but he has what both Lord Grey and Mr. Balfour lack—­a touch of genius—­whatever that is—­not the kind that takes infinite pains, but the kind that acts as an electric light flashed in the dark.  He said to me the other day that experts have nearly been the death of him.  “The Government has experts, experts, experts, everywhere.  In any department where things are not going well, I have found boards and committees and boards of experts.  But in one department at least I’ve found a substitute for them.  I let twenty experts go and I put in one Man, and things began to move at once.  Do you know any real Men?  When you hear of any, won’t you let me know?”

A little while ago he dined with me, and, after dinner, I took him to a corner of the drawing room and delivered your message to him about Ireland.  “God knows, I’m trying,” he replied.  “Tell the President that.  And tell him to talk to Balfour.”  Presently he broke out—­“Madmen, madmen—­I never saw any such task,” and he pointed across the room to Sir Edward Carson, his First Lord of the Admiralty—­“Madmen.”  “But the President’s right.  We’ve got to settle it and we’ve got to settle it now.”  Carson and Jellicoe came across the room and sat down with us.  “I’ve been telling the Ambassador, Carson, that we’ve got to settle the Irish question now—­in spite of you.

“I’ll tell you something else we’ve got to settle now,” said Carson.  “Else it’ll settle us.  That’s the submarines.  The press and public are working up a calculated and concerted attack on Jellicoe and me, and, if they get us, they’ll get you.  It’s an attack on the Government made on the Admiralty.  Prime Minister,” said this Ulster pirate whose civil war didn’t come off only because the big war was begun—­“Prime Minister, it may be a fierce attack.  Get ready for it.”  Well, it has been developing ever since.  But I can’t for the life of me guess at the possible results of an English Parliamentary attack on a government.  It’s like a baseball man watching a game of cricket.  He can’t see when the player is out or why, or what caused it.  Of course, the submarine may torpedo Lloyd George and his Government.  It looks very like it may overturn the Admiralty, as Gallipoli did.  If this public finds out the whole truth, it will demand somebody’s head.  But I’m only a baseball man; cricket is beyond me.

But Lloyd George will outlive the war as an active force, whatever happen to him in the meantime.  He’s too heavily charged with electricity to stop activity.  The war has ended a good many careers that seemed to have long promise.  It is ending more every day.  But there is only one Lloyd George, and, whatever else he lack, he doesn’t lack life.

I heard all the speeches in both Houses on the resolution of appreciation of our coming into the war—­Bonar Law’s, Asquith’s (one of the best), Dillon’s, a Labour man’s, and, in the Lords, Curzon’s, Crewe’s,