by Roy Jenkins
For the moment Churchill could see moderation in everyone, and four days later he wrote again to Asquith:
I have been agreeably surprised by the character of my talks with the King. He is of course all for a conference and for a settlement on the basis of excluding Ulster for a time. But I found him more reasonable and able to see both sides on the Irish question than on others I have sometimes discussed with him: and nothing in his conversation gives the slightest countenance to an unconstitutional intervention by the Crown.m
The next report which Asquith received from Balmoral came from Birrell on October 3rd:
There is a considerable change ... in the constitutional atmosphere, so I think your efforts have had a bracing effect and got rid of some dangerous matter.. .. When I first came it was all conference. . . .n
Even so, it was obvious to Asquith that the time had come when he should try to talk to the Unionist leaders. Even if agreement proved impossible (and he was much less sanguine than Churchill) it was important to show the King, and even some members of the Cabinet, that he had at least tried. Accordingly, he wrote from Balmoral on October 8th:
Dear Mr. Bonar Law,
Churchill has reported to me the substance of a conversation he had with you here last month.
You will probably agree with me that anything in the nature of a “ Conference ” (as proposed for instance by Lord Loreburn) between the leaders of parties is under existing conditions out of the question, whatever may be the case hereafter.
I understand, however, the suggestion thrown out by you to
Churchill to be that an informal conversation of a strictly confidential character between yourself and myself—with perhaps another colleague on either side—might be useful as a first step towards the possible avoidance of danger to the State, which all responsible statesmen must be equally anxious to avert.
I write, therefore, to say that (if you are still in the same mind)
I should be happy to take part without delay in a conversation so conditioned.
I shall be back in London on Friday night and shall remain there for the best part of a week. Perhaps you would kindly address your reply to Downing Street.
Yours very truly,
H. H. Asquitho
The coolness of tone was accounted for by the fact that Asquith hardly knew Bonar Law, and had no great liking for what he knew. The caution of the proposal (combined with a determination to pin upon Law the responsibility for the initiative) arose from Asquith’s conviction that any compromise plan must be suggested by the opposition and not by himself. The Government’s bill, supported by a majority in the House of Commons, was on the table. It was not for him to tell the opposition what he would give them for threatening to break the law—particularly as he thought they would always ask for more. But if the opposition chose to state what provisions, within a general Home Rule framework, would meet the Ulster problem, that was a different matter. This fencing to avoid the initiative was an important factor in the negotiations of the next few months.
Bonar Law, after consulting Lansdowne, agreed to the meeting and suggested Cherkley Court, “ the house of a friend of mine, Sir .Max Aitken ” as an appropriate rendezvous. “ It is about an hour by motor from London,” he added, “ it is quite isolated and the only risk of publicity would be through the servants which in this case would not be great.p
Asquith agreed to the arrangement, and after luncheon on Wednesday, October 14th, he drove out to meet the leader of the opposition. “ He arrived,” so Mr. Robert Blake informs us, “ to find Bonar Law, characteristically, engaged in a game of double dummy with his host—the need for secrecy precluding a four.”q
Unlike Bonar Law himself on a later and equally famous (but probably more apocryphal) occasion Asquith showed neither surprise nor annoyance at this frivolous exhibition.8 Instead, motivated by a mixture of shyness and good manners, he plunged into almost anecdotal talk. “ I had a conversation with Mr. Asquith which lasted for about an hour,” Bonar Law severely recorded. “ The conversation was very frank, but the larger part of it quite irrelevant, dealing, for instance, with personalities in the House of Commons and general subjects of that kind.. . . ”r
The substance of the interview was recorded by Asquith in some pencilled notes written on the following day. They do not differ greatly from Bonar Law’s account, except that this included a long discussion about a general election which did not figure at all in the Prime Minister’s document. Asquith found Bonar Law more sympathetic in private than he had done in public. The Unionist leader was obviously frank: he admitted to doubts about his extreme commitment to Carson; he said that most of the English Conservatives cared more about preserving the Welsh Establishment than about the Home Rule issue; and he made no attempt to conceal the electoral importance to him of “ the Orange card ”—without it he thought the Unionists would lose again. He stressed his trouble with the “ ex-diehards ” on the one hand, and his difficulties with Lansdowne on the other. Law’s sadly pessimistic outlook rather cheered Asquith. He felt a new magnanimity towards him. The difficulties of the Unionist leader were so enormous that Asquith became relatively encouraged about his own position. According to Law’s account, he even indulged in some comforting reflections about his strength vis-á-vis the Irish Nationalists.
Nothing very concrete emerged from this meeting. Asquith understood (for the first time) that Bonar Law would accept Home Rule with an Ulster exclusion provided that Lansdowne as the spokesman of the “ loyalists ” of the South and West did not protest too strongly. But “ Ulster ” was not defined, although the difficulties of definition were touched upon and recognised by both sides. There was no discussion about the permanency or otherwise of exclusion. “We had a good deal of more general and informal conversation" Asquith concluded, “ and in the end I said that after reflection and consideration I would communicate with him again. ”s
Asquith’s next meeting with Bonar Law was on November 6th, again at Cherkley. As on the previous occasion, he afterwards made a pencilled note. The impression given is that, so far from there being a steady move towards agreement, the previous meeting might never have taken place; both leaders spent much of the time traversing familiar ground, often repeating themselves, occasionally contradicting themselves, but never showing much awareness that they had been there before:
I saw and talked with B.L. for best part of an hour.
