Lloyd - George knew my father. He apparently knew all about converting coal into diesel fuel as well.
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Or at least if the Welsh Wizard was not versed in such technicalities himself, there were those in his Party who were, and the process — as two Peers recalled last week — formed part of the Liberal programme in the 1929 election. Now there are not many who can remember fighting an election half a century ago, and what made this incident more intriguing was that both these once-upon-a-time Liberals had in due course become well-respected Labour MPs.
There was Lord Hale — feared by press gallery reporters in his heyday as the fastest talker in the Commons — and Lord Janner,who took things at a more leisurely pace.
Both obviously thought it was high time something was done, but another Peer, who became Financial Secretary at the War Office when Ramsay MacDonald won his hair's-breadth 1929 victory was not so keen.
There had been hundreds of schemes, some of them very efficient, observed Lord Shinwell, but they were so expensive they could not possibly compete with oil from places like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Government spokesman Lord Strabolgi had nothing to say about Iranian oil. He saw the point about cost.
At the moment, with coal at £25 a tonne, synthetic oil would be about £90 to £101 a tonne — about double the present cost of natural crude.
But he was able to reassure the man who had first asked about coal-into-oil, Lord Thomas .... Miles Thomas of Morris Motors and BOAC as was.
Synthetic liquid fuels should begin to be required after the turn of the century, and the Department of Energy and the Coal Board were getting together to design two 25-tonnes-a-day coal liquefaction pilot plants to produce a full range of transport fuels and chemical feedstocks.
He spoke in terms of hundreds of millions, forthcoming from the Government promptly and effectively if the pilot scheme was a success. He probably did not expect a firm promise, and sure enough, Lord Strabolgi would make no cornmitment.
But he did promise that the Government would press on and forecast that the construction phase might begin in about 18 months' time.
Lloyd-George, thou shouldst be living at this hour!