Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  Crewe did better from the King’s point of view and talked of the latter’s “ natural, and if I may be permitted to use the phrase, in my opinion . . . legitimate reluctance.” But this was not enough for the King. He made Knollys write to Asquith on the following day asking if his “ reluctance ” could not be made still clearer. On the same day he made him write a letter to Churchill protesting against part of his speech in the censure debate, and send a copy to Asquith. Churchill , replied softly, although it was difficult to tell what he intended to be the effect of his assurance, that “ before making (the speech) I consulted . . . the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”r " But Asquith for once reacted with some irascibility. After the censure debate he travelled down to Wallingford to stay with friends and nurse the laryngitis which had attacked him, and Knollys’s letter was sent on to him there. It may be that this unaccustomed ill-health, occurring unpropitiously in the hottest weather for seventy years, with the shade temperatures over most of England exceeding 950, gave an unusual edge to his reaction. Or it may be that he would in any event have regarded this further request of the King’s as entirely unreasonable. As it was, he covered the letter with a series of controversial annotations and sent back a strong reply to Knollys: “ I cannot give any countenance,” he wrote “ to the ‘ pathetic story ’ (in Lansdowne’s phrase) that last November the King was ‘ browbeaten ’ and ‘ blackmailed.’ Nothing of the kind happened.. . . ”s

  The crisis could not have continued for much longer without an all-round deterioration of relations. Fortunately, it was all over within twelve hours of Asquith drafting this reply to Knollys. The final division in the House of Lords was taken at 10.30 on the night of August 20th. By a vote of 131 (81 Liberals, 13 bishops and 37 of Curzon’s Unionists) to 114 diehards the House decided not to insist on its amendments. The Parliament Bill was law; the need for creation had disappeared; the session was effectively over. The King’s complaints were dissolved in his sense of relief. “ So the Halsburyites were thank God beaten.. .. and I am spared any further humiliation. . . .t he wrote. The next day he left London to join the Duke of Devonshire’s shooting party at Bolton Abbey.

  Asquith had written a laconic note to his secretary and sent it up with his reply to Knollys:

  If the vote goes wrong in the H. of L. to-night the Cabinet should be summoned for 11.30 Downing St. tomorrow morning, and the King asked to postpone his journey till the afternoon....

  If I have satisfactory news this evening I will come up for Cabinet 12.30; if otherwise by 11.30. My voice is on the mend but still croaky.u

  Accordingly he returned to London at about the same time as the King’s departure. The fact that the long constitutional struggle had ended without the upheaval of a mass creation was as important to him as to the King; Asquith always preferred to achieve his radical purposes within a conservative framework. Still more vital was the fact that it had ended successfully. The struggle had consumed the best part of two years of parliamentary time. It had involved two general elections and the sacrifice of the vast independent Liberal majority of 1906. Not only the future legislative utility of the Government but its prestige and authority had become inextricably bound up with a successful outcome. And what was true of the Government as a whole was doubly true of the Prime Minister. From the time that the merits of the 1909 Budget had been subsumed in the wider question of the peers’ right to reject, the responsibility for the conduct of the battle had been overwhelmingly his. His generalship had not been without fault. In particular, his hesitancy between January and April 1910 had wasted much more than three months, for it prevented the issue being pushed near to a conclusion during the lifetime of King Edward. But on the whole Asquith’s slow moulding of events had amounted to a masterly display of political nerve and patient determination. Compared either with Lansdowne’s sullen lack of foresight or with Balfour’s casual indecisiveness, his leadership was outstanding.

  The battle had been fought on ground particularly suitable to a display of Asquith’s skill. It had almost all taken place on the parliamentary stage and according to the classical rules of nineteenth century politics. Important new ground had been broken, but in a direction which would have been perfectly familiar to Lord Grey or Russell or Gladstone. Beneath that stage, however, and while the battle was proceeding, new and potentially violent forces had been simmering away. One of them, symbolically, erupted as the issue of the Parliament Bill was being settled. The Cabinet for which Asquith returned to London on August 11th could not be a calm gathering of mutual congratulation. It had to address itself to a menacing dock strike and a still more threatening railway dispute.

