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VII. The Liberal Party Divided 1916–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Edward David
Edward David
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Extract

A great deal of published historical work has been devoted to establishing the causes and chronology of the demise of the Liberal party in British politics. The downfall of the Liberals has been ascribed to the inevitable outflanking development of the Labour party; to the mutilation of Liberal principles involved in waging the first ‘total’ war; to the personal rifts and feuds between the rival followers of Asquith and Lloyd George—and to various combinations of these factors. Yet there has been no detailed analysis of the division within the Parliamentary Liberal party during the First World War. Although at the end of 1916 obviously certain Liberals supported Asquith and others Lloyd George, no attempt has been made to examine the way in which the rifts in the party were reflected in political action in the House of Commons during the time of the second coalition government, nor to determine accurately the lines of division in the party. An answer to the question of ‘How did the Liberal party divide during the First World War?’ has proved elusive, although some historians of the period have been more successful than others.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 509 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

1 Wilson, Trevor, The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914–1935 (London, 1966), p. 159.Google Scholar

2 Taylor, A.J.P., English History 1914–1948 (London, 1965), p. 67.Google Scholar

3 McGill, Barry, ‘Asquith's Predicament’, Journal of Modern History xxxix, 3 (09 1967), 283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 William, LlewelynWilliams, M.P.for Carmarthen District, speaking in the House of Commons on 5 07 1915. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, LXXIII, 122.Google Scholar

5 Part. Deb. H.C. LXVI, 632.

6 The opponents of conscription were sometimes described as the ‘Simon group’. This is ironic because Simon himself belonged by irclination to the centre of the party and this was the only issue over which he joined with the party ‘Left’ It was a bitter decision which I had to take, especially as I was differing from a leader to whom I was devoted and to whom I owed so much…I have long since realised that my opposition was a mistake.’ Simon, Viscount, Retrospect (Memoirs) (London, 1952), pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

7 McGill, op. cit. p. 290.

8 Addison, Christopher, Politics from Within (London, 1924), I, 271.Google Scholar

9 Daily Chronicle, 8 December 1916.

10 Westminster Gazette, 11 December 1916.

11 The Nation, 8 December 1917, published comment on the Lansdowne letter from all sections of the Liberal party and from Labour members. Among those favourable to the idea of ‘peace by negotiation’ were F. D. Acland, Noel Buxton, Joseph King, Arthur Ponsonby, H. G. Chancellor, R. L. Outhwaite, Philip Morrell, David Mason, Sir Walter Runciman (father of the ex-minister), Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden. Among those who were critical of these ‘pacifist’ views were Sir Archibald Williamson, Gerald France, Edward Hemmerde, R. L. Harmsworth and Aneurin Williams.

12 Parl. Deb. H.C. cm, 148, Division no. 1, 13 February 1918.

13 Winston Churchill referred to ‘the almost total abdication and neglect which has grown up in the House of Commons in regard to war matters’ on 4 April 1917. Parl. Deb. H.C. XCII, 1382. This view has been endorsed by later historians, notably by A. J. P. Taylor in his Raleigh Lecture on History, 1959, Politics in the First World War, published in the Proceedings of the British Academy (1959).

14 Some, apparently, were restrained by other considerations: ‘Mr Llewelyn Williams prowls round the Chamber like a lion off his feed, longing to roar at the Government, but holding back because MrGeorge, Lloyd is a brother Welshman, and Wales is proud of its Welsh Prime Minister.’ Fortnightly Review (05 1918), p. 697.Google Scholar

15 See Parl. Deb. H.C. xciv, Division no. 50 (Proportional Representation), 12 June 1917; xcv, Division no. 64 (Proportional Representation), 4 July 1917; and no. 67 (Leif Jones's adjournment motion on Government policy regarding the output of beer, a ‘lobby’ motion thinly disguised as a question of war policy) on 5 July 1917.

16 Parl. Deb. H.C. XCL, 1157.

17 Nation, 17 March 1917.

18 ‘Tactically, the Government have scored a victory; for they reckoned on the leniency of Mr Asquith and his followers. This abstention lay within the calculation of their game. Is there, then, no single cause of liberty that Liberals are prepared to defend?’ Nation, 17 March 1917.

