rge entered
Parliament in 1890, at the age of twenty-seven. With his entry into the
Cabinet, in company with Mr. John Burns, at the Liberal revival in 1905,
government by aristocracy was ended; and when Mr. Lloyd George went from
the Board of Trade to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, startling
changes were predicted in national finance. These predictions were held to
have been fulfilled in the Budget of 1909. The House of Lords considered
the financial proposals of the Budget so revolutionary that it took the
unprecedented course of rejecting the Bill, and thus precipitated the
dispute between the two Houses of Parliament, which was brought to a
satisfactory end by the Parliament Act of 1911. Romantic and idealist from
the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable courage, Mr.
Lloyd George, with the strong backing of his Welsh compatriots, fought his
way into the front rank of the Liberal Party during the ten years
(1895-1905) of opposition. More than once Mr. George pitted himself against
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the days of the Conservative ascendancy and the
South African War, and his powers as a Parliamentary debater won general
acknowledgment. In youth Mr. Lloyd George, full of the fervour of Mazzini's
democratic teaching, dreamed of Wales as a nation, a republic, with
himself, perhaps, as its first president. Welsh nationalism could not breed
a Home Rule Party as Irish nationalism has done, and Mr. Lloyd George has
found greater scope for his talents in the Liberal Party. The Welsh
"question" has dwindled into a campaign for the Disestablishment of the
Church in Wales, a warfare of Dissenters and Churchmen, and to Mr. Lloyd
George there were bigger issues at stake than the position of the Welsh
Church.

[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.

_Photo: Reginald Haines, Southampton Row, W.C._]

Already Mr. Lloyd George's Budget and his speeches in support of the Budget
have made the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer familiar to the
people of Great Britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his Bill for
National Insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. Hated by
opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, Mr. Lloyd George
enjoys the tumult he arouses. His passionate speeches for the poor provoke
the sympathy of the working class; his denunciations of the rich stir the
anger of all who fear social revolution. Hostile critics deny any
constructive statesmans