Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Runciman then conceded, on the government’s behalf, that there would have to be a food controller, who would be appointed by an Order in Council under DORA. To have waited until the third year of the war to do this was a remarkable statement of ineptitude. He added that anyone wasting food – a story was current about gallons of milk being poured down a sewer because the farmer felt insulted by the contract price offered him – would be prosecuted. That farmer was not alone: one agricultural association advised its members to feed their milk to pigs if the contract price was unsatisfactory, though that at least benefited the food chain. He promised laws to punish anyone cornering the market in any foodstuff. There were no plans to fix maximum prices for foods, but there were some – such as milk – where the rise of prices would be controlled. It would be left to the food controller to assemble the evidence on matters such as buying up the wheat supply, and to recommend a policy. He admitted such measures were ‘drastic’ – though Carson felt they were not drastic enough, and Sir Alfred Mond, the Liberal MP for Swansea – and also an industrialist and plutocrat who would in 1926 create Imperial Chemical Industries – said, picking up the earlier theme of Barnes’s proposals, the state should take over farms as it had taken over factories to make arms, and fix maximum prices for food as Lloyd George had for weapons.37 The state had taken over pubs near munitions factories, and by putting in canteens had sought to make them more like working men’s clubs.

  Such policies were ‘drastic’ most of all in the effect they had on the non-interventionist idea of liberalism. Runciman concluded that:

  We have to abandon in some respects the old voluntary principle, to which I have long been wedded, and we may have to take steps in the way of State control which may cause a good deal of discomfort and create some discontent in some quarters. But you can have no State regulation which does not bear hardly on somebody. We have the right to ask that all our people at home should be prepared to put up with some hardship, which will be assessed and prescribed and distributed as evenly as possible in order that those who are giving far more for the country should be allowed to reach a glorious victory.38

  The government would use Orders in Council to regulate the food market in terms of price, availability, sale and distribution: but at this stage, having taken such powers, it did not yet seek to devise and impose regulations. This episode also showed how Lloyd George’s influence was growing: having dismissed his idea of appointing a ‘food dictator’, within three days the cabinet had decided to do so.

  In the short term, pressure on the government to intervene yet further was somewhat mitigated by the attitude of the public, who became fiercely censorious of extravagance and waste, which helped reinforce the government’s message; when the general manager of the Savoy hotel published details of the ‘gala dinner’ at Christmas and on New Year’s Eve, at between a guinea and 25s a head (depending on the position of the table), exclusive of wines, the outcry caused the offer to be withdrawn.39 The Board of Trade arranged a meeting with hoteliers and restaurateurs to discuss ‘economy menus’, Runciman having ‘made it plain that unless the hotel proprietors took the necessary action on their own account the Government would do it for them.’40

  For all the government’s attempts to ameliorate matters, the food shortage added to the public’s unease after the failure, and massive toll, of the Somme offensive. That unease was stoked by newspapers, and not just from the Northcliffe press. In late 1916 they depicted the government as incompetent, lacking judgement, poorly led and incapable of taking important decisions. The Dardanelles Commission had highlighted one of its failures and further undermined its credibility. Some popular papers demanded the drafting into the cabinet of Horatio Bottomley, a national hero to many not just because of his recruiting efforts but also because of highly remunerative ‘lectures’ he gave all over Britain to packed and excited audiences. To colleagues, Asquith seemed to have aged and, as Lord Crawford put it, was ‘somnolent’, and ‘hopeless’ at managing his unwieldy cabinet.41

  The political crisis of December 1916 therefore happened against a background of growing public unease, especially among the working class, about the war. Strikes became more frequent. In November 1916 a meeting held in Cardiff by critics of the war turned into a riot, when a mass of working men loyal to the war effort threw out hundreds of opponents. But even then the signs were that the working class, aware of the losses it had suffered through trench warfare, was moving from a position predominantly of loyalty to one of scepticism bordering upon dissent, and the labour movement could not easily or always control them.

