by Roy Jenkins
The others too were all excellent. I hope with all my heart that you and your following will be able to control the Liberal party in the right direction. Indeed I think you may, for you have the cream of the ability of the party, and your banquet has wiped out the National Reform Union.
One word more. There will be attempts (I see them beginning) to separate you and me. I do not mean politically for that can take care of itself, but in regard to personal friendship. Do not let them succeed, for our friendship is one of my most prized possessions.
Please give Margot my heartiest congratulations on your triumph, which I hope will cheer your suffering girl.2
Yours,
AR.
1 Grey presided and Fowler also spoke.
2 Violet Asquith had been dangerously ill with infantile paralysis for the previous week, a great additional strain upon Asquith at this difficult time.
This letter is made more puzzling by the fact that it is difficult to believe that Rosebery could greatly have approved of Asquith’s “ banquet speech.” It was in sharp—perhaps deliberate—contrast to his own oration of a few hours before. Rosebery, to justify his continued detachment, had described the attempt to paper over the Liberal cracks as “ organised hypocrisy.” Asquith had tried to reconcile his conflicting views about the desirability of the dinner by stressing the underlying unity of the party and attempting to turn attention away from the South African quarrel to the less contentious ground of home policy. Liberal Imperialism, he insisted, must be linked with a policy of radical reform for “ Little England.” The non-pejorative use of the term “ Little England ” was in itself something of an emollient to the other wing of the party, and the speech as a whole smoothed some of the feathers which had been ruffled by the preparations for the dinner. “ A dangerous comer was thus turned,” Asquith’s official biographers commented.t But the stretch of road which came into sight did not look particularly promising. The temporary discord between Rosebery and the other leading Liberal Imperialists did nothing to bring them closer to Campbell-Bannerman; it merely made the disarray of the Liberal Party look even more complete. The prospect of a return to power seemed almost infinitely remote. “ Some day if you are as long-lived as many of our tough politicians have been,” Arthur Acland (no doubt trying to strike a cheerful note) wrote to Asquith, “ there will be changes and even perhaps a Liberal Government though it is difficult to see what it could do in such a Tory country as England now is.”u
This was not quite the nadir of Liberal fortunes. With Parliament in recess the later months of 1901 passed fairly quietly, although one or two shots were exchanged between the leaders of the two factions in their autumn speeches. The noise of these was soon drowned in the vast rumble of advance publicity which Rosebery succeeded in building up for a speech which he was to deliver to the Chesterfield Liberal Association on December 16th. For several weeks beforehand the newspapers were full of contradictory rumours about what he was going to say; but they all agreed that he was going to say something which would give a new twist to politics. When the day came he succeeded in giving two new twists. On South Africa he outflanked his Liberal Imperialist lieutenants from the left. He had never fully shared their enthusiasm for Milner, and this enabled him to come out more firmly for a negotiated peace as opposed to unconditional surrender than they had been prepared to do. At the same time, he opened up a new cause of Liberal schism. The party was not only told once again to “ clean its slate ” but was also instructed to put away its “ fly-blown phylacteries.” Not surprisingly in view of its almost total lack of meaning the significance of this latter phrase was not at first appreciated. Campbell-Bannerman, indeed, was sufficiently encouraged by the note of conciliation on South Africa to call upon Rosebery in the following week and seek a rapprochement. He was quickly disillusioned, for during this interview Rosebery made it clear to the Liberal leader (as he was to do to the public in a speech at Liverpool on February 14th) that by “ fly-blown phylacteries he meant most of the Newcastle programme, and in particular, Home Rule for Ireland. “ (I) stated definitely that I could have nothing further to do with Mr. Gladstone’s policy,” Rosebery recorded in his own note of the interview.v
This was an impossible position for Bannerman. Apart from his own convictions, which were strong on the subject, he had just publicly re-committed himself to the old policy on Home Rule in a speech at Dunfermline. He automatically excluded co-operation with Rosebery on these terms. “ But where are the acolytes?,” he wrote to J. A. Spender on January 1st, 1902. “Ronald F. (Munro Ferguson, the former Scottish whip) is making speeches calling on Liberals to elect between R. and me who are irreconcilably at variance on the war.
