Asquith (51 page)

H.H.A
^t

The extracts from Bonar Law's account of this second conversation which are quoted by Mr. Robert Blake are in fairly close harmony with this record of Asquith's. But there was an important divergence on one point. Bonar Law thought that Asquith had entered into a definite commitment to urge upon the Cabinet, and then upon the Nationalists, an exclusion scheme with the conditions that he (Bonar Law) had outlined. Asquith thought much more in terms of reporting the bargaining possibilities to the Cabinet, and taking their advice on the next step. As a result of this misunderstanding, according to Mr. Blake, Bonar Law believed henceforward that Asquith “ had broken his word to him."
^u
Unless he wanted an excuse for distrusting Asquith, it is difficult to see why he should have felt so affronted. On November 7th he wrote to Walter Long, and his letter made clear both that his desires were mixed and that he regarded his own course as determined, not by a Cherkley commitment, but by objective considerations.

“ From a party point of view," he wrote, “ I hope the Nationalists will not agree, for, if they do, I am afraid that our best card for the Election will have been lost. On the other hand if he (Asquith) makes us a definite proposal on these lines I don't see that we could possibly take the responsibility for refusing
."
^v

If Bonar Law was free after Cherkley, surely Asquith was too? There seems no reason to think that he let down Bonar Law; yet it cannot be denied that he made little attempt to drive on towards a settlement. The Cabinet met on Tuesday, November 12th, to hear the Prime Minister's report, and again on the Wednesday to consider what should be done. After the second meeting Asquith reported to the King:

All the Cabinet were agreed that the temper of the party outside was strongly and growingly opposed to any form of compromise, largely, no doubt, because the rank and file wholly disbelieve in the reality of the Ulster threats. Apart from this, the difficulties of the situation were well illustrated by two observations of Ministers who are specially well acquainted with the Irish problem : The one (Mr. Birrell’s) that the exclusion of Ulster, in whole or in part, is universally opposed by all sections of Irish opinion as a bad and unworkable expedient: the other (Lord Morley’s) that to start Home Rule with a baptism of bloodshed would be fatal to its prospects.

Mr. Samuel suggested a plan. . .. which would give to the Ulster members in the Irish Parliament, for a time at any rate, a veto on legislation (including taxation) affecting Ulster. This was rejected by the Cabinet with practical unanimity: it would give satisfaction to neither party and would create the maximum of friction.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed, as a basis of possible compromise, but still more as the best means of avoiding armed resistance, the exclusion of Ulster (i.e. of the Protestant counties) for a defnite term of five or six years, with a provision for its automatic inclusion at the expiration of that time. This, he pointed out, would have two distinct advantages: (i) no one could support or sympathise with the violent resistance of Ulster to a change which would in no way affect her for years to come; (2) before the automatic inclusion of Ulster took place, there would be two General Elections which would give the British electorate—with experience of the actual working of Home Rule in the rest of Ireland—the opportunity—if so minded—of continuing the exclusion of Ulster.

This suggestion met with a good deal of support and it was agreed that the Prime Minister should discuss it with Mr. Redmond whom he is to see privately on Monday
.
^w

Asquith’s meeting with Redmond took place at Edwin Montagu’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate. He told the Irish leader that he was increasingly worried about “ a baptism of blood ” for Home Rule. This could only be avoided by an agreement or by “ the prevention, or at any rate the indefinite postponement, of the bloody prologue.” His conversations with Bonar Law, of which Redmond was informed,
combined with the temper of the rank and file of both parties, made him pessimistic about an agreement. The alternative was Lloyd George’s scheme for a postponement of the trouble. Redmond reacted strongly against this. “ He could conceive of no proposal which would create against it a more compact and united body of sentiment in Ireland, both Nationalist and Unionist. If put forward at the last moment by B. Law as the price of an agreed settlement he might look at it. Otherwise he could not entertain it for a moment.”
^x
Asquith then asked Redmond what concessions he was prepared to accept, and the latter replied with an offer of what came to be known as “ Home Rule within Home Rule ”—a large degree of Ulster autonomy under a united Irish Parliament.

