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Lord Hugh Cecil's Parliamentary Career, 1900–1914: Promise Unfulfilled

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Richard A. Rempel
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Extract

At the beginning of the Edwardian period no young British politician appeared so assured of a bright future as Lord Hugh Cecil. A son of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, he was not only of distinguished lineage but possessed great intelligence and eloquence. His parliamentary oratory was compelling despite his lanky, ungainly appearance and nervous gestures. He combined a logical approach with transparent honesty and courage. So sincere was he in his convictions, no matter how eccentric some might be, that even the most sophisticated (and cynical) in the Commons listened to him with respect. Even the normally reserved Annual Register commented admiringly on Cecil's performance in a debate on the 1902 Education Bill. Lord Hugh, it claimed, had made the “most striking speech” — one which “was recognized by the best judges as bringing him within the front rank of modern parliamentary orators.” Two years later that shrewd observer of the House of Commons, Sir Henry Lucy, predicted an even greater achievement for the young Conservative. Lucy asserted that by remaining with his party despite an aversion to Tariff Reform, Cecil would “in due time, succeed to the Premiership held by his father and in succession by his cousin.”

Yet by 1914 no one of prominence expected Lord Hugh to gain (or perhaps even to seek) high office. He remained, as the Guardian later stated, one whose speeches “would always fill the House,” but as a politician to be reckoned with in terms of power, his career was finished.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 1972 , pp. 104 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1972

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References

1. Sir Henry Lucy claimed (of the parliament from 1900 to 1906) that after Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain and Tim Healy no one could fill the benches of the Commons as quickly as Hugh Cecil. SirLucy, Henry, Memories of Eight Parliaments (London, 1908), p. 233Google Scholar.

2. Annual Register, May 1902, p. 139Google Scholar.

3. SirLucy, Henry, The Balfourian Parliament (London, 1906), p. 322Google Scholar.

4. Guardian, December 11, 1956, (in Cecil's obituary).

5. Daily Telegraph, December 11, 1956.

6. In reference to the Irish, Cecil had jeered in 1905 that he did not know what “nationality” was. The great Irish wit and orator Tim Healy retorted that “nationality is something we are willing to die for.” See Healy, T. M., Letters and Leaders of My Day (New York, 1929), II, 472Google Scholar.

7. So great was his hatred of sham that he was the terror, not only of many politicians but also of “the smart hostesses of Mayfair and headmasters alike.” (Guardian, December 11, 1956).

8. See LadyCecil, Gwendolen, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (London, 1931), III, 11–18Google Scholar; and Lord Cecil of Chelwood, All the Way (London, 1949), pp. 13–16Google Scholar. Lord Hugh left no autobiography and no biography of him exists.

9. Cecil of Chelwood, All the Way, p. 14Google Scholar.

10. Churchill, Winston, Amid These Storms (New York, 1932), p. 55Google Scholar.

11. Pelling, Henry, Social Geography of British Elections (London, 1967), p. 40Google Scholar.

12. Spender, J. A., Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London, 1923), II, 61Google Scholar.

13. Spectator, February 1, 1902.

14. Churchill, Randolph, Winston S. Churchill: Young Statesman (London, 1967), II, 21–49Google Scholar.

15. Punch, July 24, 1901, p. 142. Julian Amery in his Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1969), V, 135Google Scholar, claims that Churchill's aunt, Lady Wimborne, encouraged the young men in their decision to form a rebel “Cave.” She had become estranged from the administration because of hostility to the Education Bill.

16. 4 Hansard 89: 407 (February 18, 1901).

17. Hatfield, Winston Churchill to Lord Hugh Cecil, December 21, 1940, Quickswood Papers, 63/71, marked Private: “I hope you will give me the pleasure of submitting your name to the King for a barony. It would be good to have you in the House of Lords to repel the [snobs?] of the Adolph Hitler schools, to sustain the aristocratic morale, and to chide the bishops when they err…. Anyhow, I should like to see a brother Hughligan in the legislature and feel that your voice was not silenced in the land.”