Haldane tramps in his heavy way along the same path. I believe Grey also will follow it. Will Asquith? I never hear anything of or from him.”1 w;
1This last sentence is strong evidence against the view, sedulously fostered by Spender himself in his biographies both of Campbell-Bannerman and of Asquith, that throughout even the periods of greatest strain relations between his two subjects remained both close and friendly. And there were other indications of acerbity at this stage. “ Whoever may propose the amendment to the Address it will certainly not be Asquith,” Bannerman wrote early in January. (Spender,
In fact “ the acolytes ” were more firmly with Rosebery than for some time past. Grey wrote to Campbell-Bannerman on January 2nd threatening to repudiate his leadership unless he fully accepted the views on the South African War which Rosebery had put forward at Chesterfield. But at least this was an old issue. Even more depressingly for Liberal imity, Haldane wrote to Asquith from Scotland on January 5th raising the new issue. He was vehemently in favour of Rosebery moving from the generality of “ fly-blown phylacteries ” to an explicit anti-Home Rule statement provided that it was held up for a month or so—which was precisely what happened. “ The feeling is pretty strong up here that such a declaration ought to come,” he concluded.
Asquith was more cautious, but he was moving in the same direction. He made no attempt to prevent the widening of the Liberal gap during that winter. On January 14th he made an intransigent speech saying that the Boers must be convinced “ of the finality of the result and the hopelessness of ever renewing the struggle,” and he suggested to the Liberal Unionists that Rosebery’s policy of the “ clean slate ” might make it easier for them to re-enter the party. On January 23 rd he abstained from voting on the main opposition amendment to the Address, despite the fact that he had been closely involved in deciding upon its compromise wording.
Then, on March 1st, a week after Rosebery had written to The Times explicitly and even brutally repudiating Campbell-Bannerman’s leadership,4 Asquith explained his own position in a long open letter
to his constituents. Like almost all of his pronouncements this was moderate in form. But it leaned heavily towards Rosebery in substance, and amounted to a considered repudiation of Campbell-Bannerman by the man who was nominally his first lieutenant in the House of Commons. He commended the Chesterfield speech and said that it defined a common ground upon which, at this stage of the conflict, the great majority of Liberals were able to meet. In late December this might have been conciliatory. But in early March, when the leader of the party had made it quite clear that it was not ground upon which he could stand, it was the reverse. Asquith then dealt with Home Rule. He did not disavow Gladstone, but he said that even his 44 magnificent courage, unrivalled authority and unquenchable enthusiasm ” had been unable to overcome the repugnance of a large majority of British people to the question of a Dublin Parliament. And in the eight years which had elapsed since 1893 their opinion had hardened:
If we are to be honest, we must ask ourselves this practical question.
Is it to be part of the policy and programme of our party that, if returned to power, it will introduce into the House of Commons a bill for Irish Home Rule. The answer, in my judgment, is No. . . . Because the history of these years. . . has made
it plain that the ends which we have always had, and still have, in view —the reconciliation of Ireland to the Empire and the relief of the Imperial Parliament (not as regards Ireland alone) from a load of unnecessary burdens—can only be attained by methods which will carry with them, step by step, the sanction and sympathy of British opinion. To recognise facts like these is not apostasy; it is common sense.
In addition, in the last days of February, the Liberal Imperialist Council was replaced by the much more formidable Liberal League. Rosebery was president, and Asquith, Grey and Fowler were vice-presidents. The policy object of the League was to promote Liberal Imperialist ideas and the doctrine of the “ clean slate.” Its organisational object was less clear. Rosebery said it was to prevent “ his friends being drummed out of the Liberal Party.” There were others who feared it might have more aggressive and schismatic tendencies. These fears were encouraged when the Liberal organiser in the Home Counties was appointed chief agent of the League, with the suggestion that part of his job might be the promotion of candidatures.