We agreed that on both sides—his and mine—opinion was stiffening among the rank and file, and that the idea of compromise and even conference, was regarded with growing disfavour and suspicion.
We discussed (without prejudice) the suggestion of a general election before the next session of Parliament opens. I gave my reasons for holding that—if an agreed settlement of the Irish question was to be desired—such a procedure was the most dangerous expedient that could be risked.... He said . . . that unless (of which he saw no prospect) there was a sweeping swing of the electoral pendulum in favour of his side, the best that could be hoped. . . would be such a comparatively balanced state of parties as would make compromise inevitable. I rejoined that.. . it would (in such an event), after all the bad blood of an embittered election, be more difficult than now.
I said that I was no more a plenipotentiary than he was; that I was not even a bearer of proposals: that I might, probably, be able to carry my own Cabinet and Party with me, in any form of settlement that in the end I deliberately pressed upon them; but that I could not (in their present and prospective temper) answer even for that, and still less for the Irish Nationalists, whose leaders, of the old guard, had hanging on their flank and rear the new and bolder spirits of which Devlin is the type. I added that I had no doubt he was in similar difficulties. He replied frankly that he was not sure that his were not even greater; he had to reckon not only with Carsonism (not Carson himself), but with a probable revival of a diehard ” movement among the English Unionists.
These reservations having been duly made
, I said we might proceed on the hypothetical basis that a Home Rule Parliament and Executive was to be set up in Dublin for Ireland, minus an area to be at least temporarily excluded which might provisionally be called “ Ulster ”—the actual definition of Ulster for this purpose being for the moment postponed.
How was it suggested that this area should be dealt with? (i) As regards legislation. (2) As regards administration and finance. He dismissed as unacceptable all schemes for giving it a local legislature and executive of its own.
(1) As regards Legislation. This, he said, must remain with the Imperial Parliament. The Ulster men could not (without sacrificing their root principle) recognise any other law-making power. At this point we discussed the question of the conditions of exclusion. His view was that the excluded area should have the option (as a whole) of voting by plebiscite, after the expiration of a prescribed time, for inclusion. (He repudiated immediate inclusion with an option of exemption.)
(2) As regards Administration and Finance. I pointed out that in respect of Land and Police there was no difficulty, as under the Home Rule Bill these are reserved services which remain, at any rate for a time, in the hands of the Imperial Executive.... He said that the dropping of the proposed Irish Post Office (which under the plan of exclusion would be something of an absurdity) would give great satisfaction to Unionists. I said I had never attached the least importance to the postal provisions in the Bill.
We then came to the question of the geographical definition of the excluded area. He said that Carson would stand out in the first instance for the whole province of Ulster. I urged that this was quite out of the question: in three counties, (Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan) the Nationalists were in an overwhelming preponderance, and in two more (Tyrone and Fermanagh) there was a fairly even balance—Protestants being to Catholics in the proportion of about 6 to 5. As to the three first-mentioned he agreed that they could not be separated from the rest of Ireland. But he was disposed to insist on Tyrone and Fermanagh....
We agreed that any settlement come to must be acquiesced in by both parties in the State at least until it had had a fair trial....
In the end I said that I would report the substance of our conversation to my colleagues in the Cabinet next Tuesday, and if they approved of the matter going on, confidential steps might be taken by Mr. Birrell to sound the Nationalists leaders. We parted in good will but in no very sanguine spirit.
H.H.At
The extracts from Bonar Law's account of this second conversation which are quoted by Mr. Robert Blake are in fairly close harmony with this record of Asquith's. But there was an important divergence on one point. Bonar Law thought that Asquith had entered into a definite commitment to urge upon the Cabinet, and then upon the Nationalists, an exclusion scheme with the conditions that he (Bonar Law) had outlined. Asquith thought much more in terms of reporting the bargaining possibilities to the Cabinet, and taking their advice on the next step. As a result of this misunderstanding, according to Mr. Blake, Bonar Law believed henceforward that Asquith “ had broken his word to him."u Unless he wanted an excuse for distrusting Asquith, it is difficult to see why he should have felt so affronted. On November 7th he wrote to Walter Long, and his letter made clear both that his desires were mixed and that he regarded his own course as determined, not by a Cherkley commitment, but by objective considerations.
