Northcliffe began a silent but aggressive crusade for reform in his newspapers, while Lloyd George let loose the powers of his tongue.  A national crisis, literally precipitated by these two men, arose.  The Liberal Government fell and out of its wreck emerged the Coalition Cabinet.  This welding of one-time enemies to meet grave emergency did more than wipe out party lines in an hour that threatened the Empire’s very existence.

The reorganised Cabinet knew—­as all England knew—­that the greatest requirement was not only men but munitions.  A galvanic personality was necessary to organise and direct the force that could save the day.  A new Cabinet post—­the Ministry of Munitions—­was created.  Who could fill it was the question.  There was neither doubt nor uncertainty about the answer.  It was embodied in one man.

The little Welshman became Minister of Munitions.

Lloyd George had led many a forlorn hope by taking up the task that weaker hands had laid down.  Here, however, was a situation without precedent in a life that was a rebuke to convention.  To succeed to an organised and going post these perilous war times was in itself a difficult job.  In the case of the Ministry of Munitions there was nothing to succeed.  Lloyd George had been given a blank order:  it was up to him to fill it.  He had to create a whole branch of Government from the ground up.  All his powers of tact and persuasion were called into play.  For one thing he had to fit the old established Ordnance Department rooted in tradition and jealous of its prerogatives into the new scheme of things.

Lloyd George was no business man, but he knew how business affairs should be conducted.  He knew, too, that America had reared the empire of business on close knit and efficient organisation.  He did what Andrew Carnegie or any other captain of capital would do.  He called together the Schwabs, the Edisons, the Garys and the Westinghouses of the Kingdom and made them his work fellows.

From every corner of the Empire he drafted brains and experience.  He wanted workers without stint, so he started a Bureau of Labor Supply:  he needed publicity, so he set up an Advertising Department:  to compete with the Germans he realised that he would need every inventive resource that England could command, so he founded an Invention and Research Bureau:  he saw the disorganisation attending the output of shells in private establishments, so he planted the Union Jack in nearly every mill and took over the control of British Industry:  he found labour at its old trick of impeding progress, so with a Munitions Act he practically conscripted the men of forge and mill into an industrial army that was almost under martial law.  He cut red tape and injected red blood into the Department that meant national preservation.  In brief, Lloyd George was on the job and things were happening.

The Minister established himself in an old mansion in Whitehall Garden where belles and beaux had danced the stately minuet.  It became a dynamo of energy whose wires radiated everywhere.  “More Munitions” was the creed that flew from the masthead.