Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  Asquith made one further attempt at negotiation before Christmas. On December 16th he saw Carson, again using Montagu’s house as a meeting place. The Prime Minister knew Carson somewhat better than Bonar Law—he was an old colleague at the bar—and, notwithstanding his seditious activities, was much more instinctively friendly towards him. Despite his own lack of dramatic sense, Asquith was often rather drawn to figures who cut something of a dash. He persuaded himself that there was a possibility of making progress with Carson where there had been none with Law.

  As a result he took the trouble to draw up highly tentative proposals for a fresh compromise and to send them to Carson, accompanied by a notably friendly letter, on December 23rd. The suggestion was that a “ statutory ” Ulster (the boundaries of which remained to be defined) should have special powers of veto in the Irish Parliament. If a majority of the members from this area so wished, no Irish legislation on fiscal, religious, educational, industrial or land tenure matters would apply to Ulster. On December 27th Carson dismissed the proposal out of hand. Asquith persisted and on January 2nd he got Carson to come to another meeting at Queen Anne’s Gate. On this occasion he reproached him for dismissing “ carefully considered ” proposals without putting forward any counter-suggestion, and tried hard to make Carson commit some scheme of his own to paper. But Carson—as was to be proved during the war—was always a negative man. One of his strengths was that he recognised this. He rarely allowed himself to be manoeuvred on to ground which called for constructive action. He was much too fly to be caught in this way by Asquith. When asked to put forward a detailed plan for the exclusion of Ulster he replied firmly that if the principle could be agreed the details could best be filled in by the parliamentary draughtsmen. And that, on January 7th, 1914, was the end of another attempt at negotiation.

  On January 9th, Bonar Law wrote to Asquith asking permission to say in a public speech that conversations had taken place between the two leaders. Asquith agreed, and at Cardiff on January 15th Law announced not only that negotiations had taken place but that they had failed and were finished. His next step was to suggest, through Stamfordham, that the time had come for the King to write an official letter to his ministers, which he would reserve the right to make public later, telling them that it was their duty to hold a general election before the Home Rule Bill became law. The King had informed Bonar Law at Balmoral in the autumn that this was his intention. But by the end of January, although still anxious for an election, he had become doubtful about the wisdom of putting this form of pressure upon Asquith. Furthermore, he was displeased with the Unionist leader for slamming the door so firmly on any further negotiations. Law accordingly received a snubbing reply from Stamfordham: “As to any special communications to his Ministers, His Majesty's action will be guided by time and circumstances."aa

  The King’s constant desire for a general election was based upon no wish to get rid of Asquith, “ for whom," Sir Harold Nicolson informs us, “ he had acquired (and for ever retained) feelings of warm affection.bb"There is no evidence that he ever entertained such feelings for Bonar Law, and at this stage he thought him likely to be an uncomfortable and even disagreeable minister. In addition the King believed that the departure of Grey from the Foreign Office would be “ a European misfortune." At the same time the shelving of Home Rule which would follow from a Unionist victory would be a great personal relief. The King was more sensitive to trouble from the “ loyalists " of Ulster than from the “ disloyalists " of the South. What, no doubt, he would most have liked was a combination of “ Whig men and Tory measures "—perhaps always the ideal solution from a royal point of view. But if he could not get this, a general election offered the prospect of removing some of the weight which he felt resting on his shoulders. If the opposition won, it would be a new situation. If the Government won, the election would at least “ clear the air," as he put it.

  Asquith persisted in believing that an election would settle nothing —except the ineffectiveness of the Parliament Act. But, his negotiations with Bonar Law and Carson having failed, and the critical date when the bill would become law being now only six months off, Asquith clearly had to proceed on some alternative course. This was the situation which confronted him when he returned from Antibes on January 19th, 1914. Three days later the Cabinet met. He reported on the failure of negotiations with Law and the new proposal that he had made to Carson. It was agreed, with some opposition from Morley (who thought Asquith was giving away too much) and enthusiastic support from Lloyd George and Churchill, that this last proposal, which had failed as a basis for negotiation, should be made public, but that Redmond should first be informed.

