
History
The Mirrors of Downing Street: Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster
Begbie, Harold
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1910-1936; Statesmen -- Great Britain
At a moment when the proposal of the Government seemed lost, Mr. Lloyd
George leant forward in his chair, very pale, very quiet, and very
earnest. "Gentlemen," he said in a voice which produced an extraordinary
hush, "have you forgotten that your sons, at this very moment, are being
killed--killed in hundreds and thousands? They are being killed by
German guns for want of British guns. Your sons, your brothers--boys at
the dawn of manhood!--they are being wiped out of life in thousands!
Gentlemen, give me guns. Don't think of your trade secrets. Think of
your children. Help them! Give me those guns."
This was no stage acting. His voice broke, his eyes filled with tears,
and his hand, holding a piece of notepaper before him, shook like a
leaf. There was not a man who heard him whose heart was not touched, and
whose humanity was not quickened. The trade secrets were pooled. The
supply of munitions was hastened.
This is the secret of his power. No man of our period, when he is
profoundly moved, and when he permits his genuine emotion to carry him
away, can utter _an appeal to conscience_ with anything like so
compelling a simplicity. His failure lies in a growing tendency to
discard an instinctive emotionalism for a calculated astuteness which
too often attempts to hide its cunning under the garb of honest
sentiment. His intuitions are unrivalled: his reasoning powers
inconsiderable.
When Mr. Lloyd George first came to London he shared not only a room in
Gray's Inn, but the one bed that garret contained with a
fellow-countryman. They were both inconveniently poor, but Mr. Lloyd
George the poorer in this, that as a member of Parliament his expenses
were greater. The fellow-lodger, who afterwards became private secretary
to one of Mr. Lloyd George's rivals, has told me that no public speech
of Mr. Lloyd George ever equalled in pathos and power the speeches which
the young member of Parliament would often make in those hungry days,
seated on the edge of the bed, or pacing to and fro in the room,
speeches lit by one passion and directed to one great object, lit by the
passion of justice, directed to the liberation of all peoples oppressed
by every form of tyranny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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