present as a journalist and remember seeing Lloyd George walking
along by the side of the dismantled lines, threading his way through
the wreckage, putting questions to the railway officials, and generally
seeking to probe out on his own account how the affair occurred. On
behalf of a score of special correspondents who had come down from
London, I stopped Lloyd George in the street as he was walking to his
hotel to ask him about the official inquiry. "Is it to be held in
private, as usual?" I said. "No," replied Lloyd George. "The inquiry
will be in public. Here are twenty people killed and the country has
the right to know why they were killed." That was the way he used to
break precedents. Next day we all went down to the Raven Hotel, the
appointed place, and the inspector proceeded with his work of examining
witnesses. Lloyd George sat by his side. I felt sorry for that
inspector--who usually was monarch of all he surveyed. He was a man of
dignified and leisurely manner. Lloyd George cut in and took the
examination of witnesses out of his mouth and, figuratively speaking,
turned them inside out in trying to get the facts. He did not consider
the position of the inspector one bit. But he made the inquiry a very
interesting one.

Despite his new manner on the Treasury bench in the House of Commons
Lloyd George had lost none of the freshness and suppleness of mind
which had distinguished him as a free-lance, and as he proceeded to do
unexpected things it became apparent he was going to be as vital a
figure in office as he had been on the back benches. Traces of
appreciation showed themselves in public comment, though his ancient
enemies, the Conservatives, held their dislike in reserve, and had some
forebodings in their hearts about the future. They knew quite well by
now that this Welshman could not be read at a glance.

Bits of the old Adam began to show up in Lloyd George's speeches as he
lent his aid on the platform in support of Liberal proposals. I
remember that at this time there was still a good deal of talk by the
Conservatives of tariff reform--that is to say, of the imposition of
import duties for protection and revenue purposes. The Liberals were
against the proposals, fought them strongly, and indeed by their
attitude had won a good deal of support in the election which returned
them to power. Lloyd George made some of his flaming speeches in
support of free trade against protection. Th