  1 After 1910 the Conservatives also had a sense of being cheated by the alliance between the Liberals and Redmond. The alliance was based on Asquith’s new commitment to carry Home Rule, and would have foundered without it. This the Unionists persisted in regarding as a corrupt arrangement, although as the Liberals had for a generation regarded Home Rule as part of their creed (if not always of their programme) it is difficult to see where the corruption lay. The Unionists had worked themselves into a peculiarly illogical position vis-a-vis the Irish. They were dedicated to keeping them in the Imperial Parliament, while resentful that their votes should count for anything there. But illogicality is rarely a bar to deep feeling.

  2 the Lords by a vote of 326 to 69. In this and in the two subsequent sessions the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill followed an almost exactly parallel course.

  3 This lasted only from March to July, 1913. This time there were no committee stages for either the Home Rule or the Welsh Church Bills. As a result they went through the House of Commons, to use one of Asquith’s favourite phrases, “ on oiled castors.” But this did nothing to reduce the force with which they again hit the wall of House of Lords opposition. The Irish Bill was rejected by 302 to 64 on July 15th, and the Welsh one by 243 to 48 on July 22nd.

  4 See p. 195, supra.

  5 Birrell’s own account of this interview, written for Asquith, contained the following sentence: “ He (the King) left on my mind the clear impression that he was being pressed to entertain the idea, though not able quite to see how it could safely be done, of forcing a dissolution next year. He has been told that the Home Rule feeling (outside Ulster) is not really strong— that it is dying out and that all the people really want is more money and continued prosperity.” (Asquith Papers, Box 38, 109-13).

  6 The title taken by Sir Arthur Bigge in 1911.

  7 Both parts of Asquith’s paper are reproduced in full in Spender and Asquith, 11, pp. 29-34. For that reason they are only summarised in this chapter, but are reprinted in appendix b (see p. 541 infra).

  8 On June 12th, 1916, again according to Mr. Blake, Bonar Law went to see Asquith at the Wharf and found him “ engaged in a rubber of bridge with three ladies.” Law was “ considerably annoyed ” and “ the episode left a lasting impression upon his mind.” Lady Violet Bonham Carter has deployed formidable arguments against this incident ever taking place. But even in the unlikely event that it did, it is not clear why Bonar Law should have been so shocked. If it was “ characteristic ” for a leader of the opposition to play cards on the afternoon of a working Wednesday in October, in the midst of a ferocious Irish crisis, why should a Prime Minister not do so on a Whitsun Monday morning (for that is what June 12th was), even in wartime ? But perhaps the difference lay in the choice of fellow-players. Lord Beaverbrook was all right, but not “ three ladies.”

  THE IRISH IMBROGLIO II

  1914

  At the beginning of 1914 Ireland was briefly superseded by the Naval Estimates as the most critical issue confronting Asquith. It was the old battle of 1909 over again, except for some piquant changes of personal position. As before, the First Lord of the Admiralty, supported with modified enthusiasm by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and one or two others, was fighting for more generous provision against most of the rest of the Cabinet. But Church
ill, instead of being with Lloyd George the leader of the “ economists,” had become the extravagant, demanding First Lord; and McKenna, relieved of his naval responsibilities, felt free to be one of Churchill’s best-informed and most determined critics. Behind the struggle, on this as on the previous occasion, lay the conviction of the “ economists ” that they had the Liberal rank and file firmly on their side.

