Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  1 A more accurate but less picturesque description than his daughter’s.

  What the general result gave was a large Tory phalanx of 344 members, confronted by a Labour Party of 138 (twice its previous strength and enough, for the first time, to enable it to form a real opposition) and 117 Liberals. These last were divided into 60 Asquithians and 57 Lloyd Georgites. In one sense the result was much worse for Lloyd George than for Asquith. Within a short time he had crashed from a great height. “ Lloyd George can be Prime Minister for life if he likes,” Bonar Law had said less than two years before. But in another sense it was still more depressing for Asquith. He had fought on a much broader front than Lloyd George, putting up 348 candidates to secure his meagre harvest of 60; and although his group was a little bigger than its rival, the difference was so small that he could no longer be regarded as the only guardian of the true Liberal faith. The anti-Pope was almost as strong as the Pope. Furthermore, the country seemed set for a long period of Conservative Government.

  The election also produced a notable crop of casualties. In the same letter in which he recounted his own close result at Paisley, Asquith wrote about these: “For the moment the thing that gives me the most satisfaction is to gloat over the corpses which have been left on the battlefield, Winston, Hamar Greenwood, Freddie Guest, Montagu, Kellaway—all of them renegades. ... I am terribly disappointed at the loss of Donald Maclean and Geoffrey Howard. They are both most difficult to replace.”v Asquith’s grief was more genuine than his “ gloating.” Had it been otherwise he would hardly have written so openly about the latter. No doubt for the moment he felt it appropriate that the former lieutenants who had sailed so triumphantly (and unconcernedly) past his shipwreck of 1918 should find their own rocks. But this feeling—so alien to Asquith’s nature—quickly passed. In particular he recovered something of his old affection for Churchill and Montagu. A few months later he saw Churchill at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York (subsequently King George VI and Queen Elizabeth), and wrote about him almost in the old pre-1915 way:

  I sat in the stalls with a curious little knot of neighbours: Ramsay MacDonald, and Clynes (who wore black frock-coats), Buck-master, Simon and Winston Churchill! The ennui of the long waits were relieved for me by being next to Winston, who was in his best form and really amusing. Between two fugues (or whatever they are called) on the organ, he expounded to me his housing policy: “ Build the house round the wife and mother: let her always have water on the boil: make her the central factor. The dominating condition of the situation,” etc. etc.—in his most rhetorical vein.w

  And two years after this, when Churchill had found his way into a Conservative Government, Asquith wrote: “At lunch we had amongst others Winston Churchill, who was in his best form: he is a Chimborazo or Everest among the sandhills of the Baldwin Cabinet.”x Montagu had been re-admitted earlier to Bedford Square. “ The Spanish Duke and Duchess of Alba, who were very kind to Margot in Spain,” Asquith wrote on October 10th, 1923, “ came to lunch: also Edwin Montagu, who had not been at our table for at least four years.... He is, as he always was, excellent company.”y

  After the 1922 election the remaining years of Asquith’s life were a period for the healing of old quarrels and the forgiving of old wounds. The bitterness of 1916 to 1921, was largely past. The least genuine of the reconciliations was that with Lloyd George. It was the one which was most forced by circumstances. In the new Parliament it was obvious that the two Liberal groups faced a doubtful future in any event—and none at all unless they could come together. The natural tendency of the backbenchers was in this direction. Within a week of the assembly of the House Asquith wrote:

  There was a kind of “ fraternity ” gathering last night in one of the Committee rooms between the rank and file of our lot and the ex-Coalie Liberals. The latter seem prepared to “ re-unite ” on almost any terms. . . . Meanwhile Ll.G. is evidently dallying with visions of reconciliation. He took Hogge7. .. into his room last night and talked to him for an hour and a half in his most mellifluous vein. Amongst other things he declared that he was quite ready to serve with and under me (!), with whom he had never had a quarrel and whom he had never ceased to admire and respect! z

  Asquith gave little active encouragement to these unity moves. He believed that Lloyd George (who quickly announced that he was “ neither a suppliant nor a penitent ”) should make the running. The natural tendency was towards a hesitant reunion, but something more than this was needed, and from where was the catalyst to come? Suddenly, in the early autumn of 1923, Baldwin (who had succeeded to the premiership in the spring) provided it. At Plymouth, on October 22nd, he announced that protection was the only remedy for unemployment and that the Government would seek a new mandate for this view.

