Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  1 They were almost identical with those which Asquith had offered in March. Each Ulster country could opt out by plebiscite for a period of six years.

  The time had clearly arrived to put into practice his theory that negotiations were most likely to succeed when the pressure for settlement had become urgent upon both sides. On May 3rd Speaker Lowther had written to Asquith suggesting that an all-party conference on the Irish problem might be held in his library. Asquith wrote a stalling reply, and later returned similar answers to the King, who, on May 17th and 23 rd, and again 011 June 19th and 29th, had pressed hard for a meeting between Redmond and Carson, under the aegis either of the Speaker or of himself. The Prime Minister thought that May and June were too early for serious negotiations of any sort, and even in the first half of July he believed that they should be kept as informal as possible in order to avoid what he regarded as the disaster of a formal failure. But during these July weeks he used a variety of go-betweens and created an almost over-complicated private net. Lloyd George saw Redmond and Dillon together; J. A. Spender, on Asquith’s behalf, saw Dillon alone; and the Master of Elibank (by then Lord Murray) was brought in for a series of negotiations with Lord Rothermere8 and later with Carson.

  Asquith’s object in these discussions was to try to narrow the difference to a simple and limited question of geography. By mid-July he thought that he had succeeded. Everything was still tentative, but if acceptable partitions of Tyrone or Fermanagh could be agreed or imposed, both sides seemed likely to acquiesce in the exclusion, without a time limit, of the resultant five or five-and-a-half county bloc.

  On July 16th, accordingly, Asquith told the King that the moment for a conference had at last arrived, and proposed that it should be held at Buckingham Palace. He broached the matter at a State Ball:

  I found the royal person in a tent in the garden and had nearly half an hour with him. He was full of interest and excitement about the Conference—and made one really good suggestion—namely that the Speaker should preside.

  We arranged that I should write a memorandum for the King, advising a Conference and that the King should send a cordial reply amounting to an invitation. He was anxious that Arthur Balfour shd. come in, but I objected to this strongly, as A.J.B. is in this matter a real wrecker. As between Crewe and Ll.G.—the K. was (with me) in favour of the latter.

  Asquith got his way about both Balfour and Lloyd George, although the choice of the latter involved a delicate and excusably disingenuous letter to Crewe. “ I find that our Irish friends are very insistent that Lloyd George should be our second man,” Asquith wrote, “ believing as they do (perhaps partly from the experience of victims) that his peculiar gifts of blandishment and negotiation would be invaluable.”0 Crewe made no difficulty about the change,1 and the conference was quickly constituted. Asquith, Lloyd George, Redmond and Dillon confronted Bonar Law, Lansdowne, Carson and Captain Craig.2 The first meeting was held on July 21st and the last on July 24th. Despite all Asquith’s careful preparation of the ground, Lloyd George’s “ blandishments,” and the choice of meeting place, with the atmosphere of national unity it was intended to convey, the conference was a complete failure. Mr. Robert Blake, in his biography of Bonar Law, states forthrightly that the Unionists never expected success and “ only attended in deference to the King’s wishes.”p Their expectations were not disappointed. Two subjects were marked out for discussion—area and time limit. After some initial scuffling, it was agreed that area should be discussed first. Asa result the second subject was never reached. The conference, in Churchill’s phrase, lost itself in “ the muddy by-ways of Fermanagh and Tyrone.” After the second meeting, on July 22nd, Asquith wrote Miss Stanley an account of how this happened:

  We sat again this morning for an hour and a half, discussing maps and figures, and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man—the County of Tyrone. The extraordinary feature of the discussion was the complete agreement (in principle) of Redmond & Carson.

  Each said ‘ I must have the whole of Tyrone, or die; but I quite understand why you say the same.’ The Speaker who incarnates bluff unimaginative English sense, of course cut in: ‘ When each of two people say they must have the whole, why not cut it in half? ’ They wd. neither of them look at such a suggestion. L.G. and I worked hard to get rid of the county areas altogether and proceed on Poor Law Unions wh. afford a good basis of give and take. But again both Irish lots would have none of it. Nothing could have been more amicable in tone or more desperately fruitless in result. We agreed to meet again tomorrow, when we shall make a final—tho’ I fear futile—effort to carve out a ‘ block ’. I have rarely felt more hopeless in any practical affair: an impasse, with unspeakable consequences, upon a matter which to English eyes seems inconceivably small, & to Irish eyes immeasurably big. Isn’t it a real tragedy ?

  1 “I have never known either of the two Nationalist members at all well,” he wrote in reply, “ and have no great liking for them—for Dillon indeed rather the opposite, so that George is far more likely to be able to cajole or frighten them, or both, than I could be. . . .” (Asquith Papers, box 46, f. 213).