  The first obtrusion of this phase of the dispute on to Asquith’s correspondence came on December 8th, 1913, when he wrote: “ We had a Cabinet which lasted nearly 3 hours, 2¾ of wh. was occupied by Winston.” Then, on January 1st, Lloyd George gave what Asquith described as“a heedless interview ” to the Daily Chronicle. This was in one sense a charitable judgment. In fact Lloyd George was making a calculated move to take the issue before the Liberal public. He spoke of the “ overwhelming extravagance of our expenditure on armaments,” expressed particular scepticism about the need for a stronger navy, and pointedly reminded his readers of Lord Randolph Churchill’s 1887 resignation from the Exchequer. The clash was at this stage a longdistance one, for Churchill was in France when the interview was published, and Lloyd George left for Algeria immediately after he had given it. Asquith saw Churchill on January 9th, and became more apprehensive about the outlook. He was writing to Miss Stanley about the possibility of an expedition in the Admiralty yacht and continued rather gloomily:

  That assumes that the good ship is likely to be at our disposal, which after the hour’s talk I have just had with Winston seems to me to be by no means certain. He has been hunting the boar in Les Landes and has come back with his own tusks well whetted, and all his bristles in good order. There will be wigs on the green before his tussle with Ll.G. is over.

  Asquith’s Antibes visit then intervened, and it was January 20th before he could see Lloyd George and Churchill together. He remained gloomy after this meeting. His own view was in favour of the Admiralty case on the main points at issue, but he thought Churchill’s methods were needlessly provocative. “ There is no doubt that Winston tries them rather high,” he wrote a little later; “ to use his own phrase today he ‘ gyrates around the facts ’.”a The opposition which Churchill had aroused in the Cabinet was formidable. Lloyd George was in fact one of the most moderate of his opponents, his attitude untinged by personal antipathy. This was not the case with many of the others. John Simon (“ the Impeccable is the real and only Irreconcilable,” Asquith commented) was the most extreme. He was full of anti-Churchill arguments:

  “ The loss of W.C., though regrettable, is not by any means a splitting of the party,” he wrote to Asquith, “ —indeed large Admiralty estimates may be capable of being carried only because W.C. has gone. The party would feel itself strengthened in its Radical element and among the Economists; the feeling that the Cabinet fights for economy but preserves Home Rule unflinchingly is just what is wanted. A majority of the Cabinet certainly take this view.”b

  Whether or not he was right about the majority, Simon had a substantial group organised. A few days later he wrote again to the Prime Minister, and this time the letter was signed by McKenna, Runciman, Beauchamp, and Charles Hobhouse, as well as himself. In addition, not only Lloyd George but also Herbert Samuel were strongly critical of the Admiralty proposals without going the whole way with Simon.

  Asquith’s method of dealing with this situation was, first, to let it be known that if the issue were forced by either side to the point of resignation he proposed to have a general election rather than carry on with a weakened Cabinet;1 and, secondly, to play the argument along fairly slowly in the hope that the passage of time or the intervention of other events might cause passions to weaken. On January 27th he recorded:

  And now as I am writing we are in the full stress of Cabinet discussion. Happily Huck2 is not present, but the bigger breed have their ears well laid back, & from time to time give tongue. (Some considerable time, say ½ or ¾ of an hour, has elapsed since I wrote the last sentence, full of animated sound, including a few mellow and melodious glapissements from ‘Sweetheart’.3) We shan’t decide anything today & shall meet again tomorrow. But the air is more than a trifle thunderous.

  1 How this would have resolved the problem is not wholly clear. He presumably thought the threat could be an effective deterrent against both sets of extremists.

  2 Miss Stanley’s dog.

  3 Lord Beauchamp.

  Detached and dilatory though he sounded, Asquith’s methods were highly effective. He acted throughout on the assumption that it was crucial to promote a movement towards accommodation between Lloyd George and Churchill. Simon and the others could then be treated cursorily. As soon as the Prime Minister saw signs of such a movement developing, during the last week of January, he began to breathe freely and to regard the crisis as past its worst. He still did not force an early settlement. He was happy to wait for this until the Cabinet of February nth. An arrangement was then reached which avoided not only resignations but any legacy of bitterness. It also gave the Admiralty most of what they wanted and what Asquith had throughout believed they should have. This result, Churchill recorded, was largely due “to the unswerving patience of the Prime Minister, and to his solid, silent support.”c