  It was almost 1903 all over again. The only differences were that Asquith was twenty years older, the issue was a little staler, and the Liberal Party was not quite what it had been. But a surge to unity resulted. In mid-November Parliament was again dissolved. A Liberal Free Trade manifesto, signed first by Asquith and then by Lloyd George, was quickly issued. The election which followed resulted in substantial Conservative losses and moderate Labour and Liberal gains. Asquith, by chance, had an easier run in Paisley than in 1922. Biggar’s vote was split by the intervention of a semi-Communist candidate. In these circumstances it hardly needed one of the most remarkable political occasions of the ’ twenties—a visit of support from Lloyd George—to ensure his return. But it took place:

  “ At 7 o’clock Sat. evening,” Asquith wrote to Mrs. Harrisson,

  “ the rites of Liberal Reunion were celebrated at an enthusiastic meeting in the Town Hall. Ll.G. arrived with his Megan, and I was accompanied by Margot and Violet. I have rarely felt less exhilaration than when we got to the platform amid wild plaudits and a flash-light film was taken, ‘ featuring ’ me and Ll.G. separated only by the chairman—an excellent local Doctor. I spoke for about quarter of an hour, and Ll.G. then plunged into a characteristic speech—ragged and boisterous, but with quite a good assortment of telling points. He was more than friendly and forthcoming, and the meeting was full of demonstrative fraternity. After it was over, Ll.G. and Megan, and their bodyguard of secretaries and detectives, were swept off by their host, Lord Maclay, to some baronial retreat, and we supped here in peace.”aa

  For the rest Asquith’s campaign was energetic, enthusiastic (he loved the Free Trade cause), and curiously badly planned. “ I have been living the life of a dog,” he wrote on December 2nd: “ much of it wasted in long railway journeys.” In one week he spent the whole of Monday travelling from Paisley to Nottingham (although he was compensated by an audience of 10,000 when he got there), the whole of Tuesday travelling back, most of Thursday going to Manchester, Friday in agreeable idleness at Alderley (an echo from the past), and Saturday on his way back once more to Paisley.

  Four days before the poll he wrote:

  I have been going through the general list of candidates, and I cannot for the life of me see how we are going to come back more than 200 strong, it may be less. Labour is the dark horse. The result which I should welcome would be that we should exceed Labour and Baldwin find himself with a majority of 30 to 40— useless for his purpose, but sufficient to compel him to go on with the Government.bb

  In fact the Liberals were well short of 200 at 158, and none of Asquith’s other wishes were achieved. Baldwin, with 285 seats, lacked even a bare majority over the combination of his opponents; and the Labour Party, with 191 seats, was well ahead of the Liberals. Almost any Government would have been possible in this Parliament, 7 but Asquith, who was clearly the pivotal figure, seems to have decided at an early stage that it had better be a Labour one. He regarded the protection issue as so dominant that there could be no question of his supporting the Conservatives. As the leader of the smallest of the three parties he had no claim himself to independent office; and he recoiled instinctively from a coalition. Furthermore, he was anxious that th
e Labour Party should not be soured by the opposition of a “ bourgeois ” alliance. And he was able to comfort the conservative part of his conscience with the reflection that “ if a Labour Government is ever to be tried in this country, as it will be sooner or later, it could hardly be tried under safer conditions.”

  These views he communicated to a Liberal Party meeting on December 18th. They were supported by Lloyd George and accepted by the meeting. From then on it was assumed that the meeting of Parliament in January would be quickly followed by the accession of the first Labour Government in the history of Britain. But there were some who went on appealing to Asquith to save them from this fate. He was by no means displeased to receive these appeals, though he had no intention of responding to them.

  “You would be amused if you saw the contents of my daily postbag,” he wrote on December 28th: “appeals, threats, prayers from all parts, and from all sorts and conditions of men, women, and lunatics, to step in and save the country from the horrors of Socialism and Confiscation.... One cannot help contrasting the situation with that only exactly five years ago, in December, 1918, when I and all the faithful lost our seats, and were supposed to be sentenced to damnation for the rest of our political lives.

  The City is suffering from an acute attack of nerves at the prospect of a Labour Government. One of the leading bankers came to see me this morning with a message from the City Conservatives, that if only I would set up an Asquith-Grey Government, all the solid people in the country would support it through thick and thin. Isn’t it an amusing whirligig? ”cc 1

  1 Some financiers were willing to help Asquith even more actively. Sir Alfred Mond (ex-Coalition Liberal, soon to be the first Lord Melchett) wrote from a steamship at Port Said on January 22nd: “ I am writing to let you know that if by any chance in my absence you may be called on and decide to form a Government, my services are entirely at your disposal. ... To be quite frank I would very much like an opportunity of filling the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer.” He did not have a seat, but was sure he could get one. (Asquith Papers, box xviii, ff. 94-7).

  500

  He remained convinced that it was right for him to vote for the Labour amendment to the Conservative Government’s address; and he assumed that this would put Baldwin out and MacDonald in. He was less convinced, however, that it was right for either of these leaders to act as he assumed that they would. On January 10th he wrote from a sick-bed (“ where I have been for 3 consecutive days for the first time for 40 years ”) to W. M.R. Pringle:

  It would seem that the immediate future is now settled: that Baldwin is to resign and Ramsay to come in. I doubt whether either of them is right. Baldwin could easily have snapped his fingers at the no confidence amendment and announced that, as leader of much the largest section of the House, he had better moral authority than anyone else to carry on the King’s Government until he was absolutely blocked, and Ramsay might well have declined to start the first Labour Government under impossible Parliamentary conditions.... I agree of course that we must give the Labour Government a reasonable chance, at the same time being careful not to arouse the suspicion that we are acting in collusion with a new Coalition.”dd

