Asquith (52 page)

At the beginning of 1914 Ireland was briefly superseded by the Naval Estimates as the most critical issue confronting Asquith. It was the old battle of 1909 over again, except for some piquant changes of personal position. As before, the First Lord of the Admiralty, supported with modified enthusiasm by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and one or two others, was fighting for more generous provision against most of the rest of the Cabinet. But Churchill, instead of being with Lloyd George the leader of the “ economists,” had become the extravagant, demanding First Lord; and McKenna, relieved of his naval responsibilities, felt free to be one of Churchill’s best-informed and most determined critics. Behind the struggle, on this as on the previous occasion, lay the conviction of the “ economists ” that they had the Liberal rank and file firmly on their side.

The first obtrusion of this phase of the dispute on to Asquith’s correspondence came on December 8th, 1913, when he wrote: “ We had a Cabinet which lasted nearly 3 hours, 2¾ of wh. was occupied by Winston.” Then, on January 1st, Lloyd George gave what Asquith described as“a heedless interview ” to the
Daily Chronicle.
This was in one sense a charitable judgment. In fact Lloyd George was making a calculated move to take the issue before the Liberal public. He spoke of the “ overwhelming extravagance of our expenditure on armaments,” expressed particular scepticism about the need for a stronger navy, and pointedly reminded his readers of Lord Randolph Churchill’s 1887 resignation from the Exchequer. The clash was at this stage a longdistance one, for Churchill was in France when the interview was published, and Lloyd George left for Algeria immediately after he had given it. Asquith saw Churchill on January 9th, and became more apprehensive about the outlook. He was writing to Miss Stanley
about the possibility of an expedition in the Admiralty yacht and continued rather gloomily:

That assumes that the good ship is likely to be at our disposal, which after the hour’s talk I have just had with Winston seems to me to be by no means certain. He has been hunting the boar in Les Landes and has come back with his own tusks well whetted, and all his bristles in good order. There will be wigs on the green before his tussle with Ll.G. is over.

Asquith’s Antibes visit then intervened, and it was January 20th before he could see Lloyd George and Churchill together. He remained gloomy after this meeting. His own view was in favour of the Admiralty case on the main points at issue, but he thought Churchill’s methods were needlessly provocative. “ There is no doubt that Winston tries them rather high,” he wrote a little later; “ to use his own phrase today he ‘ gyrates around the facts ’.”
^a
The opposition which Churchill had aroused in the Cabinet was formidable. Lloyd George was in fact one of the most moderate of his opponents, his attitude untinged by personal antipathy. This was not the case with many of the others. John Simon (“ the Impeccable is the real and only Irreconcilable,” Asquith commented) was the most extreme. He was full of anti-Churchill arguments:

“ The loss of W.C., though regrettable, is
not
by any means a splitting of the party,” he wrote to Asquith, “ —indeed large Admiralty estimates may be capable of being carried
only
because W.C. has gone. The party would feel itself strengthened in its Radical element and among the Economists; the feeling that the Cabinet
fights for economy
but preserves Home Rule unflinchingly is just what is wanted. A majority of the Cabinet certainly take this view.”
^b

Whether or not he was right about the majority, Simon had a substantial group organised. A few days later he wrote again to the Prime Minister, and this time the letter was signed by McKenna, Runciman, Beauchamp, and Charles Hobhouse, as well as himself. In addition, not only Lloyd George but also Herbert Samuel were strongly critical of the Admiralty proposals without going the whole way with Simon.

Asquith’s method of dealing with this situation was, first, to let it be known that if the issue were forced by either side to the point of resignation he proposed to have a general election rather than carry
on with a weakened Cabinet;
¹
and, secondly, to play the argument along fairly slowly in the hope that the passage of time or the intervention of other events might cause passions to weaken. On January 27th he recorded:

And now as I am writing we are in the full stress of Cabinet discussion. Happily Huck
²
is not present, but the bigger breed have their ears well laid back, & from time to time give tongue. (Some considerable time, say
½
or ¾ of an hour, has elapsed since I wrote the last sentence, full of animated sound, including a few mellow and melodious
glapissements
from ‘Sweetheart’.
³
) We shan’t decide anything today & shall meet again tomorrow. But the air is more than a trifle thunderous.

_{1 How this would have resolved the problem is not wholly clear. He presumably thought the threat could be an effective deterrent against both sets of extremists.}

2 Miss Stanley’s dog.

3 Lord Beauchamp.

Detached and dilatory though he sounded, Asquith’s methods were highly effective. He acted throughout on the assumption that it was crucial to promote a movement towards accommodation between Lloyd George and Churchill. Simon and the others could then be treated cursorily. As soon as the Prime Minister saw signs of such a movement developing, during the last week of January, he began to breathe freely and to regard the crisis as past its worst. He still did not force an early settlement. He was happy to wait for this until the Cabinet of February nth. An arrangement was then reached which avoided not only resignations but any legacy of bitterness. It also gave the Admiralty most of what they wanted and what Asquith had throughout believed they should have. This result, Churchill recorded, was largely due “to the unswerving patience of the Prime Minister, and to his solid, silent support.”
^c