Redmond followed up this interview by a long letter to Asquith dated November 24th. He argued strongly and cogently against the Government putting forward any proposals for a compromise. It was much better to wait and let them come from Bonar Law. Redmond, “ writing with a full knowledge of my country and its conditions,” also expressed scepticism about the seriousness of the Ulster threat: “ I do not think that anything like a widespread rebellious movement can ever take place; and all our friends in Ulster, who would be the first victims of any rebellious movement, have never ceased to inform me that all such apprehensions are without any real foundation.”
^y

The Cabinet considered this letter on November 25th. After considerable discussion it was agreed that Redmond should be told there was no question of an immediate “ offer ” to Bonar Law, but that the Government must be free “ when the critical stage of the Bill is ultimately reached ” to do what it thought best. Grey, traditionally the coolest towards Home Rule of the senior ministers, then proposed that “ if and when the conversation with Mr. Bonar Law was resumed, he should be told that our party could not be brought to agree to .. . the permanent or indefinite exclusion of Ulster, but that we were prepared to discuss plans for its temporary exclusion or separate administrative treatment.”
^z

This satisfied Redmond for a time, but it did not satisfy the King, who wrote from Sandringham on November 30th, asking when Asquith was next going to see Bonar Law. Prompted by this letter Asquith arranged a third Cherkley meeting for December 10th.
¹

¹
_{Mr. Robert Blake gives the date as December 9th, but there seems no doubt from the Asquith papers that Wednesday, December 10th was the
correct day. Asquith says so in his memorandum of the talk and he also wrote to Miss Stanley that afternoon: “ I paid a rather interesting call in the country this morning, of wh. I will tell you some day. Tonight to dine with Gosse & the Poets—at any rate the Laureate & Housman.”}

This
was completely abortive. Asquith wrote: “ I found B.L. less hopeful of a settlement by consent than when I last met him. He took a gloomy view of the temper and attitude not only of the extremists but of the rank and file of both parties ...” But so, presumably, did Asquith. He told Bonar Law that there could be no settlement on the basis of indefinite exclusion, and Bonar Law rejected without detailed consideration the Lloyd George proposals for temporary exclusion. After some further rather weary re-traversing of old ground they parted.

Asquith made one further attempt at negotiation before Christmas. On December 16th he saw Carson, again using Montagu’s house as a meeting place. The Prime Minister knew Carson somewhat better than Bonar Law—he was an old colleague at the bar—and, notwithstanding his seditious activities, was much more instinctively friendly towards him. Despite his own lack of dramatic sense, Asquith was often rather drawn to figures who cut something of a dash. He persuaded himself that there was a possibility of making progress with Carson where there had been none with Law.

As a result he took the trouble to draw up highly tentative proposals for a fresh compromise and to send them to Carson, accompanied by a notably friendly letter, on December 23rd. The suggestion was that a “ statutory ” Ulster (the boundaries of which remained to be defined) should have special powers of veto in the Irish Parliament. If a majority of the members from this area so wished, no Irish legislation on fiscal, religious, educational, industrial or land tenure matters would apply to Ulster. On December 27th Carson dismissed the proposal out of hand. Asquith persisted and on January 2nd he got Carson to come to another meeting at Queen Anne’s Gate. On this occasion he reproached him for dismissing “ carefully considered ” proposals without putting forward any counter-suggestion, and tried hard to make Carson commit some scheme of his own to paper. But Carson—as was to be proved during the war—was always a negative man. One of his strengths was that he recognised this. He rarely allowed himself to be manoeuvred on to ground which called for constructive action. He was much too fly to be caught in this way by Asquith. When asked to put forward a detailed plan for the exclusion
of Ulster he replied firmly that if the principle could be agreed the details could best be filled in by the parliamentary draughtsmen. And that, on January 7th, 1914, was the end of another attempt at negotiation.

On January 9th, Bonar Law wrote to Asquith asking permission to say in a public speech that conversations had taken place between the two leaders. Asquith agreed, and at Cardiff on January 15th Law announced not only that negotiations had taken place but that they had failed and were finished. His next step was to suggest, through Stamfordham, that the time had come for the King to write an official letter to his ministers, which he would reserve the right to make public later, telling them that it was their duty to hold a general election before the Home Rule Bill became law. The King had informed Bonar Law at Balmoral in the autumn that this was his intention. But by the end of January, although still anxious for an election, he had become doubtful about the wisdom of putting this form of pressure upon Asquith. Furthermore, he was displeased with the Unionist leader for slamming the door so firmly on any further negotiations. Law accordingly received a snubbing reply from Stamfordham: “As to any special communications to his Ministers, His Majesty's action will be guided by time and circumstances."
^aa