  III

  On 9 November, just over a week before the Battle of the Somme ended, Lloyd George told Hankey: ‘We are going to lose this war.’42 Hankey replied that he had never believed Germany would be crushed by the offensive, but that there would be ‘a draw in our favour’. The result of the Somme was, in the words of Hankey (who lost a brother there): ‘the capture of large numbers of prisoners, and the occupation of some few square miles of shell-pocked mud’.43 Two days later Lloyd George again told Hankey he could not stay in his post unless the strategy were changed, and added that if he resigned he would make no secret of why. Crucially, Law told him he too was dissatisfied with the conduct of the war, and that ‘there is likely to be a break in the Unionist Party.’44 Law had always backed Asquith, but Asquith, while loyal in return, had invariably kept Law at arm’s length and, Law’s friend J. C. C. Davidson felt, patronised him. Davidson knew Law was a ‘misfit’ among the grandees of the Liberal and Conservative parties with whom Asquith felt more comfortable, but felt Asquith’s attitude was ‘a fatal mistake, for I am sure that Bonar definitely wanted to help Asquith, and was rebuffed.’45

  A lunch at Cherkley, Sir Max Aitken’s country house, on 12 November, at which Law arrived to find Smith and Churchill ensconced, turned into a speech by Churchill about the iniquities of the government. This provoked Law to say: ‘very well … we shall have a general election’, which caused a deflated Churchill to protest that the suggestion was ‘the most terribly immoral thing he had ever heard of.’46 Churchill believed an election would put an Asquith-led coalition back in power with an increased majority, because it would have some Unionist support and there would be the absence of any coherent opposition, and that would be that. The next day, according to Frances Stevenson, Carson and Aitken saw Lloyd George, told him Law was about to resign, and asked him whether in that case, as the next most senior figure in the Liberal Party, ‘he would be willing to form a ministry. He flatly declined.’47 Talk of Law’s resignation may have been exaggerated; Law was certainly aware of a restiveness in his party at Asquith’s leadership, and (under pressure from Carson) had already told Asquith there would have to be changes. That, however, was not the same as being prepared to leave the coalition.

  Beaverbrook – as Aitken would become the following year – tells it differently, saying Lloyd George summoned him and that his possibility of succeeding was not discussed: but Beaverbrook’s memoirs, like Lloyd George’s, are often unreliable to the point of fiction. Lloyd George’s reasons for declining were that ‘there is nothing but disaster ahead’ and ‘he would simply get blamed for losing the war.’ Miss Stevenson told him it would be his patriotic duty to take over if Asquith went; but the Unionists would distrust him and the Liberals would dislike him for having effectively ousted his predecessor. She had an acute understanding of politics.

  All the Liberals in the cabinet were fiercely loyal to Asquith, for despite his lack of energy they admired his political stance and his scrupulous loyalty to the party and its MPs. Also, the likely alternative to him was, in their view, worse. They had come to regard Lloyd George as a threat because of his obvious ambition, and as potentially disloyal because of the ease with each he had thrown aside his professed Liberal principles to advocate statism and centralisation. However, like Asquith, Liberal MPs had realised the strength of Lloyd George’s following in the country and were unwilling to f
ace him down. The reservations Liberal politicians had about him were shared by Haig, who had had extensive exposure to the war secretary since he succeeded Kitchener. The commander-in-chief told his wife: ‘you will gather that I have no great opinion of LG as a man or leader.’48 That opinion would get worse.

  Meanwhile, Lloyd George was formulating other ideas: on 18 November, having breakfasted ‘in a state of profound pessimism’ with Aitken, because he felt Law was too much in thrall to Asquith, he confided in Miss Stevenson that ‘he would like to resign & be made instead President of the War Committee.’49 This is the first mention of a separate, small executive body running the war – as long envisaged by Carson – of which the prime minister would not be a member, but which would function separately under Lloyd George. He wanted to discuss this with Law, but Law, ‘in a wobbly state of mind’, had refused to see him; and had been open with an unsurprised Asquith about what was going on. There was little point Lloyd George discussing this with his fellow Liberals, as none would support him. All his backing came from Unionists, but their support for his plan required validation by their leader.