  Ireland was less easily settled. As soon as the King received news of the Cabinet’s decision of January 22nd to propose an Ulster veto upon any act of the Dublin legislature which affected the Protestant counties, he wrote to Asquith to say that in his view this was not enough: “ I have always given you as my opinion, that Ulster will never agree to send representatives to an Irish Parliament in Dublin, no matter what safeguards or guarantees you may provide. For this reason I would point out to you the danger of laying before Parliament and the Country, your proposed concessions (as) if they are to be your last word.”^ This did not make it easier for Asquith to deal with Redmond. He could hardly speak to him with decision and finality when he knew that he would probably have to come back later and ask for a further concession. Moreover, by the time that his interview with the Irish leader took place, on February 2nd, Asquith knew that the Conservative leaders were discussing the use of the House of Lords to amend the Army Act. Such a move would be revolutionary both in motive and in consequence. It would cripple the authority of the civil power. Its effect would be either to force a general election or to leave the Government without any military force which it could deploy in Ulster. At the interview he informed Redmond not only about the course of his negotiations with Bonar Law and Carson and of the Cabinet decision, but also of this possibility:

  “I had Birrell with me at the Leviathan1 interview ” he wrote.

  “I developed the situation with such art as I could muster, until the psychological moment arrived for discharging my bornb. My visitor shivered visibly and was a good deal perturbed, but I think the general effect was salutary. He wisely refused to commit himself on the spot, and promises further communication in a day or two.

  1 This was Asquith’s private name for Redmond.

  The next day Birrell had “ a rather gloomy second interview with our Leviathan and then, on February 5th, “ a rather unsatisfactory communication (tho’ very well put) ” arrived from Redmond. The gist of this was that Asquith in any public statement should say no more than that he would do everything in his power to secure a settlement by consent provided that it was consistent with “ an Irish Parliament, an Irish Executive and the integrity of Ireland.” “ Such a statement by you,” Redmond added, “ would place me in a position to give it my wholehearted support.”e

  That same day Asquith went to Windsor to see the King. “ I spent about an hour and a half with the Sovereign before dinner and we covered a good deal of ground,” he wrote to Miss Stanley. “ I spoke to him very faithfully, but I am not sure that I produced an abiding impression. Esher (who was at dinner) told me that the King liked me but (how unlike you!) was rather afraid of me! I am sure you will find this impossible to believe and difficult to imagine. We finished up our talk on ve
ry friendly terms. ...”

  Sir Harold Nicolson’s account of the audience, while in no way contradicting this view about the friendliness of the exchanges, suggests that the King believed he had dealt with Asquith as “ faithfully ” as Asquith believed he had dealt with him. The King warned Asquith that, if negotiations failed, many army officers might resign their commissions rather than fight in a civil war.1 He reiterated his view that Ulster would in no circumstances consent to be placed under a Dublin Parliament. And, while stressing that the Prime Minister had not forfeited his confidence, he refused to commit himself to Asquith’s contention that the only tolerable alternatives were either to dismiss the Government at once or to exclude the possibility of doing so at some subsequent stage in the dispute. The King said that “ he had no intention of dismissing his Ministers, although his future action must be guided by circumstances.f

  1 “But whom are they going to fight?” Asquith blandly replied.

  This audience helped to force Asquith beyond the solution of “ Home Rule within Home Rule,” which he had urged upon Redmond on February 2nd, and to make him accept in some form the temporary exclusion of Ulster. For the moment he made no public commitment to this new course, although he endeavoured to use the next parliamentary round—the King’s Speech at the opening of the new session and the debate on the Address which followed—to create as conciliatory an atmosphere as possible. As a result the King was pleased not only with his own speech but also with the Prime Minister’s. And Asquith himself thought he saw some response from the other side. “ The event of this afternoon’s debate with us,” he wrote on February nth, “ was Carson’s speech. He followed a somewhat arid display by the Impeccable, and was really very impressive. I wrote him a line of congratulation. ...” The following night he found Bonar Law’s contribution less worthy of congratulation— “ Bonar Lisa was rather spitfire,” he wrote—but he was nevertheless “ inclined to be satisfied with the debate.”