But the war did eventually end in May 1902. When news came that a peace treaty had at last been signed, I remember thinking of Gerald Couchman, whom I had not seen since leaving South Africa. I wondered how he had fared there in the long extension of hostilities which neither he nor I had anticipated. As it happened, I went up to Lord’s one afternoon in June to catch some play in the Test Match. Seeing Fry and Ranjitsinhji, the most stylish of England’s batsmen, both out for ducks, I beat a hasty retreat and, reflecting that Couch’s aunt lived nearby, called round to seek news of him from my one-time hostess. Sadly, I learnt only that she had died the year before and that the house was now owned by strangers, who knew nothing of her nephew.
Peace in South Africa brought peace too in the Liberal party. Old feuds were forgotten and, now that the government could no longer rely on patriotism to bolster it up, thoughts turned to the next election and how the party might fare at it. The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, retired and his successor, Balfour, developed a knack helpful to we Liberals of offending members of his own party. One such was Winston Churchill, who crossed the floor of the House and became a Liberal in May 1904.
That spring had seen some family concerns draw my attention back to Devon. My brother had announced the previous autumn his engagement to Miss Florence Hardisty, the daughter of Admiral Hardisty of Dartmouth. Arrangements were going forward for an Easter wedding when my father died, quite suddenly, at Barrowteign. His last wish, expressed to my mother, was that the wedding should go ahead as planned. Some delay was inevitable, but I supported the idea that it should be as brief as possible. Accordingly, on a sunny St George’s Day, I officiated as best man when the elder Strafford went down the aisle.
I confess that I found my new sister-in-law a rather dull embodiment of provincial worthiness, a sure sign that London was turning my head, and cared not for the insipid watercolour painting that constituted her principal recreation. Through no fault of her own, Florence made Barrowteign seem less like home than once it did, but mine was a lone and perchance over-sensitive reaction. Florence prudently deferred to my mother in matters of household management and made a good, commonsense wife for Robert.
It was with some relish that I now devoted myself to events at Westminster. An early election seemed in prospect and we were all busy with an unofficial campaign. On 13 October 1905, I appeared in a supporting role with Sir Edward Grey, everybody’s tip for the Foreign Office should we win, at a meeting to support Winston Churchill’s candidature in north-west Manchester (his first in Liberal colours). An otherwise unremarkable occasion was rendered memorable by constant interruptions from an unlikely source: two young ladies. They stridently demanded of us a promise of votes for women, which they did not extract. I learned that one of them was Christabel Pankhurst, a name that later came to mean a lot more to me than it did at the time. There was great publicity surrounding the incident and the two were briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay a fine for disorderly conduct, arising from a commotion they caused in the street after being expelled from the meeting.
I was bemused and set thinking by this event, to the extent of canvassing the opinion of others. I could not, for my part, see how a Liberal government could oppose female suffrage, but we were not committed to it, quite the reverse. Lloyd George agreed with me on the principle of the case but pointed out that other, more important, reforms would have to come first. My mother pronounced herself a suffragist, but deplored militant tactics, whilst my sister-in-law had no opinion to express. I tended to take the Lloyd George view: first things first. Yet I can now see how a newspaper report of that disrupted meeting in Manchester would have read to a precocious sixteen-year-old girl, quite as intelligent as the average voting male, as the advent of a crusade. Little did she or one of the affronted speakers in Manchester know that they were one day to care a great deal more about each other than about the issue of female suffrage.
In December 1905, Balfour finally threw in his hand and resigned. C-B received the premiership that was a just reward for many years’ toil, presiding over an exceptionally talented administration, with Asquith at the Exchequer and Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. My highest hopes were fulfilled when I was myself given a junior appointment. In eagerly accepting, I hardly paused to consider the nature of that appointment and thus found myself a junior lord of the Admiralty with a negligible knowledge of the sea.
I had, however, no time to brood on the point. C-B had no intention of seeking to govern with a minority (a rather obvious trap laid by Balfour) and called an election for January 1906. Matters were rather better prepared in my constituency this time and, done no harm by my new appointment, I was returned with an increased majority. Nationally, the party fared even better than we had hoped, securing an historic victory.
There was, however, no opportunity for me to bask in an afterglow of success. Back in London, there was work to be done. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth, was a staunch old Scot who had served his time under C-B and now received his reward. His seat in the Lords made me answerable for naval policy in the Commons: an onerous responsibility but one which gave me an opportunity to shine. Winston Churchill benefited from a similar arrangement at the Colonial Office, where his Secretary of State was likewise a peer. We came to know each other well at this stage, both feeling that we could make our names in the service of superannuated seniors.
In February 1907, I became an uncle when Robert’s son, Ambrose, was born. A happy child, his company made Barrowteign a more congenial place for me to spend the summer recess and it was clear that the birth of a son and heir meant not a little to my brother, now well set in the life of a country gentleman, who bore with good humour my chiding of him for becoming set in his ways.
