The General Election took place on December 14th and Mr. Lloyd George was returned to power with a majority of 249 over all the independent groups. For the 602 seats in Great Britain no less than 478 official Coalition candidates were elected, while the suicidal policy of the Sinn Feiners resulted in the practical elimination of the Irish Party as a parliamentary force. Most of the leading Independent Liberals were defeated, and the Coalition was returned with a powerful and overwhelming mandate to carry out its stated policy both at home and abroad. Parliament met to take the oath on February 3rd, 1919, and was opened by the King for business on Tuesday, February 11th. It was emphatically a war-born Parliament, but there were also signs of the New World which had emerged from the war. Only 365 of the old members had been re-elected. Labour stood out as the strongest party in opposition, and its parliamentary leaders took their places on the Front Opposition Bench.[139] The opening took place under ominous signs of civil strife. The unrest of labour, restrained by patriotic motives during the war, had already broken out into open flame. A general strike on the Underground Railways held London in a grip of paralysis, made harder by a bitter February frost. Mr. Lloyd George attended Parliament before going to the Peace Conference in order to utter a grave warning against the dangers of those social strifes. “This trouble,” he said, “is impeding peace; and peace is the first necessity.” He warned the country against certain symptoms of anarchy new to British movements; and he had grave reason for so doing. But, at the same time, his attitude towards the real grievances of Labour was always sympathetic and open-minded. His own life had taught him too well the reality of those fears which enshroud the workman’s existence: the dread of unemployment; the precariousness of wage; and, above all, that fearful evil of over-crowding which had been so seriously aggravated by the war. He promised full investigation, and within a few days he called together at the Central Hall, Westminster, a Labour Conference between employers and employed, to whom he addressed himself in an earnest and persuasive speech. All through the labour troubles of this year Mr. Lloyd George pursued the same consistent policy. He was firm against anarchy, and yet open to reason in regard to all real complaints. He had his ears open to the call of the new order. But he dreaded the complete smashup of the old society before the new was ready, and the events in Russia faced him as a glaring red light. But he stood firm against coercion and repression as the only cure for unrest, and he saved his Government from pursuing the policy which, after Waterloo, led to the tragic anti-climax of Peterloo.