Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Geddes soon complained to Law that Churchill sought to interfere in Admiralty matters, and Law had Lloyd George tell Churchill to keep his nose out of other departments’ affairs. Not even the War Cabinet’s members were consulted about the changes, and senior ministers outside it – such as Derby – were appalled at the lack of collegiality. Derby offered his resignation over Churchill’s appointment, but Lloyd George assured him he would not interfere in the War Office: so Derby withdrew it, though insisted that a ‘great mistake’ had been made.47 Lloyd George, with his customary grace, blamed Law for not having kept Derby informed; Derby then discovered Law had not been consulted either.

  Gwynne wrote to Esher on 19 July that ‘I have never, since the war began, seen such indignation against a Government or man as is raging now against Lloyd George for the appointment of Winston.’48 Asquith told Sylvia Henley that Smuts, with whom he had had lunch, ‘thinks the present lot helpless and doomed, but is against forcing matters to a head.’49 Beaverbrook called this the moment when ‘Lloyd George’s throne tottered. But it did not fall.’50 Writing to Lady Bathurst, Gwynne noted that ‘one of Winston’s chief duties will be to deal with Labour, and if there is one man more unqualified, by his lack of tact, judgment and character, than Winston, I have yet to find him. It is an appalling disaster …’51 C. P. Scott and Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle, both wrote to Churchill to express congratulations; but by far the most sensible letter was from his aunt, Lady Wimborne, who ended with ‘my advice is stick to munitions & don’t try to run the Govt!’52

  Churchill realised how unfair he had been to Lloyd George for criticising him for not promoting him sooner: he had not grasped the scale of the opposition to him, and how much political capital Lloyd George had expended to recall him. Nor was his job straightforward. Riddell told him on 19 July that in the ministry ‘most of the leading men are in a state of mutiny and that resignations are imminent.’53 Nevertheless Churchill’s time at Munitions was one of his most successful spells in government, though the infrastructure had been set up for him by Lloyd George and refined by Addison. He brought his customary vigour and commitment to the job, and his experience in that ministry had an unlikely effect on him; it convinced him that the productive effort of the munitions industry, superintended and controlled by the state, was ‘the greatest argument for State Socialism ever produced.’54 Although many in the political class deplored how it had been done, the reshuffle suggested a dynamism, and a determination to move on ministers, such as Carson, who had not proved suitable for their posts, that pleased even Esher. He wrote on 28 July to Murray of Elibank – one of Lloyd George’s cronies-in-chief, so Esher’s motives might be questioned – to proclaim that ‘LG is the one vital asset left to us.’55

  Another man Lloyd George wished to keep close – and who, unlike Churchill, would almost defy him to do so – was Northcliffe. In Asquith’s time ministers had become obsessed with the press; Lloyd George was especially sensitive to its influence, and realised Northcliffe was the man from whom he had most to fear. In time he would be cured of the awe in which he held the owner of The Times and the Daily Mail, but in the early months of his rule that stage had not yet been reached. Northcliffe was vexed about Britain’s inability to get its message across to America before it entered the war, something he believed essential to get it to do so. Using his myriad intelligence sources across the Atlantic, he regularly informed Lloyd George how poor a fist Britain was making of presenting its case. It was not least following his advocacy that the new information department was formed. It was, it seems, no coincidence that on the evening of 25 February a German destroyer three miles offshore shelled Northcliffe’s country house at Broadstairs, killing a woman and her baby fifty yards away, wounding two others and causing shrapnel to rain down on the house. The Germans knew exactly how significant Northcliffe was in binding together British public opinion.