  A week later the vote took place. Five days after that Ramsay MacDonald announced his Cabinet. “ The new Labour Government ... is indeed for the most part a beggarly array,” Asquith wrote. “ I had a nice and really touching letter from Haldane (the new Lord Chancellor) this morning.8 He says he is (as well he may be) full of ‘ misgiving ’.”ee But Asquith never doubted that he had been right to put the Government in. He was on the whole impressed by MacDonald’s handling of foreign affairs and wrote of “ the delight ” of the Foreign Office at being “ relieved of the incubus of the Archduke Curzon.” Few other aspects of the Government’s performance earned his approval. His old parliamentary mandarin spirit was much to the fore, and the best that he could do was to forgive the Labour ministers their ineptitude.

  His followers, however, were often less inclined to be forgiving than he was. One difficulty was a lack of consultation between the Labour and Liberal parties. There was a basic contradiction in the situation. The Government was absolutely dependent on Liberal votes, but many Labour members regarded the possessors of these votes as class enemies, little if any better than the Tories. In these circumstances close co-operation was impossible. By the late summer of 1924 most Liberal M.P.s were tired of supporting the Government. Asquith took a more friendly view of the Russian Treaty than the majority of his followers. Then came the Campbell Case. The Government first initiated and then withdrew a prosecution for sedition against the editor of the Daily Worker. It looked as though the Attorney-General had responded to political pressure. A parliamentary storm blew up at the beginning of October. The Tories put down a vote of censure. Asquith sought a middle course by tabling an amendment in favour of investigation by a select committee of the House of Commons. It was a device of which he remained peculiarly fond throughout his political life—despite his experience of the Marconi investigation. In a sense it was the Maurice debate over again. Asquith’s speech rehearsed many of the arguments which he had used on that occasion, and MacDonald maintained the pattern by throwing back the amendment as an intolerable attack upon the Government.

  But there were at least three differences. The first was that Lloyd George, on this occasion, both spoke and voted in favour of the enquiry. The second was that Asquith’s motion now commanded the support of a big majority of the House of Commons. It was carried by 364 to 198, and MacDonald immediately applied for a dissolution of Parliament. The third and consequential difference was that Asquith’s speech in favour of this motion was the last that he was ever to make in the House of Commons. The green benches and the battered despatch boxes which he had known for so long he was to know no longer. The first Labour Government and his elected parliamentary career perished together, the one after eight months, the other after 38 years.

  1 But it was, in fact, a bad appointment. As Gladstone had been before him, and Lord Attlee was to be after him, Asquith was a natural conservative on most subjects outside politics. This was particularly so on anything touching both scholarship and his early life, and he led the Commission into producing an unadventurous report.

  2 The “ Bibescae ” were Elizabeth Asquith and her new Roumanian diplomat husband, Prince Antoine Bibesco; Soveral was the Portuguese Minister and a great Edwardian social figure; Birrell was Birrell; Sir Donald Maclean was leader, in Asquith’s absence, of the Liberal remnant in the House of Commons; and the Marchioness of Granby, who later became Duchess of Rutland, was the daughter of Margot’s brother Frank Tennant.

  3 The figures were: Asquith 14,736

  Biggar 11,902

  MacKean 3,795

  The poll was up by over 8,000 on the 1918 total.

  4 Margot gave a more dramatic account of this event. “ ... we had to have police protection after the declaration of the poll, and I was knocked on to the railway line at St. Enoch’s Station by the rush of my husband’s admirers seeing him off by the night train that took us to London. But it is surprising how excitement and happiness protect one, as after being pulled on to the platform by the willing porters I found instead of the bruises I had expected to see I had not received a single scratch.” (More Memories, pp. 246-7).

  5 He wrote this, rather incongruously, after recording that he had declined the Aga Khan’s invitation to take him to the Oaks but was just about to attend “ Col. Faber’s Derby dinner.”

  7 As “ here ” was on this occasion not the Central Hotel, Glasgow, but Ferguslie Park, Paisley, which Asquith had previously described as “a typical millionaire villa with some Corots, a Sir Joshua, and a Hoppner intermixed with family photographs, and some sentimental Victorian mezzotints,” his strictures against “ some baronial retreat,” even though the irony was kindly, was hardly justified. Lady Bonham Carter (as she then was) added to the gaiety of this occasion by making the final speech and proclaimin
g, in response to obvious jokes about “ the Hon lying down with the lamb ”: “I can only say, for myself, that I have never seen Mr. Lloyd George look less voracious or my father more uneatable.” (Memories and Refections, n, p. 180).

  8 Strangely, Asquith’s personal relations with Haldane were closer after their definite political separation (which occurred in 1922) than they had been in the preceding decade. They exchanged fairly frequent letters, which were always warm but brief; Haldane read the proof of The Genesis of the War; and they enjoyed occasional luncheons or dinners in each other’s company.