The Washington times., 1917-01-14
LIoyd-George Occupies Prime
Minister'S Official Residence,
No. 10 Downing Street.
DMGY HISTORICAL SETTING
Little Squat Home Looks Much
Like Cheap Lodging
House.
BY JAMES c. GREY.


There is a new man In 10 Downing
street. David Lloyd d-George presides
at the long table with the green cloth
where, ever since GeorgNI presented
the house to his prime minister. Sir
Robert walpole, the history of the
British empire and over half the
world has been made. The Welsh st
torney has climbed to the top of Dis
raeli's greasy pole"
There was a momentous meeting In
Downing street in the first days of
August, 1914, when the British cabi-
net delayed" The story of that
meeting will surely >rival any that
went before It. Lloyd-George having
ousted the cabinet that delayed sits
where Asquith had so often said:
"Wait and see;" but that delay rf
August, 1914, lent. color to the gossip
OF London clubs that Lloyd-George
was only brought down to the fright
side" after a lively scene in the cabi-
net room with Winston Churchill.
Churchill will tell us all about IL one
day when the war is over.
It is with a sense of shock one
tunns on spacious Whitehall into
Downing street. Zeppelin command
ers might look for 1t in vain, but It
is we'll known to many Americans
today, for is il not written in the
defense of the realm act that all pass
ports must be vised?-and the en-
trance to the passport section Of the
foreign office is almost opposite 10
Downing street.
Only a Block Deep.
Downing street is little cul de
sac, less than a block deep, that runs
OF Whitehall and the Treasury build
ing near the Horse Guards and that
large pile of italian buildings, COM
prising the home office and colonial
office. No. IL Downing street, the
official residence of the. chancellor
of the exchequer, Is one of row of
squat houses having the air OF cheap
lodging houses, differing in little but
the arched lamp frame from its neigh
Dor. No. 10, the home OF the prime
minister.
There is no guard but a solitary
policeman, and the houses have no
protection save the cheap iron rail-
ing almost shoulder high that in
Georgian days may have served as a
fence for a flower patch and now
keeps the iinquisitive passerby from
staring in the windows. The door.
with its knocker, is on a level with
the street and no awning protects the
cabinet minister as he steps out of
his carriage to enter.
&l= Cabinet MeetinE Rssm. y Il
. The waiting room at No., 10 looks
out on a narrow back garden with a
high protecting wall and was used
by Disraeli as a dining room. A
smaller room separates this from the
cabinet room, which is entered
through a pair of folding doors. The
heavily paneled walls of the cabinet
room are lined with book shelves,
while two windows let in the light,
and an open fireplace serves to keep
away the fogs and chills of London.
In the center OF the room stands a
long table with a green cloth, the
number of chairs around IL varying
with the number of cabinet ministers.
The ministers meet unattended: no
secretaries are present; no officials
are called in. no records are kept.
Secrecy is the motto around that
green table, and to obtain a seat at
it is the ambition of every rising
statesman.
Scene of MOmentous Meetings.
Momentous meetings have taken place
around that green table. 1t was there
that on December rs, 1885, Lord Sal
isbury, master OF tactics. met his cab
met to face the issue raised by Lord
Randolph Churchill and ended an i'm
perial crisis by. deciding to call Gosch-
en- to office
1t was there that Disraeli in 1878
had what Gladstone called his 'fu-
multuous year" The Russians had
entered Adrianople and reached the
Sea of Marmora. The question in
England was, who was to have Con-
stantinople? No great power was
willing to see 1t in the hands of an
other great power and no small power
could hold II.
Disraeli and his .henchman Sails
bury brought about the congress of
Berlin, only to be denounced by
Gladstone.
When John Milton lived in Scotland
Yard, over the way, where the Scot
tish kings had a palace with sanctu-
ary, there was no Downing street, and
when Charles Dickens described Ber-
nard's Inn as the "dirtiest collection
of shabby buildings ever squeezed to-
gether inca rank corner as club for
tomcats," he must have forgotten the
dingy row of houses in the small, mar
row street that takes its name from
George Downing.
George Downing, Irishman.
George Downing was an Irishman;
that is, he was born In Ireland, and,
being a nephew Of that other Trinity
College Dublin man, Governor. Win
throp, he came to America and studied
at Harvard. Returning to England a
versatile politician of the Vicar of
Bray school, he enrolled under the
banner Of the Protectorate, and as a
reward was sent as British resident
to The Hague. There he fiirted so sue
with the exiIed Stuarts that
after the Restoration he got knight
hood and a strip OF land in Whitehall
for his services. Pepys has a lot to
say about him and calls him a per-
fdious rogue"
When George Downing got posses
sion of his strip of land he soon be-
gan 10 build that.row of houses near
the treasury of which the dingy two
story. No. 10, was chosen by King
George as official home of his prime
minister.