There is no man living who would make a better Chancellor of the Exchequer than this merchant prince who, however, has had enough of politics and is going back very gladly to his desk in the City.  He is not in the least soured by the public ingratitude, and rightly judges it to be rather the voice of unscrupulous and stunt-seeking journalism than the considered judgment of the nation.  But he has a very poor opinion of the way in which the Government of the country conducts its business.

LORD LEVERHULME

LORD LEVERHULME, 1ST BARON (WILLIAM HESKETH LEVER)

     Born 1851, Lancashire.  Educ.:  Bolton Church Institute; Chairman of
     Lever Bros., Port Sunlight; High Sheriff, Lancaster, 1917.

[Illustration:  LORD LEVERHULME]

CHAPTER XIII

LORD LEVERHULME

"Dullness is so much stronger than genius because there is so much more of it, and it is better organized and more naturally cohesive inter se. So the Arctic volcano can do nothing against Arctic ice."—­SAMUEL BUTLER.

The reader may properly wonder to find the figure of Lord Leverhulme brought before the mirrors of Downing Street.

But let me explain why I introduce this industrial Triton into the society of our political minnows.

Lord Leverhulme rejected politics only when politics rejected him.  He is of that distinguished company to whom the House of Commons has turned both a deaf ear and a cold shoulder.  He failed where Mr. Walter Long succeeded, and fell where Dr. Macnamara rose.

I once asked a Cabinet Minister how it was that a man of such conspicuous quality had failed to win office.  “I really cannot tell you,” he replied with complacency, “but I remember very well that the House of Commons never took to him.  It is curious how many men who do well outside the House of Commons fail to make good inside.”

Curious indeed!  But more curious still, we may surely say, that the House of Commons should continue, in the light of this knowledge, to enjoy so good an opinion of itself.

I suppose that nobody will now dispute that Lord Leverhulme is easily the foremost industrialist, not merely in the British Isles, but in the world.  I can think of no one who approaches him in the creative faculty.  Not even America, the country of big men and big businesses, has produced a man of this truly colossal stature.  Mr. Rockefeller is a name for a committee.  Mr. Carnegie was pushed to fortune by his more resolute henchmen.  But Lord Leverhulme, as is very well known in America, has been the sole architect of his tremendous fortunes, and in all his numerous undertakings exercises the power of an unquestioned autocrat.

Mr. Lloyd George once remarked to me that the trouble with Lord Leverhulme is that he cannot work with other men.  But this is only true in part.  Lord Leverhulme can work very well with men who are not fools.  When I told him of Mr. Lloyd George’s remark, “Well, I don’t know,” he replied, “I have been working with other men all my life!” Yes, but this, too, expresses only part of the truth.  He has been working with these other men as an accepted master.