18. Churchill, W., Amid These Storms, p. 57Google Scholar.

19. Westminster Gazette, Feb. 6, 1902.

20. Churchill, W., Amid These Storms, p. 58Google Scholar.

21. Churchill, Winston, Mr. Brodrick's Army (London, 1903), p. 62Google Scholar. Brodrick's scheme — which never came to fruition — envisioned the creation of six army corps. Critics claimed that the proposals were not only too costly but would not make the army more effective.

22. Times, Feb. 24, 1903, and March 13, 1903. Eighteen ministerialists voted against their party on the first motion and twenty-six on the second.

23. BM, J. S. Sandars to Arthur Balfour, March 8, 1902, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49761, fol. 3 and BM, Sandars to Balfour, September 4, 1902, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49761, fol. 26. Even the conservative Times somberly lamented on March 18, 1903 that “the confidence of the people in the government is slipping away.”

24. The best account of the origins of the Tariff Reform movement is Julian Amery's The Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1969), V, 1–183Google Scholar.

25. Quoted in Churchill, Winston, My Early Life (New York, 1930), p. 372Google Scholar.

26. Jack Seely, for example, remarked that “he had been brought up on Free Trade” and believed it to be “the ark of the covenant and foundation of English prosperity and power.” [Adventure (London, 1930), p. 100Google Scholar]. Cecil, however, had been noncommittal in 1902 when he wrote St. Loe Strachey, the editor of the Spectator, that “about [a] Zollverein (another coming controversy)” he could not “form a clear opinion” (Beaverbrook Library, London, Hugh Cecil to Strachey, May 20, 1902, Strachey Papers). But when Chamberlain directly advocated preference, Cecil's views immediately hardened.

27. Garvin, J. L., Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1932), I, 392Google Scholar.

28. Times, April 30, 1904.

29. LordCecil, Hugh, “The Unionist Party and its Fiscal Sore,” Nineteenth Century, LXV (1909), 585Google Scholar.

30. BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, May 4-6, 1907, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49759, fol. 109.

31. For Hugh Cecil's belief that protection led to corruption and socialism, see his Conservatism (London, 1912), pp. 194–95Google Scholar. See Churchill, R., Churchill, II, 63–64Google Scholar, for Winston Churchill's equation of tariffs with corruption. Some Hughligans probably opposed protection because their economic interests still prospered under Free Trade. Cotton, coal, ship-building, and London banking, for example, remained attached to “traditional Free Trade imperialism.” [Semmel, Bernard, Imperialism and Social Reform (London, 1960), p. 81Google Scholar]. Ernest Beckett came from a famous banking family while Jack Seely was from a family of colliery owners.

32. BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, May 24, 1903, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 47959, fols. 5-6.

33. See Young, Kenneth, Arthur James Balfour (London, 1963), p. 210Google Scholar.

34. Gollin, Alfred, Balfour's Burden (London, 1966), p. 66Google Scholar.

35. Beaverbrook Library, Churchill to Strachey, May 31, 1903, Strachey Papers.

36. Balfour, of course, viewed the inquiry in quite another way as he told Lord Selborne, First Lord of the Admiralty. Explaining why he would not consider a Unionist Free Trader's request for an open debate on Chamberlain's ideas, the Prime Minister said:

A you know, I have exhausted every device in my power to prevent a party split…. As a matter of fact the difficulty is to prevent Chamberlain preaching the new doctrine now, in its most aggressive form, and if Hobhouse is asked “to sit on the fence,” it is in the interests of that very unity which he desires to maintain (BM, Balfour to Selborne, June 26, 1903, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS. 49708, fol. 126).