  STRANGE AILMENTS OF LIBERAL ENGLAND

  1911-13

  The industrial eruption which agitated the Cabinet at its meeting on August 11th was only one part of the troubled prospect which then confronted the Government. Since early July, when the Germans had sent a gunboat to Agadir, the Moroccan dispute between France and Germany had been critical. No settlement was reached until the beginning of October, and there were several periods during the three months when ministers feared that Europe was on the brink of a general war. From September 8th to 22nd the threat was taken sufficiently seriously for the tunnels and bridges of the South Eastern Railway to be patrolled day and night.

  Nor were the industrial difficulties isolated ones. During the previous autumn there had been a series of local disputes in a wide range of industries, one of them culminating in the long remembered riots at Tonypandy. 1911 had begun more quietly, but the calm did not persist. A widespread seamen’s strike had accompanied the Coronation, and at the end of July there came the trouble in the London docks. There was some violence there, and worse violence in Liverpool, after the dispute had spread north. Then came the news that the four railway unions were proposing, at 30 hours’ notice, to call all their men out. This was an industrial threat on a scale without precedent in Britain. The railways were then at the peak of their importance as the sinews of the national life. They were the key not only to the functioning of the economy but almost to the authority of the Government itself— and certainly to its ability to deploy any worthwhile military force. In the previous year when a French railway strike had paralysed two of their five regional systems, a government headed by three men of the left (Briand, Millerand and Viviani) had responded by arresting the leaders and issuing a mobilisation order for the other participants. That dispute, unlike the British one, had not occurred during an international crisis. Nor had it occurred at the height of a summer of febrile heat. During the first three weeks of August, 1911, there were ten days with a shade temperature of above 90°. This torrid weather brought violence closer to the surface and gave an added menace, in the eyes of the official classes, to any threat which emerged from the foetid and overcrowded quarters of the industrial towns.

  A sharp Government reaction to the proposed railway strike might therefore have been expected. Asquith held another Cabinet on August 16th and reported to the King: “ There is no doubt that the men have real grievances. ...” On the next day he met the union leaders at the Board of Trade. On the merits of the dispute he believed they had a good case, and he offered an immediate Royal Commission to investigate the grievances. But towards the strike threat he adopted an attitude which, to repeat the word which John Morley had used about him eighteen years earlier, was perhaps unduly cassant. He was determined to keep the railways open (as any Prime Minister must have been in the circumstances) and he magisterially informed the leaders that he would not hesitate to “ employ all the forces of the Crown ” to this end. He did not suggest (as was probably the case) that his sternness sprang to some extent from the dangers of the international situation.

  This was an unwise tactic. The union leaders returned in anger and the men came out at midnight. The strike was partial in the South, but the North and Midlands were paralysed. Lloyd George was then given the job of trying to get the men back to work. He employed all the cajolery, all the ps
ychological insight, all the appeals to patriotism which Asquith had disdained to use. And in 48 hours he succeeded. He worked on the union leaders and on the employers; and he succeeded in convincing both sides that he had a real understanding of their difficulties. Asquith had merely succeeded in disguising from the men his sympathy for their case. He had lectured the employers too, but it did not occur to him that it was important to let the unions know this.