  2 Later Lord Craigavon and first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

  Two days later—“ a black letter day in my Calendar ”—he announced the failure of the conference to the House of Commons. He also described the closing stages to Miss Stanley:

  The last meeting this morning was in some ways dramatic, tho’ the actual business consisted merely in “settling the words to be publicly used.” At the end the King came in, rather emotionne, & said in two sentences (thank God! there was not another speech) farewell, I am sorry, and I thank you. He then very wisely had the different members brought to him privately, and saw each in turn. Redmond was a good deal impressed by his interview, especially as the King told him that he was convinced of the necessity of Home Rule.

  We then had a meeting at Downing Street—Redmond & Dillon, Ll. George, Birrell & I. I told them that I must go on with the Amending Bill—without the time limit: to which after a good deal of demur they reluctantly agreed to try & persuade their party to assent. It will come on on Tuesday . . .

  Asquith then permitted himself a few thoughts about the mysteries of the Celtic mind:

  Redmond assured us that when he said good-bye to Carson the latter was in tears, and that Captain Craig who had never spoken to Dillon in his life came up to him and said: ‘ Mr. Dillon, will you shake my hand? I should be glad to think that I had been able to give as many years to Ulster as you have to the service of Ireland' Aren’t they a remarkable people? And the folly of thinking that we can ever understand, let alone govern them!

  When the following Tuesday came, however, the Amending Bill was not proceeded with. During the intervening week-end the Nationalist Volunteers followed the example of Ulster with a gun-running exercise of their own at Howth. This led to a mild street scene in Dublin on the Sunday afternoon. A foolish Assistant Commissioner of Police sent for the military—“ a most improper proceeding,” in Asquith’s view—and a minor incident was turned into a massacre. Three Nationalists were killed and thirty-eight were wounded. Asquith, as was described in chapter XVII, was hurriedly summoned back from the Wharf to London to deal with this “ malignity of fortune.” One effect of the incident was to disillusion Asquith, perhaps none too soon, with the quality of the administration in Dublin Castle and even with the agreeable and easy-going Chief Secretary. “ I am tempted to regret,” he wrote, “ that I didn’t make the ‘ clean cut ’ 6 months ago, and insist upon the booting out of Aberdeen, . . . & the whole crew. A weaker and more incompetent lot were never in charge of a leaky ship in stormy weather; the poor old Birrell’s occasional & fitful appearances at the wheel do not greatly improve matters.”

  The second effect was a hardening of opinion amongst the Nationalist M.P.s. The Amending Bill had obviously to be postponed for at least a day or so in order to allow their mood to st
eady. The Government Chief Whip pressed hard for a delay until the following week, but Asquith reacted with surprising violence against what he described as this “ idiotic proposal which would have made everyone say we were drifting on.” He announced on the Monday that the bill would definitely be taken on Thursday.

  But Thursday brought another postponement, although for a different reason. Throughout these last stages of the Irish crisis the international situation provided increasingly loud off-stage noises. The Sarajevo murders occurred while the House of Lords was busy re-fashioning the Amending Bill. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia became known as the Buckingham Palace conference was breaking up. But, at least until the Tuesday of the following week (July 28th), Ireland was the central worry in the Prime Minister’s mind, and the “ Eastern problem,” as he called it, a peripheral one. After Tuesday the balance shifted. On the Wednesday he wrote that “ the Amending Bill & the whole Irish business are of course put into the shade by the coming war.” Then, on the Thursday morning, as he described it to Miss Stanley:

  I was sitting in the Cabinet room with a map of Ulster, & a lot of statistics about populations & religions, and some choice extracts from Hansard (with occasional glances at this morning’s letter from Penrhôs), endeavouring to get into something like shape my speech on the Amending Bill, when a telephone message came from (of all people in the world) Bonar Law, to ask me to come & see him & Carson at his Kensington abode—Pembroke Lodge. He had sent his motor, which I boarded, and in due time arrived at my destination: a rather suburban looking detached villa in a Bayswater street,1 with a small garden, and furnished and decorated itself after the familiar fashion of Glasgow or Bradford or Altrincham. It was quite an adventure, for I might easily have been kidnapped by a section of Ulster Volunteers.

  I found the two gentlemen there, & B. Law proceeded to propose, in the interest of the international situation, that we should postpone for the time being the 2nd reading of the Amending Bill. He said that to advertise our domestic dissensions at this moment wd. weaken our influence in the world for peace & c----

  I of course welcomed this attitude, but I said I wd. consult some colleagues before giving a definite answer.

  1 A curious topographical inaccuracy for Asquith; Pembroke Lodge was not within a mile of Bayswater.

  The colleagues consulted were Lloyd George and Grey, who both agreed that the offer should be accepted. So did Redmond, whom Asquith saw at the House of Commons immediately after luncheon. The intention was that the Home Rule Bill itself should become law, but that its operation should be suspended until a new amending bill could be passed. On this basis Asquith announced a further and indefinite postponement on the Thursday afternoon. That was the end of the pre-war phase of the Irish dispute. The unsolved problem was bundled into cold storage. But it took a little more effort, after the outbreak of war, to get the door of the storage room closed upon it. And when the issue was next exposed to view, at Easter, 1916, the freezing plant was shown to be disappointingly ineffective. The maggots had been hard at work.