Campbell-Bannerman, who for several weeks past had believed a split was as likely as not and had concerted plans with the Chief Whip as to what to do when it occurred, made it clear that the promotion of candidatures would be for him the breaking point. Asquith at least had no desire to force such a rupture. In a speech at St. Leonards-on-Sea on March 14th he announced that “ he would have nothing to do with any aggressive movement against his fellow-Liberals, he would have nothing to do with any attempt to destroy or weaken the general organisation of the party.”
Almost accidentally this speech marked the turning point in the Liberal Party’s quarrels. During the latter part of March most of the Liberal members associated with the League fell into line with Asquith’s limited interpretation of its functions. But the more significant pressures towards Liberal unity came from outside. On March 24th the Government presented to Parliament a highly controversial Education Bill. On April 14th Sir Michael Hicks-Beach introduced his last budget, which included a proposal for a duty at the rate of 1/- a bushel on imported com. On May 12th the South African War ended in the the Peace of Vereeniging. On May 23rd even Lord Rosebery made a speech of unity. After nearly eight years of Liberal schism a new era in politics was beginning.
1 The remark was originally made by the Mayor of Mafeking. Chamber-lain quoted it, with attribution, in a speech at Tunstall, Staffordshire, on September 27th. At that stage it did not attract great publicity. A few days later he was asked to send a message to the Heywood division of Lancashire and repeated the phrase, this time without attribution. In transmission it was changed to “ A seat lost to the Government is a seat sold to the Boers.” The new version produced an even sharper storm of Liberal protest than the original would have done, but the protesters, quite naturally, were not greatly mollified when a correction was published. In any case, on innumerable Unionist posters, the slogan was soon appearing as “ a vote for a Liberal is a vote for the Boers.”
2 The lines of dispute were as usual a little blurred, but the following is a rough guide to the position:
(a) the right of the Liberal Party, while critical of Chamberlain’s diplomacy, believed that the Boers had caused the war by their ultimatum, and that the only tolerable outcome was British annexation of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State:
(b) the centre thought that the British Government was more responsible for the outbreak of the war, but accepted that, it having started, British annexation of the two republics was bound to follow:
(c) the left believed that the Boers were broadly right.
3 Campbell-Bannerman, paradoxically, accepted the need for this earlier than did Asquith.
4 Campbell-Bannerman, unwisely some of his friends judged, had asked in a speech at Leicester on February 19th (notable also for a firm pinning of his colours to all the old Liberal masts) whether Lord Rosebery spoke from “ the interior of our political tabernacle or from some vantage ground
THE OPPOSITION REVIVED
1902-5
Following close behind these other changes there came a change in the premiership. On July 10th, 1902, Lord Salisbury resigned and was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur Balfour. Balfour held office for three years and five months, and his period at 10, Downing Street is now commonly regarded as one of failure—almost of disaster. From an electoral point of view it was. Not only did it lead up to a massacre of Unionists at the 1906 general election, but it was punctuated by a constant series of by-election defeats. These underlined the narrow basis of support upon which Balfour was operating, as did the unusual number of policy resignations from his Cabinet. In this way he lost the two dominant personalities of the Government, Chamberlain and Devonshire (as Hartington had become), as well as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Secretary of State for India, and one for Scotland, and a Chief Secretary for Ireland. All but the last of these resignations arose out of the tariff reform issue, which Chamberlain threw into the centre of politics in May, 1903, and which caused Balfour to equivocate for the remainder of his premiership.
In spite of electoral weakness, internal schism, and tergiversation at the top on what appeared the most important issue of the day, the Government was in reality one of significant achievement. In his three and a half years Balfour accomplished more than his uncle had done in the preceding seven. He concluded the entente with France, he set up the Committee of Imperial Defence, and he pushed through the Education Bill of 1902. All three of these changes had a powerful long-term effect upon the development of the country.