The King’s constant desire for a general election was based upon no wish to get rid of Asquith, “ for whom," Sir Harold Nicolson informs us, “ he had acquired (and for ever retained) feelings of warm affection.
^bb
"There is no evidence that he ever entertained such feelings for Bonar Law, and at this stage he thought him likely to be an uncomfortable and even disagreeable minister. In addition the King believed that the departure of Grey from the Foreign Office would be “ a European misfortune." At the same time the shelving of Home Rule which would follow from a Unionist victory would be a great personal relief. The King was more sensitive to trouble from the “ loyalists " of Ulster than from the “ disloyalists " of the South. What, no doubt, he would most have liked was a combination of “ Whig men and Tory measures "—perhaps always the ideal solution from a royal point of view. But if he could not get this, a general election offered the prospect of removing some of the weight which he felt resting on his shoulders. If the opposition won, it would be a new situation. If the Government won, the election would at least “ clear the air," as he put it.

Asquith persisted in believing that an election would settle nothing —except the ineffectiveness of the Parliament Act. But, his negotiations with Bonar Law and Carson having failed, and the critical date when the bill would become law being now only six months off, Asquith clearly had to proceed on some alternative course. This was the situation which confronted him when he returned from Antibes on January 19th, 1914. Three days later the Cabinet met. He reported on the failure of negotiations with Law and the new proposal that he had made to Carson. It was agreed, with some opposition from Morley (who thought Asquith was giving away too much) and enthusiastic support from Lloyd George and Churchill, that this last proposal, which had failed as a basis for negotiation, should be made public, but that Redmond should first be informed.

1
_{After 1910 the Conservatives also had a sense of being cheated by the alliance between the Liberals and Redmond. The alliance was based on Asquith’s new commitment to carry Home Rule, and would have foundered without it. This the Unionists persisted in regarding as a corrupt arrangement, although as the Liberals had for a generation regarded Home Rule as part of their creed (if not always of their programme) it is difficult to see where the corruption lay. The Unionists had worked themselves into a peculiarly illogical position
vis-a-vis
the Irish. They were dedicated to keeping them in the Imperial Parliament, while resentful that their votes should count for anything there. But illogicality is rarely a bar to deep feeling.}

2
_{the Lords by a vote of 326 to 69. In this and in the two subsequent sessions the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill followed an almost exactly parallel course.}

3
_{This lasted only from March to July, 1913. This time there were no committee stages for either the Home Rule or the Welsh Church Bills. As a result they went through the House of Commons, to use one of Asquith’s favourite phrases, “ on oiled castors.” But this did nothing to reduce the force with which they again hit the wall of House of Lords opposition. The Irish Bill was rejected by 302 to 64 on July 15th, and the Welsh one by 243 to 48 on July 22nd.}

4
_{See p. 195,
supra.}

5
_{Birrell’s own account of this interview, written for Asquith, contained the following sentence: “ He (the King) left on my mind the clear impression that he was being pressed to entertain the idea, though not able quite to see how it could safely be done, of forcing a dissolution next year. He has been told that the Home Rule feeling (outside Ulster) is not really strong— that it is dying out and that all the people really want is more money and continued prosperity.”
(Asquith Papers,
Box 38, 109-13).}

6
_{The title taken by Sir Arthur Bigge in 1911.}

7
_{Both parts of Asquith’s paper are reproduced in full in Spender and Asquith, 11, pp. 29-34. For that reason they are only summarised in this chapter, but are reprinted in appendix
b
(see p. 541
infra).}

8
_{On June 12th, 1916, again according to Mr. Blake, Bonar Law went to see Asquith at the Wharf and found him “ engaged in a rubber of bridge with three ladies.” Law was “ considerably annoyed ” and “ the episode left a lasting impression upon his mind.” Lady Violet Bonham Carter has deployed formidable arguments against this incident ever taking place. But even in the unlikely event that it did, it is not clear why Bonar Law should have been so shocked. If it was “ characteristic ” for a leader of the opposition to play cards on the afternoon of a working Wednesday in October, in the midst of a ferocious Irish crisis, why should a Prime Minister not do so on a Whitsun Monday morning (for that is what June 12th was), even in wartime ? But perhaps the difference lay in the choice of fellow-players. Lord Beaverbrook was all right, but not “ three ladies.}
”