  Helpfully for Lloyd George, Aitken, who was not only Law’s closest political friend but had also behind the scenes taken control of the Daily Express for £17,500, believed the war could not be prosecuted properly while Asquith remained in charge. He would, in his view, act as Law and Lloyd George’s go-between. Northcliffe, who misunderstood Aitken, had told him ‘that he was out to destroy Ll.G’, and wanted his help – ‘I am going to get as many newspapers as possible to help me.’ Aitken replied, allegedly, that he would be ‘a traitor to his country’ if he gave such help. It was the hardest proof yet of Northcliffe’s status as an over-mighty subject. Given how things would turn out, his misreading of Lloyd George’s guile and cunning also showed his defective judgement.

  The press baron had started to turn against Lloyd George for the usual reasons that he turned against anyone – the war secretary’s refusal to defer to his judgements and prejudices on all questions – and especially because of his awareness of Lloyd George’s poor view, widely broadcast, of Northcliffe’s friend Haig. He also believed Lloyd George was a braggart and lacked moral courage, having heard too often his threats to resign.

  Thanks to Aitken, Law was now brought into a discussion about effecting profound change. In Aitken’s room at the Hyde Park Hotel – where he lived – he, Law, Carson and Lloyd George met on 20 November to discuss an idea for a war committee of three that would not include Asquith. The Unionists shared Lloyd George’s view about Asquith’s lack of ‘drive’: notably his inability to wrap up a meeting, whether of a cabinet or a committee, decisively, by allowing talk to continue aimlessly; and the press, with or without Lloyd George’s help, was maintaining a fusillade of criticism against the prime minister. But although Law liked the idea of a small war committee meeting frequently, he bridled at Lloyd George, whom he profoundly distrusted, having more power. According to Aitken, ‘Law had formed the opinion that in matters of office and power Lloyd George was a self-seeker and a man who considered no interests except his own.’50 Earlier that day he had told Aitken: ‘I am not going to be drawn into anything like an intrigue against Asquith.’51 Law’s distrust increased when Lloyd George said he wanted Asquith excluded from the war committee. Law remained adamant about Asquith’s inclusion. His loyalty to the prime minister would not make things easy for Lloyd George.

  The next step for Lloyd George, having engaged to an extent with Law, was to get the key figure in the Whitehall bureaucracy onside. On 22 November Hankey took him to lunch at his club, where the war secretary disclosed that he wanted to ‘secure a new War Committee – himself, Carson, Bonar Law and Henderson – the latter to conciliate Labour.’52 Hankey told him he thought the idea, but not the cast list, sound. He, too, wanted to streamline decision-making to stop wasting time, but had a low opinion of the deliberative talents of Carson and Law. Lloyd George asked Hankey to dine with him, Law and Carson that evening to discuss it, but Hankey declined as it would appear disloyal to Asquith. It may or may not have occurred to him that Lloyd George’s suggestion of leading this committee would invest sufficient power in him to make unfeasible his notion that Asquith could remain prime minister.

  Law knew the war secretary was a supreme opportunist, but, according to J. C. C. (later Viscount) Davidson, his private secretary, ‘came almost to be persuaded that Lloyd George was moved by rather high motives of patriotism’; yet at dinner that evening again expressed unease about excluding Asquith.53 Carson was unenthusiastic about returning to office. Lloyd George, for his part, had convinced himself he could unify the country and win the war. Although his plan envisaged Asquith’s remaining prime minister and running everything except the war, Lloyd George was now scabrous about him in private, telling Miss Stevenson that ‘the PM is absolutely hopeless. He cannot make up his mind about anything, and seems to have lost all will-power.’54

  Lloyd George’s confidence was boosted when Addison (who thanks not least to the war secretary’s patronage had succeeded him as minister of munitions the previous July) told him, not entirely accurately, that many Liberal MPs would support him as leader: and by the last week in November, partly because of Lloyd George’s assiduous cultivation of colleagues and the press, the talk was of little else besides a need to change the leadership of the war effort, with the responsibility passing to the war secretary – ‘with all his faults’, as Churchill told Scott.55 As Lloyd George neared his goal, Scott recorded that ‘there is a rumour going about – I should hope quite unfounded – that Northcliffe has some information about this which he holds over George in terrorem.’56 If true, he showed restraint on the matter – which Scott thought was the Marconi scandal, but could have been his near-bigamy with Miss Stevenson – then and thereafter.

