But, in spite of all this trouble within the party, Mr. Lloyd George was always resolute not to quarrel with the machine. One of his fixed principles was—“Keep the party machine on your side.” He was certainly not a typical party man—far from it. He regarded the party as the instrument and the cause as the end; whereas the typical party view is that the cause is the instrument and the party the end. But he knew the power of the machine; he often quoted Mr. Chamberlain as an instance showing that in the end the machine won. “Mr. Chamberlain fought both of the machines in turn,” he used to say, “and, in the end, both combined against him and beat him.” Roosevelt was another case which impressed him deeply. “Ah!” he commented, when that great man was beaten so decisively in 1913, “Roosevelt ought not to have quarrelled with the machine.” On these grounds he has often accepted the second best in policy. He has often allowed himself to be convinced against his will. After the defeat of the Education Bill in 1906, for instance, he was as eager to go back to the country as Mr. Gladstone after the Lords’ rejection of Home Rule in 1893. Both these great fighters felt instinctively that a party which accepts a defeat asks to be defeated again until it is finally smashed. You cannot expect a country to vote for ever for a party that accepts defeat as its proper portion. But in this case, as in others, rather than quarrel with his party, he acquiesced in the decision to go on. Still, he was glad when the split with the Lords became irrevocable. It happened that I had the fortune of announcing to him the resolution of the Lords to throw out the Budget. It was down at Lord Renders beautiful house near Guildford, where Mr. Lloyd George was staying for the last time with that faithful Nestor of Welsh Liberalism. Mr. Lloyd George had been very anxious. He knew that the wiser Unionist leaders in the Lords had been in favour of accepting his Bill. He was afraid that the Lords were going to refuse battle on grounds so favourable to their assailants. When I told him the news his face shone. “The Lord,” he cried, “has delivered them into our hands!”