Like Columbus’s settlement with the egg, this performance seemed easy enough when it was achieved. But we must remember that Mr. Lloyd George stood between two forces both equally violent. On the one side there were the Direct Actionists, the “parlour Bolshevists” of the trade unions, fascinated by M. Sorrel’s[141] opiate dream of dominating the modern State through its complex organisation of food and transport. The thing seemed so easy: and it would have been easy if Mr. Lloyd George had not, for months before the strike, prepared to prevent it. The motor-lorries that supplied London with milk were not organised in a day. They were part of a perfectly legitimate counter-stroke prepared by the Government when they realised the extent of the plot to hold up the national life. But on the extreme wing of the Government’s side there was an equally violent section who cried, “Let’s fight it out to the end! Let’s smash Trade Unionism! Now’s the time to put Labour in the cart!”—elegant phrases, which we all heard in those days. To this temper Mr. Lloyd George was vitally opposed. He was out to fight Bolshevism and “Direct Actionism,” but not Trade Unionism. Happily, in this middle policy he was met half-way by several far-sighted leaders of trade unions, notably Mr. J. H. Thomas, who, while resolutely upholding the rights of the railwaymen, refused to surrender to the revolutionaries. On the Friday Mr. Lloyd George came to the conclusion that he, too, must resist his own extremists and go half-way to meet the trades union moderates. We all remember how, under this new policy of conciliation, the terrors of that critical week passed away like mists before the wind, and Sunday brought us a sudden and welcome peace. It was the triumph of the middle point of view, the old method of British common sense which refuses to burn the house in order to build it better. Mr. Lloyd George was now called to Paris for the great work of European settlement, and the task of reconstruction was left to his Ministers at home. From February to May Mr. Bonar Law led the House of Commons and practically acted as Home Prime Minister. He began to develop the programme of reconstruction promised by the Government at the time of the General Election. On February 26th Mr. Shortt introduced a measure to which Mr. Lloyd George had given a great deal of thought and attention—the Ministry of Transport Bill, constituting a bold claim on behalf of the State to supreme control of railways, canals, tramways, roads, harbours, docks, and electric supply. On March 17th Sir Eric Geddes ably defended the Bill and gained a second reading without a division.