The Education Bill was controversial for reasons which are now difficult fully to comprehend. Asquith described it as a piece of “ reactionary domestic legislation,” and his view was shared by almost every Liberal and by many Unionists as well. Only in a sectarian sense was it reactionary; educationally it was on balance progressive. But the politics of education were in those days dominated by sectarian questions, and Haldane, with a remarkable indifference to the frequency of his disagreements with the party leadership, was almost unique amongst Liberals in thinking that a national system of secondary education and the concentration of educational responsibility upon the major local government units—the country councils and county boroughs—was well worth the loss of the old school boards and the provision of ratepayers’ money for the voluntary schools. It was this last provision, in spite (or perhaps because) of the fact that it was certain to lead to an improvement in the standards of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Schools, which aroused the Nonconformists and hence the Liberal Party. It also disaffected Joseph Chamberlain, who, in spite of everything which had happened since 1886, could not quite forget that it was the cause of non-sectarian education which had first given him national prominence. “ I told you that your Education Bill would destroy your own party,” he wrote gloomily to the Duke of Devonshire. “ It has done so. Our best friends are leaving us by scores and hundreds, and they will not come back.”a Chamberlain, however, did not choose to desert the Government on the issue. He merely allowed it to be one of a number of influences which sent him sulkily off to spend the winter of 1902-3 in South Africa. But as his musings while there led to his resignation on a still more explosive issue in the following September the fissiparous effects of the Education Bill upon the Unionist Party were not negligible.
Still more important was its unifying effect upon the Liberal Party. There have indeed been few bills which served a greater variety of useful purposes. Thanks largely to the cool nerve of Balfour himself it was law by the end of the year and began immediately to improve British education. But the act of passing it greatly weakened the Government, which had been long enough in power. And the act of opposing it greatly strengthened the Liberal Party, the persistent feebleness of which had imbalanced politics since 1886.
Asquith, like Rosebery and (a little more doubtfully) Grey, did not share Haldane’s non-partisan position on the bill. He took a full and even a leading part in the opposition to it. He spoke
frequently in the House on the subject and he shared the platform with Campbell-Bannerman at several of the major demonstrations which were organised outside. On these occasions he committed himself fully against all the main provisions of the bill and not merely against the rate subsidy for voluntary schools. “ To sum the matter up,” he said at the St. James’s Hall in London on November 19th, “ you have here a bill which absolutely upsets and revolutionizes the existing system of education. It abolishes the School Boards and establishes in place of them a non-representative authority.” Yet the education controversy, along its traditional sectarian lines, was never one in which Asquith felt deeply involved or completely at home. There was too much Celtic excitement on his own side and too much intellectual force on the other for this to be so. The part he played in opposition to the 1902 Act was less important for its own sake than as a prelude to the fiscal controversy which began in the following year. This second controversy completely engaged Asquith’s political attention, and was perfectly suited to his combination of talents. It was also central to the reestablishment of his position with the Liberal Party as a whole. The educational prelude meant that when the fiscal issue exploded upon the country he was already well-placed to take the lead in opposition to Chamberlain. A year earlier it would have been more difficult for him.
This explosion occurred on May 15th, 1903. On that evening Chamberlain used the familiar platform of the Birmingham Town Hall to divert the stream of English politics. He had returned to England in March with his temper no better than it had been when he left in November. His grievance about education might have faded, but it was more than replaced by his discovery that Ritchie, the new Chancellor, was determined to repeal the 1/- duty on corn which Hicks-Beach had introduced in the previous budget and which Chamberlain believed could be used for a limited experiment in imperial preference. Three weeks before the Birmingham speech the budget announcing this repeal had been introduced. Balfour was trying to hold the Cabinet together on the basis of acceptance of the budget on the one hand and a summer of enquiry into imperial preference on the other. Chamber-lain on May 15th made it abundantly clear that there was no question of his waiting for the results of the enquiry and that he would interpret the compromise exactly as he liked.