Early in 1908, the Prime Minister’s health began to break down. In April, he was obliged to resign and, before the month was out, he was dead. I was sorry to lose his steady hand upon the tiller, but was not blind to the possibility for promotion opened up by the consequent rearrangements. Rather earlier than I had expected, I was summoned to see our new leader. Asquith was a man of whom I had once been suspicious, finding him, when I was new to Westminster, aloof and often absent. But now he was all beaming beneficence in offering me a post in the Cabinet. Herbert Gladstone, he said, had been induced to accept the Governor-Generalship of Canada. Asquith deemed that a younger, more vigorous approach at the Home Office was required than Gladstone had brought to bear. In consideration of my work at the Admiralty, he offered me the post. This was more than I had dared hope for. I accepted with alacrity. Asquith remarked that I was to form part of what he considered to be a brilliant team. For the moment, though, I was concerned only with the honour and achievement of becoming Home Secretary at the age of 32. There seemed no limit to my future aspirations.
It seems generally to be agreed that Asquith’s 1908 Cabinet was a quite remarkable assemblage of political talent: a team for all occasions. With this I would not differ. Indeed, I was proud to join it and my arrival coincided with that of several other rising stars – Lloyd George promoted to the Exchequer, Churchill and McKenna admitted to the Cabinet for the first time.
Proud I was, but not blind to our shortcomings. Asquith had an incisive, lawyer’s mind but seemed devoid of originality. The older members of the Cabinet resented us newcomers and, in the conflicts which arose from that, Asquith aligned himself behind those he thought would win the day, a tendency which positively encouraged collusion and intrigue behind the scenes. At this, Lloyd George, for all his apparent openness, excelled and found in Churchill an enthusiastic recruit to his radical cause. Sympathetic though I was to their reforming zeal, I distanced myself somewhat from them, being determined to find my feet before committing myself to any particular stance.
There was, besides, plenty of work to occupy me at the Home Office, where my predecessor had let matters slide.
The women’s suffrage movement, by its implications both for the constitution and for civil
order, now fell within my purview. I found myself torn between a wholehearted support for their cause in theory and a thorough disapproval of their methods in practice. When the Metropolitan Police Commissioner advised me that a mass meeting of all groups supporting female suffrage was to be held in Hyde Park on Sunday, 21 June 1908, I approved his proposals for policing the event and decided, without his knowing, to be present in person.
It was a memorable occasion. I was not sufficiently well-known to the public to be noticed, discreetly clad amongst the vast crowd that gathered, but I took good notice of what took place. There were speeches by Keir Hardie – of the new Independent Labour Party – and Emmeline Pankhurst, pleading their cause with great force and conviction. There was also a stirring contribution from Mrs Pankhurst’s daughter, Christabel, whom I remembered from our encounter in Manchester in October 1905. It was a wholly peaceful gathering and I walked away amidst the departing throng wondering if something could not, after all, be done for them.
I conveyed my views to the Prime Minister, urging that the government should commit itself to female suffrage on a long-term basis, arguing that this would defuse much of the frustration clearly displayed at the meeting I had attended. I received a cursory answer to the effect that this was something against which the Cabinet had already set its face. In private, Lloyd George advanced a more cogent argument to me. What was the point of considering such a move when the House of Lords was certain to veto it anyway? I gained the impression that I was advancing a radical departure from agreed policy rather too soon after my appointment, so resolved to bide my time and say no more on the subject.
In the event, the suffragists proved quite capable of involving me in their campaign without any effort on my part. Later that summer, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were arrested for inciting a mob to charge the House of Commons. Their case came up at Bow Street in late October. Much to my astonishment and that of Lloyd George, we were both subpoenaed by the defence. I myself was subject to some energetic interrogation by Christabel – a qualified barrister – but my experience in the House of Commons enabled me to refute her guileful arguments. My contention that the laudable theory of female suffrage was being done more harm than good by her antics cast me in a good light both in court and in the press, though I was wigged afterwards in a note from the Prime Minister for letting slip my private views.
Lloyd George invited me home for a drink after our court appearances and I expressed my fear to him that on female suffrage, as on some other issues, we were allowing more radical elements – such as the Labour Party – to steal our thunder. He agreed, pointing out that, whilst the House of Lords’ Tory majority continued to veto Liberal legislation, it could hardly be otherwise. But he said he hoped to do something about that and, as events showed, he was as good as his word.
Lloyd George’s fulfilment of his pledge was the Budget of 1909. Well I remember the many Cabinet meetings during March and April which pored over that gargantuan, revolutionary document. What he had contrived to do was to meet all the various claims upon the Exchequer – from an expansion of the navy to counter Germany, to the requirements of the new old age pension – by an extensive raid upon the resources of landed wealth, by income tax, super tax, death duties and, most dreaded of all, land value duties. And behind it all, as we argued the details back and forth, was an awareness that the Lords would never bear such a blow at their class. And since their rejection of a Budget was unprecedented, this was bound to bring to a crisis their repeated veto of other legislation. How it would be resolved nobody knew or cared to guess, certainly not the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, in the absence of any alternative and with Asquith’s awe of Lloyd George ensuring that none would be found, we pressed forward. On 27 May 1909, the Finance Bill was issued in its final form and so was set in motion a trial of strength between the two Houses of Parliament.