  7 Until 1918 the acceptance of any Cabinet office made it necessary for a member to seek re-election. In fact Simon’s subsequent advice was that Asquith had probably committed a technical offence by appearing to announce his own appointment, and that a bill of indemnity was necessary. If this was blocked by the opposition, Simon’s suggestion was that “ 250,000 working men ” should be asked to subscribe 1d. each.

  8 Lord Northcliffe, Rothermere’s brother, spent a week in Ulster at this time, and Murray, perhaps because he thought it would ease his negotiations with Rothermere, was anxious that Asquith should see Northcliffe. Asquith was reluctant. “ I hate and distrust the fellow and all his works,” he wrote, “ and will never make any overture to him ; so I merely said that if he chose to ask me directly to see him, and had anything really new to communicate, I would not refuse. I know of few men in this world who are responsible for more mischief, and deserve a longer punishment in the next: but it doesn’t do to say this to Winston.”

  Murray persevered, and the meeting took place three days later in his flat in Ennismore Gardens. Whether or not it served any other purpose, Asquith remarked that he used it “ to impress upon (Northcliffe) the importance of making The Times a responsible newspaper.”

  THE PLUNGE TO WAR

  1914

  From 1911 onwards the European scene was menacing, and in a general way was recognised as such by Asquith and his leading ministers. But there was no especial menace in the first half of 1914. The Balkan wars were over, and no fresh crisis had developed. It was a period of relative calm. There was no slow, inevitable edging towards war as in 1939.

  Even after the murders at Sarajevo, the mood did not change. When the Cabinet could take time off from the Irish crisis it was more concerned with planning for the end of the Parliament than with the international scene. After a meeting on July 8th Asquith informed the King that the intention was to prorogue in August, and then to have one more short session beginning in December and leading on to a general election in the summer of 1915.

  On July 24th, when the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia had been delivered, Grey made a report to the Cabinet. It was the first foreign affairs discussion that month. But it riveted attention. Asquith’s Cabinet letter spoke of the Austrian ultimatum as “ the gravest event for many years past in European politics ” and a possible “ prelude to a war in which at least four of the great powers may be involved.” At that stage he nevertheless believed that we should have little difficulty in remaining outside the conflict. “ Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators,” he wrote later that day.

  During the week-end of July 25th-26th he remained of the same mind. Indeed he was somewhat divided on the merits of the issue. “ The curious thing is,” he wrote on the Sunday, “ that on many, if not most, of the points Austria has a good and Servia a very bad case. But the Austrians are quite the stupidest people in Europe (as the Italians are the most perfidious), and there is a brutality about their mode of procedure which will make many people think that it is a case of a big Power wantonly bullying a little one.” On the Monday he was heavily occupied with Ireland. On the Tuesday he noted with sadness the collapse of Grey’s attempts to organise a 4-power conference, and assumed that “ nothing but a miracle ” could now avert a war. But he did not necessarily mean a British war. That night, after entertaining at dinner the Churchills, Benckendorffs (Russian ambassador) and Edward Marsh, he walked across Downing Street and sat in the Foreign Office with Grey and Haldane until 1 a.m.

  In Cabinet the next morning two “ decisions ” were taken. The first was a real one. It was to send warning telegrams to all the naval, military and colonial stations and to initiate a “ precautionary period ”, which was short of the German Kriegsgefahr, but which nevertheless involved a considerable state of readiness. Surprisingly, in view of the traditions of the War Office and the national taste for improvisation, British plans for the entry into hostilities had been meticulously prepared. Much of the credit for this belonged to Haldane. A “ War Book ” had been in existence for several years past; at 2.0 p.m. on the Wednesday (July 29th) the order was given for the turning of its pages to begin.

  The second “ decision ” was less decisive. It concerned the British attitude in the event of a German violation of Belgian neutrality. Asquith reported it to the King in the following words:

  The Cabinet consider that this matter, if it arises, will be rather one of policy than of legal obligation. . . . After much discussion it was agreed that Sir E. Grey should be authorised to inform the German and French Ambassadors that at this stage we were unable to pledge ourselves in advance, either under all conditions to stand aside or in any conditions to join in.

  It sounded a little pusillanimous, but so it was bound to be unless the Cabinet was to be split wide open. There was a potential “ peace party ” comprising no less than ten ministers1—of a total of twenty. As in t
he naval estimates dispute six months earlier, Lloyd George was the most powerful but by no means the most extreme of this group. He had however made an “ economy ” speech in the House of Commons as late as July 23 rd—the day before the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia—and had delivered himself then of a statement of epic mistiming. Relations with Germany, he said, were better than for years past. Asquith, unless he wished to proceed without half his Government and with the Liberal Party split down the middle, had to allow a little time for Lloyd George to recover from this extravagance and for other ministers to move with the pressure of events.