  Once America entered the war Lloyd George swiftly appreciated that someone with good contacts there should head a mission to help integrate the two nations’ approach to the war: there was no special relationship upon which to build. Balfour had undertaken a mission but was due home; there was talk of replacing him with Grey, but Lloyd George wanted to send a ‘new man’ and Northcliffe seemed to him an ideal choice. The two main purposes of the mission were to improve publicity about the war to a country that was careful to describe itself as an associate rather than an ally, and to improve business relations for supply reasons – and, third, Lloyd George was determined to get Northcliffe out of the way. Although it was a high-risk strategy, given the candidate’s combustibility, megalomania and refusal to take instruction, Lloyd George offered him the post in April; but, for all his apparent thirst for power and influence, he initially refused it, perhaps realising the ulterior motive behind the suggestion. Balfour, when informed of the offer to Northcliffe, was horrified and expressed his deep opposition: something Lloyd George, typically, ignored and, even more typically, kept to himself. He resolved to try again.

  On 24 May the War Cabinet discussed the unhelpful nature of articles in the Northcliffe press that Hankey recorded ‘supply most valuable propaganda to the enemy’; yet Lloyd George proceeded nonetheless with his plan. Hankey, far from stupid, knew this ‘is really a dodge to get rid of Northcliffe, of whom he [Lloyd George] is afraid.’ Where Hankey was wrong was in his concluding observation that ‘I am certain N will not accept it, even if he is asked.’ Why Northcliffe changed his mind is a matter for conjecture; the second offer was of a slightly different nature, with no diplomatic responsibilities such as Balfour had discharged.

  When the appointment was announced on 7 June it prompted predictable controversy, and little short of outrage in the Liberal Party. Lloyd George’s few friends there had urged him to try to heal the wounds caused by Northcliffe’s attacks on Asquith and his administration, and he had promised to do so: yet this was taken as a blind provocation. The prime minister admitted to Scott that ‘it was essential to get rid of him. He had become so “jumpy” as to be really a public danger’.56 The absence of detail – what Northcliffe was doing, whether he had been made a member of the Diplomatic Service, and to whom he was accountable – was raised in the Commons at questions to Sir George Cave, the home secretary, who was unable to provide answers. What Northcliffe actually did was of little concern to Lloyd George compared with his being away, for four months, doing it.

  In mid-November Northcliffe returned from America where, contrary to expectations, he had improved Anglo-American relations. Lloyd George, emboldened by his protégé’s success, offered him the Air Ministry, a crucial appointment when the Royal Air Force was being constructed. Northcliffe turned it down, his letter doing so being published, helpfully, in The Times. It included various damning criticisms of the government. Lloyd George told Riddell that ‘I did not see the letter until I saw it in the newspapers.’57 Having watched from afar for four months Northcliffe had concluded that things were going badly in Britain, a view reinforced by a letter from Leo Maxse of the National Review that he received on his return: ‘Every kind of folly is being perpetrated by the village idiots who misgovern this great country.’58 He had told Lloyd George privately that he thought he could be more useful in the press, and that there were ministers towards whom he could not feel loyalty.

  It seemed the end of the road for the Northcliffe/Lloyd George relationship, the latter telling Riddell that Northcliffe was, after all, ‘unreliable’ and had ‘no sense of loyalty and there is something of the cad about him.’ Nonetheless, and to the King’s dismay, Northcliffe was advanced to a viscountcy on 24 November for his work in America, just as Lloyd George appointed his brother, Lord Rothermere, to the Air Ministry. Northcliffe told Colonel House, to whom he had become close while in Washington, that he did not wish to join ‘so spineless a body’ and lose his right to criticise. House noted: ‘It is common knowledge that N treats LG as if he, the PM, was subordinate and speculation is rife as to when
the worm will turn.’59 It was also House who recorded the ‘denunciatory’ way the King spoke of Northcliffe.60

  If Northcliffe was offhand with Lloyd George, Lloyd George’s conduct towards his colleagues was no better. Derby told Esher on 25 November that ‘the last ten days are the worst I have ever been through’, though that was also because his son-in-law, Neil Primrose, Rosebery’s son, had been killed in Palestine. He claimed to like Lloyd George, but once more nearly resigned until the prime minister dissuaded him. Tensions about Robertson and Haig had been the issue between Lloyd George and Derby, and were far from ironed out.