37. BM, Balfour to Hugh Cecil, July 16, 1903, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 39759, fol. 56.

38. See Amery, , Chamberlain, V, 383–420, for the best account of this crisisGoogle Scholar.

39. Westminster Gazette, October 2, 1903.

40. Amery, , Chamberlain, V, 442Google Scholar. Quotation from letter of the Chairman of the Tariff Reform League, Arthur Pearson, to Chamberlain.

41. Westminster Gazette, Oct. 3, 1903.

42. National Library of Scotland (Hereafter N L Scotland), (“List of Free Food League Members”), “early” December 1903, (Elliot Papers). One of the most uncompromising Unionist Free Traders, Arthur Elliot, was a Liberal Unionist M. P. and editor of the Edinburgh Review.

43. The only accounts of attempts to form a free trade alliance are: McCready, H. W., “The Revolt of the Unionist Free Traders,” Parliamentary Affairs, XVI (1963), 188–206Google Scholar, and Rempel, R. A., “The Abortive Negotiations For a Free-Trade Alliance to Defeat Tariff Reform: October 1903-February 1904,” Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 1966, pp. 5–17Google Scholar. The division into two factions paralyzed Free Food attempts to raise sufficient enthusiasm and funds to combat Chamberlain energetically at the constituency level. In fact, the Free Food League and its successor, the Unionist Free Trade Club raised negligible sums. It has not been possible to find any financial accounts of the Free Food League. The Club, hbwever, never had more than £3,000 subscribed with £2,000 promised annually (N L Scotland, March 1, 1905, Elliot, Journal, XVI, 141Google Scholar). By contrast, the Tariff Reformers were wealthy. The Liberal Chief Whip, Herbert Gladstone, noted in January 1904 that the Tariff Reform League had already spent £50,000. He ruefully estimated that Chamberlain's League was spending £5 to £10 to every £1 spent by the Liberal Free Trade Union. BM, Notes of Committee Meeting at Free Trade Union and Memorandum on the Position and Work of the Free Trade Union, January 1904, Herbert Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS, 46106, fol. 127.

44. See Hurst, Michael, “Joseph Chamberlain and West Midland Politics, 1886-1895,” Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, No. 15 (Oxford, 1962), pp. 6–9Google Scholar, for analysis of Chamberlain's “fief” or “Duchy.”

45. See Garvin, J. L., Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1932), I, 477–78Google Scholar.

46. See Owen, Frank, Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George, His Life and Times (London, 1954), pp. 116–18Google Scholar.

47. Spender, tongue in cheek, claimed to be sorry that “the merry men of Birmingham” had not “brought about a few Free Food martyrdoms” (Westminster Gazette, November 13, 1903).

48. Chatsworth, Hugh Cecil to Devonshire, Dec. 2, 1903, Devonshire Papers, 340. 3033, marked Private.

49. Holland, Bernard, Life of the Duke of Devonshire (London, 1911), II, 373Google Scholar.

50. Chatsworth, Devonshire to Hugh Cecil, Dec. 4, 1903, Devonshire Papers, 340. 3034, marked Private.

51. N L Scotland, Dec. 10, 1903, Elliot, Journal, XV, 160Google Scholar. The decision to publish the controversial Lewisham letter was taken by the Executive Committee of the Free Food League over the objections of Hicks Beach.

52. See Rempel, R. A., “Tariff Reform and the Resurgence of the Liberal Party,” Proceedings of the Canadian Historical Association (1967), pp. 160–61Google Scholar.

53. As Spencer wrote to Campbell-Bannerman, “we cannot alter our attitude on education. If we did we should greatly weaken the forces in favor of Free Trade, for we should shake the faith and confidence of the Nonconformists who think more of Education than of fiscal policy.” (BM, Spencer to Campbell-Bannerman, Dec. 7, 1903, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, Add. MSS, 41220, fol. 220).

54. Bodleian Library, Clifford to Bryce, Feb. 2, 1904, Bryce Papers.

55. See Rempel, , “The Abortive Negotiations for a Free-Trade Alliance to Defeat Tariff Reform,” Proceedings of South Carolina Historical Association, pp. 14–16Google Scholar.