Ireland was less easily settled. As soon as the King received news of the Cabinet’s decision of January 22nd to propose an Ulster veto upon any act of the Dublin legislature which affected the Protestant counties, he wrote to Asquith to say that in his view this was not enough: “ I have always given you as my opinion, that Ulster will never agree to send representatives to an Irish Parliament in Dublin, no matter what safeguards or guarantees you may provide. For this reason I would point out to you the danger of laying before Parliament
and the Country, your proposed concessions (as) if they are to be your last word.”^ This did not make it easier for Asquith to deal with Redmond. He could hardly speak to him with decision and finality when he knew that he would probably have to come back later and ask for a further concession. Moreover, by the time that his interview with the Irish leader took place, on February 2nd, Asquith knew that the Conservative leaders were discussing the use of the House of Lords to amend the Army Act. Such a move would be revolutionary both in motive and in consequence. It would cripple the authority of the civil power. Its effect would be either to force a general election or to leave the Government without any military force which it could deploy in Ulster. At the interview he informed Redmond not only about the course of his negotiations with Bonar Law and Carson and of the Cabinet decision, but also of this possibility:

“I had Birrell with me at the Leviathan
¹
interview ” he wrote.

“I developed the situation with such art as I could muster, until the psychological moment arrived for discharging my bornb. My visitor shivered visibly and was a good deal perturbed, but I think the general effect was salutary. He wisely refused to commit himself on the spot, and promises further communication in a day or two.

¹
_{This was Asquith’s private name for Redmond.}

The next day Birrell had “ a rather gloomy second interview with our Leviathan and then, on February 5th, “ a rather unsatisfactory communication (tho’ very well put) ” arrived from Redmond. The gist of this was that Asquith in any public statement should say no more than that he would do everything in his power to secure a settlement by consent provided that it was consistent with “ an Irish Parliament, an Irish Executive and the integrity of Ireland.” “ Such a statement by you,” Redmond added, “ would place me in a position to give it my wholehearted support.”
^e

That same day Asquith went to Windsor to see the King. “ I spent about an hour and a half with the Sovereign before dinner and we covered a good deal of ground,” he wrote to Miss Stanley. “ I spoke to him very faithfully, but I am not sure that I produced an abiding impression. Esher (who was at dinner) told me that the King liked me but (how unlike you!) was rather afraid of me! I am sure you will find this impossible to believe and difficult to imagine. We finished up our talk on very friendly terms. ...”

Sir Harold Nicolson’s account of the audience, while in no way contradicting this view about the friendliness of the exchanges, suggests that the King believed he had dealt with Asquith as “ faithfully ” as Asquith believed he had dealt with him. The King warned Asquith that, if negotiations failed, many army officers might resign their commissions rather than fight in a civil war.
¹
He reiterated his view that Ulster would in no circumstances consent to be placed under a Dublin Parliament. And, while stressing that the Prime Minister had not forfeited his confidence, he refused to commit himself to Asquith’s contention that the only tolerable alternatives were either to dismiss the Government at once or to exclude the possibility of doing so at some subsequent stage in the dispute. The King said that “ he had no intention of dismissing his Ministers, although his future action must be guided by circumstances.
^f

¹
_{“But whom are they going to fight?” Asquith blandly replied.}

This audience helped to force Asquith beyond the solution of “ Home Rule within Home Rule,” which he had urged upon Redmond on February 2nd, and to make him accept in some form the temporary exclusion of Ulster. For the moment he made no public commitment to this new course, although he endeavoured to use the next parliamentary round—the King’s Speech at the opening of the new session and the debate on the Address which followed—to create as conciliatory an atmosphere as possible. As a result the King was pleased not only with his own speech but also with the Prime Minister’s. And Asquith himself thought he saw some response from the other side. “ The event of this afternoon’s debate with us,” he wrote on February nth, “ was Carson’s speech. He followed a somewhat arid display by the Impeccable, and was really very impressive. I wrote him a line of congratulation. ...” The following night he found Bonar Law’s contribution less worthy of congratulation— “ Bonar Lisa was rather spitfire,” he wrote—but he was nevertheless “ inclined to be satisfied with the debate.”

The next step was to persuade Redmond that he must make a further concession. The early stages of this process were entrusted to Lloyd George and Birrell, but Asquith himself had another meeting with the Irish leader on March 2nd. As a result of this Redmond reluctantly agreed “ as the price of peace ” to acquiesce in a three year exclusion. Each Ulster county could opt, by a simple majority, for such exclusion. At the end of the three years, which would date from
the first meeting of the new Irish Parliament, the provision would automatically cease to apply; but as at least one British general election would by then have intervened, the Unionists, if successful, could extend its life. The Nationalists made it clear that they would not vote for this arrangement in the House of Commons. They would merely abstain from voting against it provided that the Unionists did so too.

The Cabinet adopted this plan at its meeting of March 4th. Asquith immediately conveyed the decision to the King, while another minister conveyed it with equal speed to the lobby correspondent of the
Daily News.
Neither action cased the path of the Government. The King wrote back on the same day urging a longer exclusion: “ I must confess that I have grave fears that the proposed limit. . . will not be acceptable to Ulster. This will make Sir Edward Carson’s position an almost impossible one, but I know he will do all in his power for peace.”
^g