ignorant of the traditions and qualities of our older leaders, and
quite out of touch with the mass of the party. For a time
Parliament was enormously taken up with moribund issues and old
quarrels. The early Educational legislation was sectarian and
unenterprising, and the Licensing Bill went little further than the
attempted rectification of a Conservative mistake. I was altogether
for the nationalisation of the public-houses, and of this end the
Bill gave no intimations. It was just beer-baiting. I was
recalcitrant almost from the beginning, and spoke against the
Government so early as the second reading of the first Education
Bill, the one the Lords rejected in 1906. I went a little beyond my
intention in the heat of speaking,--it is a way with inexperienced
man. I called the Bill timid, narrow, a mere sop to the jealousies
of sects and little-minded people. I contrasted its aim and methods
with the manifest needs of the time.

I am not a particularly good speaker; after the manner of a writer I
worry to find my meaning too much; but this was one of my successes.
I spoke after dinner and to a fairly full House, for people were
already a little curious about me because of my writings. Several
of the Conservative leaders were present and stayed, and Mr.
Evesham, I remember, came ostentatiously to hear me, with that
engaging friendliness of his, and gave me at the first chance an
approving "Hear, Hear!" I can still recall quite distinctly my two
futile attempts to catch the Speaker's eye before I was able to
begin, the nervous quiver of my rather too prepared opening, the
effect of hearing my own voice and my subconscious wonder as to what
I could possibly be talking about, the realisation that I was
getting on fairly well, the immense satisfaction afterwards of
having on the whole brought it off, and the absurd gratitude I felt