56. Sandars wrote the convalescing Balfour after the debate that “the only thing which has saved us from disaster has been the most rigid adherence to Sheffield.” (BM, Sandars to Balfour, Feb. 20, 1904, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49672, fols. 79-80).

57. 4 Hansard 129: 835-36 (Feb. 15, 1904). Cecil's reasons for voting against his party were presented first to leading Unionist Free Traders in an important memorandum which he circulated early in January. Fusion with the Liberals was anathema, but he argued that Unionist Free Traders should give the Liberals the “utmost help” in the constituencies and assist them both in the present parliament “and the next.” To show the Liberals that the Unionist Free Traders “meant business,” Cecil advocated a “great parliamentary attack … upon the Chamberlain policy.” (Hatfield, , Memorandum by Lord Hugh Cecil on the Relations, Present and Future, of the Unionist Free Traders to the Unionist and Liberal Parties, “early” January, 1904Google Scholar, Quickswood Papers, 2/8-11, Most Private and Confidential).

58. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 15, 1904.

59. N L Scotland, “List of Unionist Free Food League votes in fiscal debates during 1904,” n.d. but clearly compiled late in 1904, Elliot Papers. By February 1904 only fifty-one M. P.s were classified by Elliott as Unionist Free Traders.

60. BM, Sandars to Balfour, Feb. 20, 1904, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49762, fol. 80, marked Confidential.

61. Dugdale, Blanche, Arthur James Balfour (London, 1936), I, 44Google Scholar.

62. BM, Sandars to Balfour, Feb. 20, 1904, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49762, fol. 80, marked Confidential.

63. Elliot, Arthur, Life of Lord Goschen, 1831-1907 (London, 1911), II, 251Google Scholar.

64. After he had crossed the floor Churchill chided his former Hughligan colleague Cecil. “I should much like to see you …. ‘Superior persons’ menaced by political extinction must — condescend to notice the more humble and more faithful [friends].” Alluding to a recent visit to Chamberlain's home at Highbury, he warned: “Have no illusions as to any surrender or modification of purpose. Never mind when you are gone from Westminster the electors of Greenwich will discover another Marks to take your place.” (Hatfield, Churchill to Hugh Cecil, Oct. 11, 1904, Quickswood Papers, 63/39). Marks was a Tariff Reform M.P. notorious for shady financial and electoral practices.

65. Memorandum by Lord Robert Cecil on Tariff Reform Attacks on Unionist Free Trade M.P.'s, February 18, 1905. Copy in the Elliot Papers. Cecil granted that some others were made on “bad party men” but maintained that they were only attacked after they had declared themselves free traders.

66. Amery, , Chamberlain, VI, 568Google Scholar.

67. Times, Feb. 18, 1905.

68. Ibid., March 24, 1905. Cecil's constituency chairman, Alex Baird, ruefully told Lord Hugh on March 20 that of the 200 members present only “30 to 40” were against the resolution asking him to retire because of his free trade opinions (Hatfield, Baird to Hugh Cecil, March 20, 1905, Quickswood Papers, 3/71).

69. Amery, , Chamberlain, VI, 668Google Scholar.

70. 5 Hansard 132: 1009 (June 7, 1905).

71. BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, June 5, 1905, Add. MSS, 49759, fol. 101.

72. Cecil, in fact, complained to Spender that nothing was “less helpful than praise in the Liberal press.” Such support, he claimed, was “freely quoted” by Greenwich Tariff Reformers “as proof of my utter disloyalty to the Conservative Party.” (BM, Hugh Cecil to J. A. Spender, Feb. 7, 1905, Spender Papers, Add. MSS, 46388, fol. 135, marked Private).