  Law, now on reflection realising the urgency of radical administrative change, told Hankey on 23 November he supported the plan for a small war committee. His backing for Lloyd George was the crucial development in the process of changing the administration: however, in keeping with his loyalty to the prime minister, Law envisaged Asquith would sit on the new committee. Hankey repeated to him what he had told Lloyd George. Law and Carson – who told Law he shared his reservations about Lloyd George – lunched with Lloyd George and Aitken on 25 November. Afterwards Law met Asquith to put the proposal – drafted by Aitken – that Law, Carson and Lloyd George should run the war under Asquith’s ultimate authority: and said he would resign if Asquith disagreed. The prime minister wanted time to think, though told Law he feared this was not a final demand by Lloyd George, but a mere increment in a greater increase in his power. Even while Law and Asquith spoke, Lloyd George was having doubts about whether his plan could work, being convinced McKenna was poisoning Asquith against him: Miss Stevenson thought it would be best to get Asquith out entirely, for a clean break. ‘I think D has doubts about it too,’ she noted.57 Carson, at Chequers for the weekend with Sir Arthur Lee, who worked under Lloyd George at Munitions, put the proposal bluntly: ‘LG more and more “in command of the War” as a kind of Dictator, whilst retaining Asquith as nominal prime minister.’58 Lee told Carson this was ‘not very practicable’.

  Asquith told Hankey he had received a joint proposal from Lloyd George and Law, and asked him for his view. Hankey’s answer was the same as he had given the two principals behind the scheme. Asquith wrote to Law saying he took ‘a less disparaging view than you do of the War Committee’, which he admitted was unwieldy but was, he felt, doing a good job.59 He spoke of difficulties in excluding valuable colleagues from so small a group; he thought that to include Carson, the government’s most vociferous critic, would be ‘a manifest sign of weakness and cowardice’; and to give Lloyd George such power would suggest he had engineered a means ‘as soon as a fitting pretext could be found, of displacing me.’ He did not see, therefore, how the plan could be effected without disobliging loyal colleagues and undermining his authority.
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br />   On 27 November, when Law received that letter, Asquith told Lloyd George he had rejected Law’s ultimatum. The war secretary decided, yet again, to resign. Law then brokered a discussion between Asquith and Lloyd George, for Friday 1 December, so they could thrash out an accommodation. When, in a meeting on 30 November, Law told senior colleagues – including Lansdowne, Chamberlain, Curzon, Lord Robert Cecil, Long and Smith (Balfour was in bed with flu) – of the proposals he encountered tremendous hostility, mainly because of their dislike of Lloyd George. He did not even mention Carson, whom most of them disliked just as much. The plotting appalled Lansdowne, because he sincerely believed Asquith was the best option; he told Law after the meeting that the business ‘left “a nasty taste in my mouth”. I did not like your plan, and I am by no means convinced that the alternative is all that can be desired.’60 He urged Law not to commit himself to Lloyd George ‘until you have given us another opportunity of considering the situation’, and said that ‘we all of us owe it to Asquith to avoid any action which might be regarded by him as a concerted attempt to oust him from his position as leader.’

  By the end of November there were clear signs that the government was fragmenting because of poor leadership, brought on by Asquith’s loss of authority and his indecisiveness. The need for greater direction became widely accepted among politicians. Lord Robert Cecil, the minister of blockade – in a response to Lansdowne’s paper about a negotiated peace – circulated his own views, declaring that the war had to be fought, but ‘that to attempt to do so without drastic changes in our civil life would be to court disaster.’61 Cecil’s ideas were radical: he believed the owners of wealth now had to make sacrifices on the scale they urged on the working class, which meant paying themselves less and having many of their industries nationalised; and a civilian commitment to total war, guided by a small cabinet committee such as the one Lloyd George wanted to direct military matters, was now needed. Hankey pressed Asquith on 30 November to streamline and formalise the cabinet decision-making process, by working to an agreed agenda. However, when Lloyd George realised that a discussion in the War Committee that day about industrial conscription had happened without Runciman’s knowledge – the president of the Board of Trade was entirely against the idea – he claimed he could take no more of such amateurishness.