Welsh Journals

of Great Britain in her role as a world power and providing both resources and armies beyond the control of Parliament'. But even this was, in the last resort, temporary. By the 1890s "imperialism" had been purged of that tinge of oriental despotism which Disraeli had associated with it'. The older tradition which had always been there, even if half-submerged in the mid-Victorian period, had finally triumphed, widely accepted by Liberals and Conservatives alike-the idea of an empire of co-operation between colonies of settlement and of trusteeship (England's mission) for non-Europeans. Ideally the new imperialism meant, in Lord Salisbury's words, 'employment for the worker, markets for the manufacturer, and civilisation and freedom for the African tribes'. Dr. Eldridge's book suggests a considerable continuity of British response (even though it was often continuity in diversity) to the tempta- tions, challenges and problems of overseas commitments, and would, with reservations, seem to support Professors Robinson and Gallagher's approach. The reservations are, however, important because Dr. Eldridge accepts that the external circumstances to which the British government was responding changed markedly from decade to decade. M. E. CHAMBERLAIN Swansea. LLOYD GEORGE. By Kenneth O. Morgan. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974. Pp. 224: -100 illustrations. £ 3.25. Some years ago at the Institute of Historical Research in London there was a memorable, if polite, clash between two eminent historians, now both dead. Charles Mowat gave a lecture depicting Lloyd George as the lost leader of the inter-war years, the only man who could have offered a radical, yet practicable, policy to rid Britain of economic depression and unemployment; circumstances had denied the country the one man who could have solved her problems. In the discussion that followed, Sir Charles Webster delivered a somewhat blistering attack on Mowat's argument, insisting that, on the contrary, Lloyd George had epitomized the weak morale of inter-war Britain, and his demonstrations of respect and affection for Hitler had marked the lowest ebb of British public life in those years. Readers of Kenneth Morgan's new biography, in the series 'British Prime Ministers', under the general editorship of A. J. P. Taylor, will realize that there was, paradoxically, a great deal of truth in both arguments. At two points in his book-in the first and last chapters- Dr. Morgan makes quick, masterly surveys of the changing attitudes of historians to Lloyd George, and reminds his readers of the depths of abuse to which writers sank in the early 1960s. His own conclusion-or, as he self-effacingly expresses it, the likely view of younger historians-is of Lloyd George as 'a great rebel and a great critic, who stood outside the established institutions and vested interests and who yet had definable long-term objectives in terms of social reform and international peace.'