73. Hatfield, Wyndham to Hugh Cecil, June 7, 1905, Quickswood Papers, 3/177, marked Private and Confidential.

74. BM, Acland-Hood to Sandars, Dec. 6, 1905, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49771, fol. 122.

75. Cecil informed Balfour that the Duke was going to extend “a sort of olive branch” and implored his cousin not to disregard the overture. (BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, Dec. 6, 1905, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49759, fol. 79). Balfour's reply to the Duke, however, that he would “keep steady to the course … hitherto steered” ended the chances of a last minute rally of the Unionist Free Traders to him. See Holland, , Devonshire, II, 392Google Scholar.

76. N L Scotland, Devonshire to Elliot, Dec. 31, 1905, Elliot Papers.

77. See Russell, A. K., “The Election of 1906” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1963), p. 212Google Scholar.

78. A detailed account of these Unionist conflicts during the 1906 election is contained in Rempel, R. A., “The Unionist Free Traders, 1903-1910” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1967), pp. 323–64Google Scholar.

79. SirCroft, Henry Page, My Life of Strife (London, 1949), p. 70Google Scholar. Internal evidence indicates that Charles Seely, Unionist Free Trade M.P. for Lincoln, was the man Chamberlain inveighed against.

80. BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, Oct. 20, 1905, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49759, fol. 67.

81. BM, Balfour to Lord Robert Cecil, Jan. 8, 1906, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49857, fol. 36, marked Private. Balfour was not hopeful about the Tariff Reformer withdrawing.

82. BM, Alex Baird to Balfour, Jan. 6, 1906, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49857, fol. 125.

83. Times, Jan. 10, 1906.

84. BM, Baird to Balfour, Jan. 12, 1906, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49857, fol. 144.

85. BM, Baird to Balfour, Jan. 13, 1906, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49857, fol. 145.

86. Morning Post, Dec. 28, 1905.

87. Daily Chronicle, Jan. 11, 1906.

88. Manchester Guardian, Jan. 4, 1906.

89. The figures were: Jackson (L), 4,906; Benn (U.T.R.), 3,560; Cecil (U.F.T.), 2,356.

90. BM, Lord Robert Cecil to Philip Magnus, Dec. 18, 1907, Lord Robert Cecil Papers. These papers were uncatalogued at the time this research was done.

91. For a view that Balfour was in reality victorious in this February struggle with Chamberlain see Fraser, Peter, “Unionism and Tariff Reform; The Crisis of 1906,” Historical Journal, II (1962), 149–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92. Chatsworth, Hugh Cecil to Devonshire, Feb. 16, 1906, Devonshire Papers, 340.3206.

93. BM, Hugh Cecil to Balfour, July 27, 1907, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49759, fol. 217. Cecil also hectored that he supported retaliation only as the lesser of two evils. He claimed Balfour was “mistaken in thinking I agree with your policy. I don't … in part it seems to me impractical and foolish…. I distrust your policy as though not protectionist yet likely to lead to protection.” (fol. 211).

94. In the above letter Lord Hugh observed that “the only hope is to try for a coalition with the moderate Liberals — Grey, Haldane, etc. So only shall we again get a strong and healthy party.” (fol. 215).

95. This attitude is nowhere more clearly seen than in the views of the rabid Unionist Free Trader, St. Loe Strachey. Writing to Margot Asquith, he claimed that he had done his best to get the Lords to throw out the Old Age Pensions Bill. “My quarrel with the House of Lords is not that they pass too few Liberals measures but that they pass too many.” (Beaverbrook Library, Strachey to Margot Asquith, Dec. 15, 1908, marked Confidential).

96. The best published account of how the Tariff Reformers exploited these ideas is contained in Gollin, A. M., The Observer and J. L. Garvin, 1908-1914 (London, 1960), Ch. IVGoogle Scholar.

97. PRO, Lord Balfour of Burleigh to Lord Cromer, Jan. 9, 1909, Cromer Papers, FO 633/19.

98. Blewett, Neal, “Free Fooders, Balfourites, Whole Hoggers, Factionalism in the Unionist Party 1906-10,” Historical Journal, II (1968), 18Google Scholar.

