Mr. Hodges spoke with extreme moderation and at the end of his speech, the members fired at him for one hour a long succession of questions to all of which he replied with striking sincerity and directness, thus eliciting the tribute that there was no minister of the House, except Mr. Lloyd George himself, who could thave done as brilliantly when faced as he was faced by the entire cross-examining brains of the House of Commons.
One question of paramount importance was put to him, namely, whether the miners would accept a purely temporary settlement on the lines of a district wage adjustment would contribute, either by loan or by gift a certain sum of money to make up the admittedly poor salaries of certain local miners, whose hard plight excited keen sympathy, He replied that they would, whereupon the meeting was adjourned and a deputation of ten hurried over to Downing Street about midnight to lay the matter before the Prime Minister, They found he had gone to bed, but they at once woke him up and induced him to dress and come down to listen to the new development. Mr. Lloyd George was not too well pleased, and he remarked rather tartly that if the unofficial members of the House wanted to conduct the business of negotiation, they had better take. everything over and he would stand aside.
Nevertheless he was soon astute enough to realize that, after all, the new development was sufficiently important to merit careful attention, and he ranged himself on the side of a settlement on tha suggested lines.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.