Yet I remember that warm spring evening of May 27 for quite other reasons. I returned to my house in Mallard Street tired and thoughtful, wanting nothing so much as some peaceful solitude in which to turn over these portentous political events in my mind. I had resisted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s wish to place a constable at my door and so there was only Prideaux – my father’s old valet who had come up to London with his wife to attend to my wants since my father’s death – to greet me at home. He took himself off to the kitchen to instruct Mrs P to prepare supper for me, she being well-used to my irregular hours. I poured myself a scotch and sat down to peruse that morning’s Times. This was my first opportunity of the day for some rest and relaxation. I embarked upon it a single-minded young politician with thoughts fixed upon weighty matters of constitutional import, oblivious to the imminent explosion into my world of a personal but far more potent force.
I set down the newspaper and crossed to the window, tiring for a moment of editorial speculation. As I toyed with my drink and gazed out onto the street, softly lit by evening sun, I observed a slim, elegant young lady dressed in grey, pass by the window and turn in at my door, then heard the sound of a letter landing on the doormat. My curiosity aroused, I hurried out into the hall and picked up the letter. It was, in fact, only a note on plain paper, folded in half. Unfolding it, I was taken aback to see that it read: “Whilst women are denied the vote, politicians shall have no peace”.
At this point, there was the sound of breaking glass from the drawing room, splintering the quietude of evening. Glancing back into the room, I saw a half housebrick lying on the carpet where I had just been standing, shards of windowpane scattered around it. My elegant young caller had just hurled a brick through my window!
I flung the front door open and ran out onto the pavement. There she was, hurrying away down the road. Calculating that she had not reckoned upon immediate pursuit and enraged by this assault, I made after her. The street was empty, so she at once heard me running towards her, glanced round in alarm, then quickened her pace and turned right into a side road. I was at the corner in no time and saw she was only thirty yards or so ahead of me, dress gathered in her left hand as she now ran headlong in flight. She looked back again as she heard me drawing closer, shouting out for her to stop and, in so doing, failed to avoid the bootscraper by the door she was passing. She tripped and fell awkwardly against some railings flanking the door. The chase was over. I stooped over my fallen young assailant and turned her round by the left shoulder to face me.
“Do you realize … you might have killed me?” I said, breathless and angry.
“Are you Edwin Strafford?”
“I am.”
“Then you’ve only yourself to blame. Did you read the note?”
“Yes …”
“Then you should see sense and meet our just demands … you’re foolish, obdurate and wrong.”
At this, the young lady sought to rise, only to slump back with a cry and clasp her right knee. Suddenly, absurdly, I was touched by her spirit and her injury. She had knocked her chin against the railings and this was reddening into a bruise. There were tears at the corners of her eyes so much had her leg pained her. She looked very young and beautiful, her mouth set in a frown of discomfort but her eyes flashing with determination. Strands of dark hair had escaped from her wide-brimmed hat and fell now across her flushed face. I forgot my outrage and felt, of all things, remorse for frightening her into a fall. That she, so young and vulnerable, should have been driven to this defiance, so ill-equipped to escape yet even now prepared to defend her cause, made me feel old and heartless.
“You’ve hurt yourself,” I said. “Let me help you up.”
Biting her lip, she was reluctantly obliged to accept my assistance. She flinched as she set her foot on the ground and I had to support her.
“I think,” I said, “that, even if I am not to arrest you, I must insist that you accompany me back to my house.”
She had no choice but to agree. Taking her firmly by the arm, I marched her back along the pavement as fast as her limp would permit. Indoors, I
found the Prideaux in a fine state of consternation, Mrs P having convinced herself that I had been borne away by intruders. I explained what had actually happened and asked Mrs P to tend the young lady’s injury. She led her charge away firmly but dutifully. Prideaux, who had cleared away the broken glass, asked if he should now call the police.
“Thank you no, Prideaux. For the present, a glazier will suffice.” Prideaux took himself off, muttering some inaudible protest under his breath.
A few moments later, Mrs Prideaux returned with the young lady. “The little minx ’as taken no ’arm, sir. What shall us do with ’er?”
“Leave her to me, Mrs P,” I replied. “I want to have a few words with her.” She hesitated. “Don’t worry. I shan’t let her out of my sight.” With this assurance, the good soul withdrew. I turned to my young guest.
“The question arises,” I said, “of what is to be done with you.”
“You may call the police and have me arrested if you wish.”
“I think not. Your trial would provide just the sort of publicity you desire. And, besides, with Miss Pankhurst to defend you, I would be assured of a hot time in the witness box.”
“As you were when Christabel was tried last autumn?”
“Quite so.”
“I was there, Mr Strafford. You acquitted yourself well, but it was a sophist’s victory.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. It was an accomplished political performance, paying no heed to truth or justice.”
Still this beautiful firebrand was prepared to debate with me. I was surprised at the force of her convictions and the intelligence of her arguments, above all at my willingness to overlook her throwing of the brick, my wish to sit and talk with her rather than hand her over to the police.
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