There is no need of asking the name of the man who went to
calm this storm. Only one was eligible and he lost no time.
Lloyd George did not call a conference at Cardiff: he went straight to
Wales and spoke to the workers at the mouth of the pit. What arbitration
and conciliation had failed to do, his hypnotic oratory achieved. The
men went back to the mines with a cheer.
A week later at the London Opera House he made a notable speech to the
Conference of Representatives of the Miners of Great Britain. To have
heard that speech was to get a liberal education in the art of
phraseology and to carry always in memory the magic of the man's voice.
In this speech he said:
"In war and peace King Coal is the paramount industry. Every pit is
a trench: every workshop a rampart: every yard that can turn out
munitions of war is a fortress.... Coal is the most terrible of
enemies and the most potent of friends.... When you see the seas
clear and the British flag flying with impunity from realm to realm
and from shore to shore--when you find the German flag banished
from the face of the ocean, who had done it? The British miner
helping the British sailor."
Small wonder that after this effort the miners of Wales should acclaim
their gallant countryman as Industrial Messiah.
You would think that by this time England had made her final tax on the
resource of her Ready Man.
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