  Lloyd George’s exercise of gifts so totally different from his own commanded Asquith’s full respect and even gratitude. “ It is the latest, but by no means the least, of the loyal and invaluable services which you have rendered. ...” he wrote to him.a

  The King was equally warm in his congratulations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His concern with the strike, however, was almost too close for the Government’s liking. While it was in progress he wanted, to return to London and be available for consultation. But Knollys quashed that. “ I don’t see what good he could have done there,” he wrote to Vaughan Nash, “ and in fact I should say he might even have been in the way.”b Then, a fortnight later, Knollys was instructed to send Asquith some longer term reflections. The King, he said, was afraid that “ political elements ” were being introduced into industrial conflicts which might affect “ not the existence, but the position of the Crown, independent of other evils.” Knollys continued: “ He desires me therefore to urge most strongly on the Government the importance (and it is also their duty) of their taking advantage of the lull, and of Parliament not meeting until the end of October, to devise a scheme, which although not entirely preventing strikes (perhaps that is not possible) would to a large extent prevent a threatened strike from coming to a head, and might be the means of preventing “ sympathetic ” strikes from taking place. Under any circumstances he hopes that, what is called “ peaceful picketing ” which most people now condemn, will be put an end to by legislation.”c 1

  1 There 's no doubt that in the first years of his reign King George V thought of any individual or movement tinged with “ socialism ” as inimical to the throne. In February, 1911 Knollys was ordered to write to Asquith protesting against a letter which the Home Secretary had written and published. “ The King thinks that W. Churchill’s views, as contained in the enclosed, are very socialistic,” the protest began. “ What he advocates is nothing more than workshops which have been tried in France and have turned out a complete failure”. (Asquith Papers, 11, f. 125). And again, in March, 1912, he expressed surprise that a possessor of the Order of Merit should avow himself to be a socialist. He added that he did not care whether a man was a Tory, a Liberal or a Radical. But the King’s acceptance of radicalism was a little less than whole-hearted. Three months later he strongly (but unsuccessfully) opposed the bestowal of a privy councillor-ship upon Sir Henry Dalziel, rather curiously urging that, as he was uncongenial to the King, he should be made a baronet instead. “ In the eyes of the Master of Elibank,” Knollys wrote, “ it may perhaps be a claim that Sir Henry is leader of the ‘ advanced Radical Party,’ but he can hardly expect other people to look upon it in the same light.” (Asquith Papers, in, f. 99).

  The introduction of anti-trades union legislation was the last thing which the Government wanted to do at the time. The triple alliance between the Liberals, the Irish and the Labour Party gave them their majority. And the Labour Party was still smarting under the Osborne judgment, declaring political levies by trades union to be illegal. The effect of this had been realised during 1910. It had destroyed the basis of Labour Party finance. One aspect of this destruction was quickly remedied by the Government in the Budget of 1911, when a salary of .£400 for members of Parliament had been introduced. But the Labour Party looked for more than this, and as early as November, 1910 the Cabinet had decided to restore by legislation the position which had been presumed to exist before the decision in the Osborne case, subject to the right of individual trades unionists to contract out of political payments.1 The payment of M.P.s had formed the basis of a bargain between the Master of Elibank and Ramsay MacDonald. In return the Labour Party, apart from two or three members who could not be controlled, agreed to support the Health Insurance Bill, which Lloyd George had introduced in May, 1911, but which had then been delayed by the constitutional struggle. By the autumn it was obvious that this great measure (“ more comprehensive in its scope and more provident and statesmanlike in its machinery than anything that has hitherto been attempted or proposed,”d as Asquith described it to the King) was not popular with the electorate. The duchesses and the doctors were united but not alone in disliking its provisions. In these circumstances it became doubly important to prevent the Labour Party swinging into opposition. Any suggestion that the Government was proposing restrictive rather than liberalising trades union legislation, would have run directly counter to this aim.

  1 A bill to this effect was eventually carried in the session of 1913.

  The King’s views were therefore an embarrassment to Asquith, as misguided, he thought, as they were politically inexpedient. He dealt with them by a typical display of patient statesmanship. He did not return a sharp answer. Instead he circulated Knollys’s letter to the Cabinet, waited for the unfavourable replies which he knew he would mostly receive, and then buried the proposal under the cloying earth of Cabinet disagreement.