19 The remainder of the opposition to the government consisted of sixty-two Irish members, fifteen Labour, and two Lancashire Conservative M.P.s.

20 Parl. Deb. H.C. xcix, 1094.

21 Addison, op. cit. u, 178.

22 The eighteen Liberals were: Addison, A. C. Beck, J. Compton-Rickett, Sir Edwin Cornwall, W. S. Glyn-Jones, J. Greig, Cecil Harmsworth, A. H. Illingworth, J. Towyn Jones, George Kellaway, J. H. Lewis, Ian Macpherson, Sir Alfred Mond, J. W. Pratt, T. W. Russell, A. MacCallum Scott, W. D. Ward and R. Winfrey.

23 It is worth noting that even F. E. Guest and Sir William Glyn-Jones felt unable to support the disfranchisement, convinced Lloyd Georgians as they were. A fortnight later, the same group of extremists voted against Lord Hugh Cecil's amendment to permit a wider consideration, on recommittal of the Bill, of the case of the conscientious objector. On that occasion thirty-three Liberals voted against the amendment but 112 supported this more moderate line. See Parl. Deb. H.C. Division no. 126, 4 December 1917.

24 See Parl. Deb. H.C. XCIX, 1191; XCIX, 999; a nd c, 2133.

25 Parl. Deb. H.C. ci, 24; 14 January 1918. Liberal backbenchers remained suspicious of Government intentions regarding royalties and questions were asked about the Defence of the Realm Regulation 2 AAA which dealt with petroleum production in the United Kingdom. (Parl. Deb. H.C. ci, 986; 23 January 1918). When the Government introduced a new Petroleum Production Bill in August 1918 it specifically postponed all discussion of the royalties question until after the war and the Bill reached the statute book without any Parliamentary obstruction. (Parl. Deb. H.C. cix; 620, 1081 and 1088).

26 Nation, 27 October 1917.

27 Ibid. 13 April 1918.

28 This was a ‘wrecking motion’ proposed on the Bill's second reading by Charles Hobhouse. Part. Deb. H.C. civ, 1483. Division no. 7, 10 April 1918.

29 Parl. Deb. H.C. civ, Division no. 18, 12 April 1918. It is interesting to compare the voting behaviour of Liberal M.P.s on this amendment, in the ‘Maurice’ debate, and in the division on Dillon's motion on 20 July ‘That the policy pursued towards Ireland by His Majesty's Government is inconsistent with the great principles for the vindication of which the Allied Powers are carrying on the War’ (Parl. Deb. H.C. cix, 85). Twenty-eight Liberals supported the government on all three occasions, and seventeen voted in opposition three times; another thirty were government supporters twice and twenty-six in Opposition twice. Only six out of 199 Liberals who took part in these divisions voted both for and against the government once; two others voted twice for and once against and two more only once for and twice against. There was, of course, a large number of Liberals whose only participationin these divisions was in fact in the ‘Maurice’ debate, yet the correlation of voting on the three occasions is quite significant. The polarization of government supporters and an Opposition group is very evident.

30 Parl. Deb. H.C. xcix, 389; 14 November 1917.

31 Parl. Deb. H.C. CIII, 18; 12 February 1918.

32 Addison, op. cit. 11, 483.

33 Parl. Deb. H.C. CIII, 60.

34 Parl. Deb. H.C. civ, 1338.

35 See General Maurice's letter to Asquith, 6 May 1918. Asquith Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, box 18, fos. 32–3.

36 Westminster Gazette, 8 May 1918.

37 The Times, 10 May 1918.

38 Westminster Gazette, 10 May 1918.

39 Wilson, op. cit. p. 149.

40 See Table 1 for the relationship between the ‘Maurice’ debate and the distribution of the ‘coupon’ in 1918.

41 F. E. Guest wrote to Lloyd George on 20 July 1918 outlining the agreement made with the Conservatives and listing twenty-five coalition Liberal ministers and seventy-three ‘Liberal M.P.s who have proved themselves reliable supporters of the Government’. Guest also noted forty-four Liberal M.P.s ‘who cannot be classified as definite supporters of the Government but who have given certain indications that they are likely to become supporters’. Lloyd George Papers F/21/2/28. A letter drafted by Lloyd George on 30 November 1918 explained to the Liberal M.P. Timothy Davies why he was not to receive the ‘coupon’— because ‘you have generally associated yourself in your votes with those who created difficulties and hindered and embarrassed the Government’. Lloyd George Papers F/94/3/77.

