Asquith (38 page)

¹
_{Although Lloyd George, constantly fertile, produced a compromise proposal by which Home Rule could not be proceeded with as “ ordinary ” legislation until the Government had fought yet another general election on the issue.}

Asquith’s reasons for wanting a settlement are obvious. The alternative was to coerce the King and to face another hazardous election. Compared with this prospect the difficulties of securing the approval of the Liberal rank and file for a possible agreement were likely to be small. Moreover there was no danger that in these circumstances Lloyd George might lead a radical attack on his left flank. Throughout the conference the Chancellor was even more anxious for a solution than was the Prime Minister. Asquith was bland, optimistic and reasonably accommodating. But Lloyd George gave the impression of searching almost feverishly for compromise. And in August, during a respite at Criccieth, his restless mind turned towards the still bolder solution of a coalition government, with an agreed programme on all
the main issues of the day. On August 17th he dictated a long memorandum arguing the case for such a government and listing a twelve-point programme.

Exactly what he did with this memorandum remains in dispute. Lloyd George himself says that it was submitted in the first instance to Asquith, who showed it to four Liberal ministers—Grey, Crewe, Haldane and Churchill—before giving permission to its author to open discussions with Balfour.^ Elsewhere, however, notably in the present Lord Birkenhead’s life of his father and in
The Times
obituary of Balfour, published on March 20th, 1930, it is stated that Lloyd George operated independently of Asquith; and this view is borne out by a suggestion in Mrs. Dugdale’s
Balfour
that the scheme involved Asquith’s relegation to the House of Lords. He was hardly likely to have been made privy to a plan which would have forced upon him the same fate that the Relugas Compact tried to force upon Campbell-Bannerman. There is no record in the Asquith papers of Lloyd George having sent him the memorandum in the weeks following August 17th. The collection is, however, by no means sufficiently complete for this to be firm evidence of its non-arrival. By late October it was clearly in Asquith’s possession. He then sounded out some of the other ministers mentioned by Lloyd George, and showed no resentment at the existence of the document, although he was sceptical about the result that it might produce.

There is no doubt, therefore, that Lloyd George eventually showed his memorandum to Asquith. The mystery lies in what he did with it between mid-August and mid-October. What seems likely is that during this period he operated on a different front, and made informal approaches to the Unionists through Churchill and F. E. Smith, who were close friends and both of whom were enthusiasts for coalition. The memorandum was addressed to Asquith, but it may well have been shown to others before it reached him. This would make it possible to reconcile Lord Birkenhead’s account of the matter with Lloyd George’s own statement. And it is quite likely that, during these preliminary soundings, Lloyd George’s flexible mind may have ranged over the idea of Asquith being forced to accept a nominal premiership in the House of Lords, or even being superseded altogether. When it was later suggested by Balfour that Lloyd George’s own membership of a coalition ministry might be an obstacle to its acceptance by the Tory Party, the Chancellor, perhaps a little rhetorically, at once offered
to stand down. In these circumstances it is hardly probable that he excluded from discussion the solution of Asquith being asked to make an equivalent, or lesser, sacrifice.

The Prime Minister did not think of the project in these terms. There was no obvious reason for him to do so, for his own position was strong at the time. And his most trusted colleagues in the Government, who would not have contemplated his supersession, were rather favourable to Lloyd George’s plan. Crewe wrote on October 22nd saying that the memorandum was “ a clever document.” He meant this as a favourable comment and added that “ we have got not far from the end of our tether as regards the carrying of large reforms.”
⁶
This he saw as a substantial point in Lloyd George’s favour.

Four days later Grey, instinctively hostile though he was to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote in still more favourable terms:

I had a long talk with Lloyd George last night about the big scheme of a coalition for constructive legislation including the settlement of Home Rule. I am favourable to it, though there are many “ difficulties.” If the Conference breaks up without agreement I foresee the break-up of the Liberal Party and a time of political instability, perhaps of chaos, to the great detriment of the country. The other party of course is paralysed and useless, but behind us there are explosive and violent forces which will split our party, and I do not believe we can resume the old fight against the Lords by ourselves without division
^f

Asquith received this letter in Scotland, and on the following day he wrote to Crewe in unmistakably detached terms: “I have a letter from E. Grey from which it appears that L.G. has been extending his missionary operations into that quarter, and apparently not without producing an impression.”
^g
But it was Balfour’s caution and not Asquith’s scepticism which wrecked the plan. The Unionist leader was personally rather favourable to Lloyd George’s scheme, but he was determined not to be another Peel, and when his former Chief Whip, Akers-Douglas, informed him that he could make no response to Lloyd George without producing a major split in the party, he accepted this advice as decisive. By the end of the first week in November both the formal constitutional conference and the informal talks on the Lloyd George coalition proposals had ended in failure. However dangerous
Grey might think the course, there was no alternative for the Government but to resume “ the old fight against the Lords.”