  Perhaps the most characteristic example of Lloyd George’s manipulative and unscrupulous behaviour was his abuse of patronage and, as with the controversy over the Northcliffe viscountcy that would erupt in the autumn of 1917, his failure to consult the King properly on a matter the King, as the Fountain of honour, took exceptionally seriously. The 1917 New Year’s honours list had mocked respectability, with too many featuring who had assisted in Lloyd George’s rise. The list – delayed by the change of government – came out on 13 February, but Esher had a preview, and was horrified. The controversy over the Aitken baronetcy and peerage was also still fresh. However, perhaps because Lloyd George knew how bad his reputation was in some circles and had been keen to counter it, few blatant donors were rewarded. Yet enough of his supporters were favoured for Esher to describe the distribution of honours as ‘an outrage’ and to say that ‘the jobbery is beyond belief’.61 The Birthday list, due on 1 June, threatened to be worse. Stamfordham, whose job it was to vet the proposals and register concerns about the use of the prerogative, told Salisbury on 23 May that ‘it is impossible to overstate the feelings of nausea with which the ever recurring consideration of honours fills yours very truly’.62 Salisbury was one of forty eminent politicians who sent a petition to Lloyd George urging him to reform the honours system: they wanted reasons given for each award, to ensure the prerogative was used only for the irreproachable; that no honours had been given in return for money, or the expectation of money; and wanted an audit of party funds.

  Lloyd George did not reply, but made his point in presiding over the longest honours list ever issued, which included a dozen peerages and two dozen baronetcies. Eventually, on 20 June, he agreed to meet Salisbury. He invited him to table a parliamentary question, and seemed willing to consider all the proposals Salisbury made about reforming the system and making it more transparent; but then the trail went cold. Salisbury and his friends put down a resolution in the Lords on 7 August, when Curzon, worthy of his hire, dismissed any notion of corruption: the petitioners were outnumbered and withdrew, but when the matter was debated again after the summer recess the resolution was passed and the government agreed to abide by it: compliance would, however, prove another matter.

  The Times denounced the Birthday list, in a leader on 4 June. It noted that ‘Mr Lloyd George … seems to have swallowed the system whole.’63 Too many people had been rewarded for purely party services, and others in return for ‘heavy disbursements’. A ‘cynical traffic’ had grown up: though the paper understood Lloyd George had no party machine or war chest behind him. Like Salisbury, it sought that an honest reason be stated for each award, and that party funds should be subject to proper audit. It returned to the fray after the Lords’ debate, calling Curzon’s arguments for doing nothing ‘extraordinary’, the scandal of honours sales ‘notorious’, and condemning ‘the injury this furtive and illicit traffic does to the prestige of the Crown’ and ‘its contaminating influence upon the vendors, the purchasers and the brokers involved.’64

  Esher, despite his devotion to the King, noted that ‘The “Honours” list has been attacked in The Times with just criticism. It does not touch the Army, and showers distinctions upon all sorts of wretched people who have paid money for what they get. I fear the King’s weakness in accepting such deplorable advice will do him harm.’65 One can only presume the King did so because he had found the change of government destabilising enough six months earlier, without declaring war on his prime minister. The debate would flare up after the war, in lurid circumstances; and questions would be asked in both Houses of Parliament for the rest of the war about the liberality with which patronage was dispensed, and to whom. But the reformers’ efforts were derailed by recipients of the lower ranks of the new Order of the British Empire, almost all blameless citizens rewarded for war work, complaining at the attempt by grandees to tar them with the brush of corruption. A period of silence was deemed wise, and the opportunity for condemnation of the distribution of higher honours would not take long to arise.