I am grateful to Mr A. J. P. Taylor and the Trustees of the Beaverbrook Foundation for permission to publish extracts from letters in the Lloyd George Papers at the Beaverbrook Library, London.

42 Earlier in the war the House of Commons divisions on the National Registration Bill (second reading, 5 July 1915); the committee stage of the Finance Bill, Division no. 11, 19 October 1915 (the ‘Free Trade’ revolt); and the Military Service Bills in January and May 1916 also indicate the different elements within the Liberal party, particularly the ‘pacifist’ and Radical groups.

43 That is, in the divisions on the Cotton Duties, plural voting, disfranchisement of the conscientious objector, Irish conscription, ‘Maurice’, and the government's Irish policy.

44 Asquith, Birrell, McKenna, J. M. Robertson, Runciman, Samuel, Tennant, McKinnon Wood, and the Whips, Gulland and Howard, all abstained in this debate.

45 It was this group which was prepared to support Holt's amendment regarding the need for a ‘peace offensive’ as well as ‘the prosecution of military effort’ in February 1918, and earlier sixteen Liberals and five Labour members had supported Ramsay McDonald's motion calling for a redefinition of Allied peace terms in July 1917. (Amendment to the Consolidated Fund (No. 4) Bill, 26 July 1917. Division no. 79).

46 The seven who had not voted previously included three distinguished Asquithians, H. Carr-Gomm, Walter Runciman and W. R. Rea who were to assert their new-found enthusiasm for opposition by voting against the government's Irish policy later in the summer of 1918.

47 There was one truly extraordinary supporter of the government in the ‘Maurice’ debate—David Mason, M.P. for Coventry, hitherto one of the most assertive ‘pacifists’ in the House of Commons, whose ‘pro-German’ views had led to repudiation by his constituency and were anathema to the patriotic Liberals of the Liberal War Committee. Lloyd George's eloquence certainly gained a surprising success on this occasion.

48 David Davies to Lloyd George, 23 June 1917. Lloyd George Papers F/83/10/7.

49 Lloyd George to David Davies, 24 June 1917. Lloyd George Papers F/83/10/8.

50 Montgomeryshire, where Davies had been endorsed by both the Liberal and Unionist parties in 1906.

51 Edwin Montagu to Lloyd George, 1 May 1917. Lloyd George Papers F/39/3/11.

52 Asquith to Edwin Montagu, 19 June 1917. Asquith Papers, Box 18, fo. 15.

53 Arthur Murray's Diary, 20 January 1917. Elibank Papers, National Library of Scotland, MS 8815, fo. 22. I am grateful to Lady Mottistone for permission to quote these extracts from the Elibank Papers.

54 Arthur Murray's Diary, 25 and 26 September 1918. Elibank Papers, Nat. Lib. Scot. MS 8815, fo. 37. Asquith refused to serve under Lloyd George on his terms, which had included conscription for Ireland and an immediate general election.

55 Taylor, loc. cit.

56 Jenkins, Roy, Asquith (London, 1964), p. 13.Google Scholar

57 Ibid. pp. 186–7.

58 Taylor, A.J.P., Raleigh Lecture, Proceedings of the British Academy (1959); reprinted in Politics in Wartime (London, 1964), ‘Politics in the First World War’, p. 32.Google Scholar

59 I have made use of the same regional divisions as DrPelling, Henry in his Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910 (London, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar An analysis of the ‘Maurice’ division by regions is given below (Asquithians are given first in the figures): South-East region (London), 12:4; South-East region (outside London), 0:2; East region, 3:4; Central region, 4:3; Wessex, 0:3; Bristol region, 6:0; Devon and Cornwall, 3:2; West Midlands, 3:3; East Midlands, 5:5; Peak and Don region, 2:2; Lancastria, 11:5; Yorkshire, 13:3; North England, 8:4; Wales, 5:15; Scotland, 22:17.