His growing spirit was finding outlets in every direction. He was attending political meetings and listening eagerly and critically to such gospel as his elders preached. He had begun writing regularly for the newspapers; and over the challenging name of “Brutus,” the _North Wales Express_ was producing a series of articles,[18] vigorous and combative—a little young and flamboyant, but always arresting and stimulating to the audience of young Wales. Already in the 1880 Election those articles, written by a boy not yet 18 years of age, played no insignificant part in North Wales: and now the people of Carnarvonshire were beginning to ask of the young David, as in the old days another people asked of a greater prophet—“Who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself?” To these questions the daring youth soon began to give an answer with both speech and action. In 1881, the third year of his apprenticeship, he was elected a member of one of those little centres of intellectual energy which were growing up all over Wales in the dawn of this new time. The Portmadoc Debating Society may have meant little to the world; but it meant a great deal to itself and to the town of Portmadoc. This little assembly met weekly in a room over a shop in the Portmadoc High Street. There came together an eager throng of young Welshmen determined to discuss for themselves all the problems of the day. Their debates covered every great question of the eighties. David Lloyd George, now eighteen years of age, did not intend to be a silent member. He soon began to speak often. He took part in debates on all the great problems that occupied his later life—Franchise and Free Trade, Trade Unionism and Irish Land, even the Channel Tunnel. On all these subjects he expressed bold and progressive opinions, and in this little school he began to train his power of speech. Such a passion for debate is a common disease of youth, and often passes like a fitful fever. But with the young Lloyd George it was not to be so. It was soon clear that the power of speech was with him a very special gift, and he threw into it a great deal of care and industry. Men at Portmadoc will still describe how he could be seen walking along the high-road gesticulating as he practised his speeches; and there is no doubt that at this moment of his life he already had some dim perception that he possessed the magic gift of oratory.