“ From a party point of view," he wrote, “ I hope the Nationalists will not agree, for, if they do, I am afraid that our best card for the Election will have been lost. On the other hand if he (Asquith) makes us a definite proposal on these lines I don't see that we could possibly take the responsibility for refusing."v
If Bonar Law was free after Cherkley, surely Asquith was too? There seems no reason to think that he let down Bonar Law; yet it cannot be denied that he made little attempt to drive on towards a settlement. The Cabinet met on Tuesday, November 12th, to hear the Prime Minister's report, and again on the Wednesday to consider what should be done. After the second meeting Asquith reported to the King:
All the Cabinet were agreed that the temper of the party outside was strongly and growingly opposed to any form of compromise, largely, no doubt, because the rank and file wholly disbelieve in the reality of the Ulster threats. Apart from this, the difficulties of the situation were well illustrated by two observations of Ministers who are specially well acquainted with the Irish problem : The one (Mr. Birrell’s) that the exclusion of Ulster, in whole or in part, is universally opposed by all sections of Irish opinion as a bad and unworkable expedient: the other (Lord Morley’s) that to start Home Rule with a baptism of bloodshed would be fatal to its prospects.
Mr. Samuel suggested a plan. . .. which would give to the Ulster members in the Irish Parliament, for a time at any rate, a veto on legislation (including taxation) affecting Ulster. This was rejected by the Cabinet with practical unanimity: it would give satisfaction to neither party and would create the maximum of friction.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed, as a basis of possible compromise, but still more as the best means of avoiding armed resistance, the exclusion of Ulster (i.e. of the Protestant counties) for a defnite term of five or six years, with a provision for its automatic inclusion at the expiration of that time. This, he pointed out, would have two distinct advantages: (i) no one could support or sympathise with the violent resistance of Ulster to a change which would in no way affect her for years to come; (2) before the automatic inclusion of Ulster took place, there would be two General Elections which would give the British electorate—with experience of the actual working of Home Rule in the rest of Ireland—the opportunity—if so minded—of continuing the exclusion of Ulster.
This suggestion met with a good deal of support and it was agreed that the Prime Minister should discuss it with Mr. Redmond whom he is to see privately on Monday.w
Asquith’s meeting with Redmond took place at Edwin Montagu’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate. He told the Irish leader that he was increasingly worried about “ a baptism of blood ” for Home Rule. This could only be avoided by an agreement or by “ the prevention, or at any rate the indefinite postponement, of the bloody prologue.” His conversations with Bonar Law, of which Redmond was informed, combined with the temper of the rank and file of both parties, made him pessimistic about an agreement. The alternative was Lloyd George’s scheme for a postponement of the trouble. Redmond reacted strongly against this. “ He could conceive of no proposal which would create against it a more compact and united body of sentiment in Ireland, both Nationalist and Unionist. If put forward at the last moment by B. Law as the price of an agreed settlement he might look at it. Otherwise he could not entertain it for a moment.”x Asquith then asked Redmond what concessions he was prepared to accept, and the latter replied with an offer of what came to be known as “ Home Rule within Home Rule ”—a large degree of Ulster autonomy under a united Irish Parliament.
Redmond followed up this interview by a long letter to Asquith dated November 24th. He argued strongly and cogently against the Government putting forward any proposals for a compromise. It was much better to wait and let them come from Bonar Law. Redmond, “ writing with a full knowledge of my country and its conditions,” also expressed scepticism about the seriousness of the Ulster threat: “ I do not think that anything like a widespread rebellious movement can ever take place; and all our friends in Ulster, who would be the first victims of any rebellious movement, have never ceased to inform me that all such apprehensions are without any real foundation.”y
The Cabinet considered this letter on November 25th. After considerable discussion it was agreed that Redmond should be told there was no question of an immediate “ offer ” to Bonar Law, but that the Government must be free “ when the critical stage of the Bill is ultimately reached ” to do what it thought best. Grey, traditionally the coolest towards Home Rule of the senior ministers, then proposed that “ if and when the conversation with Mr. Bonar Law was resumed, he should be to
ld that our party could not be brought to agree to .. . the permanent or indefinite exclusion of Ulster, but that we were prepared to discuss plans for its temporary exclusion or separate administrative treatment.” z
This satisfied Redmond for a time, but it did not satisfy the King, who wrote from Sandringham on November 30th, asking when Asquith was next going to see Bonar Law. Prompted by this letter Asquith arranged a third Cherkley meeting for December 10th.1
1 Mr. Robert Blake gives the date as December 9th, but there seems no doubt from the Asquith papers that Wednesday, December 10th was the correct day. Asquith says so in his memorandum of the talk and he also wrote to Miss Stanley that afternoon: “ I paid a rather interesting call in the country this morning, of wh. I will tell you some day. Tonight to dine with Gosse & the Poets—at any rate the Laureate & Housman.”
This was completely abortive. Asquith wrote: “ I found B.L. less hopeful of a settlement by consent than when I last met him. He took a gloomy view of the temper and attitude not only of the extremists but of the rank and file of both parties ...” But so, presumably, did Asquith. He told Bonar Law that there could be no settlement on the basis of indefinite exclusion, and Bonar Law rejected without detailed consideration the Lloyd George proposals for temporary exclusion. After some further rather weary re-traversing of old ground they parted.
