In 1886 he joined eagerly in the great Anti-Tithe campaign which was being carried on throughout North Wales by those remarkable men, Mr. Thomas Gee and Mr. John Parry. David Lloyd George became the Secretary of that League in South Carnarvonshire, and he addressed meetings throughout the district. He accompanied Mr. Gee and Mr. Parry on many of their most daring raids. He drove long distances in a small governess cart and addressed meetings in little villages away in remote districts. It was characteristic of David that he actually provoked and promoted hostility. He would hold his meetings by preference in the neighbourhood of the Parish Church or of the National School. He would regard it as his greatest triumph if he could draw the parson or the curate to come out and meet him in open warfare. One of the visions of him at this period handed down is that of a day in June 1887, when he was seen coatless and in his shirt-sleeves arguing against the curate in the open green at the village fair of Sarn Melltcyrn. He did not shrink from passive sympathy with the mild rioting which began to take place at the tithe sales resulting from the distraints that followed. His whole heart went out in sympathy to Welsh farmers compelled by law to contribute from their pocket to what they regarded as an alien Church. The “Tithe War” gave David Lloyd George that best of training for a young public speaker—the training of public controversy in the open air. It made him quick and resourceful. Here was the best possible whetstone for his natural gift of courage. These speeches made him already a rising public champion. This was a new portent for the Welsh farmer—a lawyer who was not in league with the rich. It flashed as a shining light on the eyes of a people who had always been used to regard the law as the paid servant of power and property. It brought more of those farmers flocking to his office: and once more it brought him forward as the legal friend of the poor and the oppressed—“the poor man’s lawyer” of Carnarvonshire. The people gradually learned that here was a man skilled in the law who was ready on their behalf to face the tyrants of the Bench and to challenge their power. In nothing had this power of the Bench been more ruthlessly exercised than in the matter of fishing. By a curious distortion of public rights, the rivers of this country have been mainly turned into private property. While fishing on the open sea is as free as the air, unlicensed fishing in fresh water in England outside navigable waters is often accounted a crime.[22] This law of private property in fresh water fishing has fallen with peculiar harshness upon a people like the Welsh, who inherit a great passion for this particular sport. The pressure of the law has been made worse by the fact that the prohibition is perpetually being extended to waters where a customary right of fishing has existed.