Welsh Journals

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Although Myrddin Lloyd's interest in Emrys ap Iwan is primarily literary, his wide knowledge of his chosen subject enables him to present various facets of his career with insight and sympathy. He has selected and translated short quotations from Emrys ap Iwan's most salient works, and these include some quite splendid pieces of invective. The time is now surely ripe for a serious full-scale biography of this compelling and sometimes baffling man. T. Gwynn Jones's standard biography has worn well but it is, in parts at any rate, less a biography than a patchwork of quotations. Whoever takes up the task will be fortunate to have this perceptive introductory essay at hand. GERAINT H. JENKINS Aberystwyth. CONSENSUS AND DISUNITY: THE LLOYD GEORGE COALITION GOVERNMENT, 1918-1922. By Kenneth O. Morgan. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979. Pp. ix, 436. £ 15.00 This is an important book. It sets out to examine, in its full complexity, Lloyd George's peace-time administration, a period which is only too often compressed into an examination of the downfall of Lloyd George, or an episode in the decline of the Liberal Party, or, for that matter, a springboard for the rise of Labour. Dr. Morgan has treated it as an examination of a government attempting to face the congeries of economic, financial, social and international problems of a society in rapid change. The men of 1914 were still on the commanding heights of politics in 1918, but the landscape which they surveyed had been transformed. It is worth reminding ourselves of one fact: the nominal amount of the unredeemed capital of the national debt stood at £ 706 millions in 1914 ( £ 130 millions less than the figure for 1820); it stood at £ 7,875 millions in 1920. Among other changes was 'the greatest upheaval in land ownership since the Norman Conquest': about a quarter of England changed hands between 1918 and 1922. Dr. Morgan gives chapter and verse for his central assertion-that the Coalition government attempted to serve the 'national interest' by attempting to fuse the centre against the extremists of Left and Right: his comparison with F. D. Roosevelt's New Deal is apt. Like Roosevelt, Lloyd George attempted to 'weave together' conflicting claims (and conflicting personalities). But centrist politics, if they are to be successful, entail compromises. Like F. D. Roosevelt, Lloyd George was the master of the spoken word: both men were masters of the bold statement and the intimate conclave. Neither was particularly fortunate when con- fronting the intransigence of party interests. Dr. Morgan considers in detail priorities and policies under three headings-Labour, Social Reform and Overseas Affairs, with three other chapters on major challengers to the Coalition (Labour and the Tory Die-hards), and minor challengers (Asquithians and Cecils). He deals fully and imaginatively with appeals to public opinion-a substitute, in some ways, for Lloyd George's lack of a substantial political organisation under his own control.