He was less a Liberal than a Welshman on the loose

He was less a Liberal than a Welshman on the loose. He wanted the poor to inherit the earth, particularly if it was the earth of rich English landlords; and he wanted this with a sly, semi-educated passion which struck his parliamentary colleagues as being in very bad form. 

The Boer War first brought him into prominence. He fought against it tooth and nail and became generally hated as a leading pro-Boer – until the sad and sanguinary farce was over, when he was suddenly recognized as a man of vision. 

G. Dangerfield, The strange death of liberal England (1936), 31