England was fast learning to lean on the grey-eyed Welshman.  He came to be known as the “Government Mascot”:  he was continually pulling his party’s chestnuts out of the fire of failure or folly.  George had begun to “do it” and in a big way.

Likewise the whole country was beginning to feel pride in his performance as the following story, which has been adapted to various other celebrities, will attest: 

Lloyd George sat one day in the compartment of a train that was held up at the station at Cardiff.  A porter carrying a traveller’s luggage noticed him and called his client’s attention, saying: 

“There is Lloyd George himself in that train.”

The traveller seemed indifferent and again the porter called attention to the budding great man.  After persistent efforts to rouse his interest, the tourist, much nettled, said tartly: 

“Suppose it is.  He’s not God Almighty.”

“Ah,” replied the porter, “remember he’s young yet.”

When Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Asquith no one was surprised.  It is typical of the man that he should have leaped from the lowest to the highest place but one in the Cabinet.

As Chancellor he had at last the opportunity to fulfill his democratic destiny.  Whatever Lloyd George may be, one thing is certain:  he is essentially a man of the masses.  With his famous People’s Budget he legislated sympathy into the law.  It meant the whole kindling social programme of Old Age pensions, Health and Unemployment insurance, increased income tax and an enlarged death duty.  As most people know, it put much of the burden of English taxation on the pocketbooks of the people who could best afford to pay.  The Duke-baiting began.

Just as he had fought for a Free Wales so did he now struggle for a Free Land.  All his amazing picturesqueness of expression came into play.  He contended that Monopoly had made land so valuable in Britain that it almost sold by the grain, like radium.  In commenting on the heavy taxes levied by the land autocrats upon commercial enterprise in London he made his famous phrase: 

“This is not business.  It is blackmail!”

To democracy the Budget meant economic emancipation:  the banishment of hunger from the hearth:  the solace of an old age free from want.  It made Lloyd George “The Little Brother of the Poor.”  To the Aristocracy it was the gauge of battle for the bitterest class war ever waged in England:  violation of ancient privilege.

The fight for this programme made Lloyd George the best known and most detested man in England.  To hate him was one of the accomplishments of titled folk to whom his very name was a hissing and a by-word.  Massed behind him were the common people whose champion he was:  arrayed against him were the powers of wealth and rank.