  The new Order, and the more exclusive Order of the Companions of Honour, was proposed by Lloyd George to reward those who had done exemplary military or civilian service in the war. They were open to women as well as men: those awarded the equivalent of a knighthood or Knight Grand Cross of the Order would be known as Dames. Curzon, who relished such tasks, had been asked to report on the possibilities of the new Order, and had fretted over the place of women. ‘It would probably be undesirable to give them the title of “Lady”, because otherwise we might have “Mr Thomas Perkins ABE [Associate of the Order] and Lady Perkins, KCBE” – a fruitful source of domestic perturbation.’66 The overall effect was to democratise the system, which had previously been the province of an elite. As well as the five ranks there was, for the working class, the British Empire Medal, used to reward leadership and initiative. However, the great expansion of the system meant all the more patronage to be abused.

  Lloyd George professed to Davidson, Baldwin’s confidant, that giving honours for cash was ‘a far cleaner method of filling the party chest’ than methods used in America or by the Labour Party.67 He continued: ‘Here a man gives £40,000 to the Party and gets a baronetcy … the attachment of the brewers to the Conservative Party is the closest approach to political corruption in this country. The worst of it is you cannot defend it in public, but it keeps politics far cleaner than any other method of raising funds.’ That was highly debatable: Lloyd George found the system serviceable because of the extent to which his conduct of policy relied on his using people, often ones who began with little regard for him or his methods.

  Despite the preoccupations of the war, the Lords soon discussed, on a motion of Lord Loreburn, the taint on British politics caused by the prime minister making the King confer honours and dignities on men purely for giving substantial donations to party funds. Loreburn wanted the government to agree that a ‘definite public statement’ would be made of reasons for giving an honour to anyone outside the Royal Family, the Armed Forces or the permanent civil service.68 He also asked that the prime minister be compelled to declare to the Sovereign that no money had changed hands before granting an honour. The Lords had made a similar, unanimous request in February 1914, and the Commons had chosen to ignore it. Loreburn raised the matter again because he believed the impropriety under discussion had recurred: but since all parties to such transactions conspired to keep them secret, he had no proof. One of his friends had been approached three times and told he could have a knighthood for £15,000 and a baronetcy for £25,000. When he refused to play, the price for the former was knocked down to £10,000. He was told he could upgrade to a baronetcy and the £10,000 he had already spent would count towards it.69 He also believed the ‘touts’ who offered these baubles were on a commission. Most peers had heard similar stories.

  Loreburn also disclosed that another friend – a former minister – had told him he had sold honours. He spoke of a man who wanted a baronetcy but who asked whether he could have one for giving £25,000 to a hospital the King was about to visit, rather than to a political party; he had been advised to donate to the party. ‘Within a short time he came out as a baronet, and the hospital suffered in consequence.’70 Loreburn invited former chief whips in the Commons – whose responsibilities had included acting as patronage secretary – to admit their part in this trade; none obliged. He said h
e knew a chief whip had to spend money on party organisation, and on propitiating the press; but was selling honours the way to raise those funds?

  The Lords declined to pass Loreburn’s motion, after Curzon suggested that to do so would scar the reputations of the four living prime ministers, namely Rosebery, Balfour, Asquith and Lloyd George: but agreed to an amended motion asking the prime minister to satisfy himself – rather than make a declaration to the King – that no money had changed hands. Lord Selborne, under parliamentary privilege, did choose to name names. Sir James Gildes, who ran a charity helping the families of servicemen, had been offered £25,000 and two sums of £10,000 for his charity if he would use any influence he had to secure a baronetcy or knighthood for the three men concerned. A Dr Millard, the medical officer of health for Leicester, asked a local political association to secure an honour for a friend. When asked what his friend would pay, he retreated. Friends of George Holman, several times mayor of Lewes, were told he deserved an honour, but would not get one unless money changed hands. When a friend of Sir George Kekewich, a Liberal MP in the 1906 Parliament and a former senior civil servant, wanted a knighthood at the time of the Licensing Bill before the war, Kekewich introduced him to a Liberal whip. He was told to withdraw his opposition to the Bill and pay £5,000. Agreeing to do both, he was knighted. Another who craved a baronetcy was told to pay £25,000: he said he would, but withdrew. After a period in British politics after the 1832 Reform Act that had been remarkably free of corruption, the old ways had returned.