99. See Croft, , My Years of Strife, p. 43 and p. 49Google Scholar for an account of the Confederate movement.

100. Cecil, , Conservatism, p. 194Google Scholar.

101. No one expressed this dilemma better than Hicks Beach (now Lord St. Aldwyn) when he lamented to Robert Cecil that:

this Budget seems to me to have given the final shove of the Unionist Party to Tariff Reform. A man may be a Free Trader by reason and conviction … but if he has anything to lose … he will certainly prefer an indefinite T. R. policy … to the fiscal policy which is initiated by the present Budget. (BM, Lord St. Aldwyn to Robert Cecil, May 19, 1909, Robert Cecil Papers, marked Private).

102. BM, Edward Brunker to Cecil, Sept. 6, 1909, Robert Cecil Papers.

103. Jenkins, Roy, Mr. Balfour's Poodle (London, 1954), p. 621Google Scholar.

104. N L Scotland, Sept. 7, 1909, Elliot, Journal, XXIX, 68Google Scholar.

105. Hatfield, Dr. Boyd to Hugh Cecil, June 21, 1908, Quickswood Papers, 11/156.

106. BM, Sandars to Balfour, Dec. 14, 1909, Balfour Papers, Add. MSS, 49766, fols. 24-27.

107. Robert Cecil was evicted from East Marylebone and ended up standing for Blackburn.. The Tariff Reform Morning Post gloated that:

silently throughout the election the work of purging the Unionist party has proceeded…. There have been hard struggles on both sides … (and) the final stand of the Unionist Free Traders was made at East Marylebone (Jan. 17, 1910).

108. PRO, Lambton to Cromer, Jan. 29, 1910, Cromer Papers, FO 33/19.

109. Jenkins, , Mr. Balfour's Poodle, p. 158Google Scholar.

110. Amery, , Chamberlain, VI, 967Google Scholar.

111. It will be recalled that just before the second election of 1910, Asquith had privately demanded and received the agreement of the King to create a sufficient number of new peers to pass the Bill should the Unionist-dominated Lords reject the Bill. Cecil, on Aug. 1, 1911, accused the Prime Minister of having given the King “treasonable advice” (Times).

112. The Unionists and the Liberals were virtually even in both 1910 elections and to remain in power the government depended upon the support of the Irish.

113. Times, Aug. 1, 1911.

114. .5 Hansard 28: 1467-71 (July 24, 1911).

115. Jenkins, , Mr. Balfour's Poodle, pp. 230–31Google Scholar.

116. 5 Hansard 28: 1470 (July 24, 1911).

117. “The ugliest feature,” Churchill reported to the King, “was the absence of any real passion or spontaneous feeling. It was a squalid, frigid, organized attempt to insult the Prime Minister.” Nicolson, Harold, King George V (London, 1952), p. 153Google Scholar.

118. Times, July 25, 1911.

119. Cecil joined the Halsbury Club made up of Unionists (mainly Tariff Reformers) who were bitter over the decision of Balfour and Lansdowne to direct the House of Lords to pass the Parliament Bill rather than submit to a massive creation of new peers. (See Quickswood Papers, 14/182, Confidential Letter on the Halsbury Club by Lord Selborne, Summer 1911). Fraser claims that it was the formation of this Club — containing not merely Tariff Reformers but relatives and old friends such as Wyndham — that determined Balfour to resign the party leadership in November 1911 (“The Unionist Debate of 1911 and Balfour's Retirement,” Journal of Modern History, XXXV (1963), 361–62Google Scholar).

120. Times, Sept. 19, 1912.

121. Boulton, David, Objection Overruled (London, 1967), pp. 276–77Google Scholar.

122. 5 Hansard 209: 1217 (Nov. 20, 1917).

123. Nicolson, Nigel, People and Parliament (London, 1958), p. 141Google Scholar.