  The industrial problem itself was not so easily buried. In January, 1912 the Miners’ Federation decided by ballot to call a national strike in favour of minimum wage rates. Here, as with the railways, the industry involved was more crucial to the national life than is the case today. Coal was almost the only available source of energy. Again, therefore, the Government was forced to take an active part in the dispute. The notices were due to expire on February 29th, and on the 20th of the month the Cabinet authorised four of their number, Asquith, Grey, Lloyd George and Buxton, to meet both the owners and the men, and try to effect a settlement. This move did not succeed, and at the end of the month the strike began.

  The Cabinet negotiating team remained in being, and tried hard to bring the two sides together. For three days from March 12th they sat in conference with the representatives of both sides, without avail. Like other ministers, both before and after him, Asquith found that he could not break through the stubbornness of the coalowners. He urged them to pay the minimum of 5s. a shift (and 3s. for boys) which was demanded by the Miners’ Federation, but when they refused he would not accede to the demands of the men to the extent of enforcing such wages by legislation. The Cabinet did however decide (despite the doubts of Morley and Churchill) to introduce an emergency bill setting up compulsory machinery, on a district basis, for settling minimum rates, but without stipulating what these rates should be. Despite the hostility of the owners, the dissatisfaction of the miners, and the opposition of the Conservatives, the bill was pushed through both Houses within a week.

  At this stage, however, a settlement could not be effected without a definite figure, and on March 25 th the Government representatives made another effort to get the owners to accept 5s. On the following day Asquith reported failure to the Cabinet. His account to the King continued:

  Sir E. Grey (then) brought forward a proposal that with a view to facilitating such an agreement the Government should intimate to the owners that if, after trying the experiment for a year, it resulted in loss they should be indemnified by the Exchequer— up to a maximum amount of (say) ^250,000. This suggestion gave rise to a long debate which manifested acute differences of opinion.

  It was pointed out by the Prime Minister—who was prepared, if force majeure compelled, to consent to some such proposal—that it would be difficult to justify to the country a subvention, at the cost of the general taxpayer, to one of the most prosperous industries in the country. Mr. Bums, Mr. McKinnon Wood and Mr. Runciman were very adverse to Sir E. Grey’s proposal as was also Lord Morley.e

  This more than usually explicit account of Cabinet divisions1 shows clearly where in the Government the lais
sez faire strength lay. It was amongst some of the new men, supported by Morley as heir to Gladstonian individualism, rather than amongst either the few old Whigs who remained or the traditional Right of Liberal Imperialism. Grey’s paternalism—he was described by Balfour as “a curious combination of the old-fashioned Whig and the Socialist ”—made him indifferent to the mythology of market forces. Haldane’s position was similar. A few months later he was (unsuccessfully) urging the Cabinet to make the rate of wages negotiated by the dockers’ trades union binding on all employers in the Port of London, or, alternatively, to give the Port Authority the power to fix the rates. Asquith, never so stubbornly non-partisan as were Grey and Haldane on purely political issues, was also somewhat less adventurous than were they on social or economic ones. He opposed the Haldane proposal on dockers’ wages, for instance. But he was by no means a businessman’s Liberal of the type of Walter Runciman.2 Nor did his economic caution ever rival that of John Burns.

  1 The only more explicit account which Asquith gave the King was after the meeting on April 5th, 1911, when he took a vote on a proposal of Haldane’s to move a section of the Natural History Museum in order to make room for an extension to the College of Science. Morley and Grey, who were both British Museum trustees, opposed. “ In the end the Prime Minister decided on the unusual course of taking a division in the Cabinet— with the result (there being several abstentions) that 5 voted with Lord Morley and 9 or 10 with Lord Haldane.” (Asquith Papers, box 6 ff. 24-5). Asquith was following a Gladstonian precedent by taking a vote on building works in London. In 1883 the G.O.M. made the Cabinet vote three times on whether or not the Duke of Wellington’s statue should be removed from Hyde Park Comer. But in that government he also allowed votes on several matters of real importance—which Asquith never did—and sometimes got himself defeated.