The Cabinet met on November 10th and decided in favour of an immediate dissolution. Before the decision could be implemented, however, the Prime Minister, unless he was to retreat humiliatingly from his brave words of April 14th, had to obtain “ guarantees ” from the King about the use of the prerogative. This was likely to be a most difficult operation, and Asquith approached it with considerable distaste and almost excessive delicacy. The day after the Cabinet meeting he went to Sandringham for an audience. But he used it only for a preliminary and general constitutional discussion and not for the purpose of asking for the guarantees. This was a mistake, for the King, noting with relief that he was asked for nothing on this occasion (other than his agreement to the dissolution) assumed that he was to be left free from commitment until after the election. When, four days later, he discovered his mistake, the chagrin of disappointment was added to the repugnance which he would in any event have felt for the course he was asked to pursue. He received the bad news
via
Knollys, who had gone from Sandringham to Downing Street for an interview with Asquith and who reported in the following words: “ What he
now
advocates is that you should give guarantees
at once
for the next Parliament.” Upon receipt of this letter the King ordered his other private secretary, Sir Arthur Bigge, who had remained with him at Sandringham, to telegraph at once to Asquith’s secretary in unyielding terms: “His Majesty regrets that it would be impossible for him to give contingent guarantees and he reminds Mr. Asquith of his promise not to seek for any during the present Parliament.”
^h

The latter part of the message was based on a confusion between asking for guarantees
for
the present Parliament and asking for them
during
it; Asquith had certainly never given a promise that he would not do the latter
¹
. Confusion or no confusion here, the import of the first part of the message was perfectly clear. The King and his ministers had moved into a position of direct conflict. Asquith at this stage did not envisage the possibility of retreat. It was in any event politically
out of the question for him.
²

¹
_{King George, however, was not very adept at appreciating fine verbal distinctions. “ Unaccustomed as he was to ambiguous phraseology,” Sir Harold Nicolson has written, “ he was totally unable to interpret Mr. Asquith’s enigmas.”
(King George V,
p. 130). In consequence the Prime Minister’s over-delicate approach sometimes defeated itself.}

²
_{The Master of Elibank wrote as Chief Whip a rather curious letter to Knollys at this stage urging the importance of “ safeguarding ” the Prime Minister’s relations with his own party. (Arthur Murray,
Master and Brother
, pp. 60-1). Knollys, doubtfully wisely, sent the letter on to the King, and Bigge (who was a friend of the Master’s) returned a sharp reply.}

What he did was to formalise the Government’s position. On the day of the King’s telegram he held another Cabinet at which a minute, setting out their collective advice, was drawn up and unanimously approved. This minute suggested for the first time that, while the King’s promise to create peers, should this become necessary, must be given before the dissolution, it need not be made public until the actual occasion arose.

This provision greatly impressed Knollys, to whom the minute was given later that day. As a result he sent it on to the King with a strong recommendation that the advice should be accepted. A battle of private secretaries then developed. Sir Arthur Bigge was as strongly (and more passionately) in favour of the King rejecting the advice as Lord Knollys was in favour of his accepting it; and over the next twenty-four hours they engaged in a sharp and even bitter struggle for the possession of the King’s mind. Bigge had the advantage of being with the King throughout and of being better known to him. He had been his own private secretary for ten years and was not merely an inheritance from King Edward as was the case with Knollys. Knollys, on the other hand, had the advantage of greater political experience, and of advising a course which while less palatable was more cautious than that recommended by Bigge; and the natural tendency of constitutional monarchs is always to prefer caution to adventure.

Even so, Knollys only got his way by keeping a vital piece of information from the King. Had the Cabinet’s advice not been accepted, Asquith would of course have resigned. The King would then have had to send for Balfour and ask him if he would form a government and endeavour to carry the country at a general election. This would in any event have been a hazardous course for the King, and one which would have laid him wide open to a charge of political favouritism. He would have changed his Government solely because the advice of the incoming Prime Minister was more congenial to him personally than was that of the outgoing one. The ensuing general
election would inevitably have taken the form of a vote of confidence or censure on his action. Nothing could have pushed the King more firmly into the centre of the political battle. It was because he saw the folly of this course so clearly that Knollys was prepared to go to almost any length to prevent his master from following it.

Nevertheless it was the course towards which the King’s mind was turned as he travelled up to London with Bigge on the morning of Wednesday, November 16th. But would Balfour accept such a commission? The answer to this question was vital to the King’s decision. If it was “ yes ” the course remained hazardous but it became possible. If it was “ no ” the course made no sense at all. The King, with a great loss of face, would have found himself back where he started—with Asquith, and with no possible alternative. The answer to the vital question was supplied by Knollys. In Sir Harold Nicolson’s words, he “ assured him that Mr. Balfour would in any event decline to form an administration.
ⁱ

This was a strange assurance for Knollys to give, for he had himself attended a meeting with Balfour, arranged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, on April 29th and had written a minute for King Edward which said: “ Mr. Balfour made it quite clear that he would be prepared to form a government to prevent the King being put in the position contemplated by the demand for the creation of peers.
^j
And there was no evidence that Balfour had changed his mind in the meantime. This minute remained in the archives, but it was not shown to King George. The latter came across it by chance in 1913 after Knollys had given up his appointment and immediately dictated a note saying that, had he known about it at the time, it might have changed his attitude to the guarantees. The responsibility for suppressing the document, which Knollys took upon himself, was a heavy one, but it almost certainly saved the King from an act of constitutional folly which might well have affected not only his personal position but the whole future of the British monarchy.
¹

¹
_{A somewhat fuller account of this incident is to be found in the present author’s
Mr. Balfour's Poodle
, pp. 118-25.}

At 3.30 on the afternoon of that same Wednesday the King saw Asquith and Crewe. Asquith described the meeting as “ the most important political occasion of his life,” but on his way to the Palace he characteristically kept an engagement to attend the wedding of a
Conservative M.P.
¹
From the point of view of the Government the audience was a great success.