holiday, but somewhere in his youth he finds inexhaustible reserves of
power which he conserves into his middle age. In this way he has found
the secret of his temporary Empire. It is for this reason that the man
in command is never too busy to see a caller who has the urgency of
vital business at his back.

The Ex-Leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. Bonar Law, however much he
may differ from the Premier in many aspects of his temperament, also
finds the foundation of his judgment in exercise and caution. As a
player of games he is rather poor, but makes up in enthusiasm for tennis
what he lacks in skill. His habits are almost ascetic in their rigour.
He drinks nothing, and the finest dinner a cook ever conceived would be
wasted on him. A single course of the plainest food suffices his
appetite, and he grows manifestly uneasy when faced with a long meal.
His pipe, his one relaxation, never far absent, seems to draw him with a
magic attraction. As it was, his physical resources stood perhaps the
greatest strain that has been imposed on any public man in our time.
From the moment when he joined the first Coalition Government in 1915 to
the day when he laid down office in 1921 he was beset by cares and
immersed in labours which would have overwhelmed almost any other man.
Neither this nor succeeding Coalition Governments were popular with a
great section of his Conservative followers, and to the task of taking
decisions on the war was added the constant and irritating necessity of
keeping his own supporters in line with the administration. In 1916 he
had to take the vital decision which displaced Mr. Asquith in favour of
Mr. Lloyd George, and during the latter's Premiership he had to suffer
the strain of constantly accommodating himself, out of a feeling of
personal loyalty, to methods which were not congenial to his own nature.
In the face of all these stresses he never would take a holiday, and
nothing except the rigid moderation of his life enabled him to keep the