Asquith (64 page)

1
_{Although Asquith thought that Haldane’s taking of the “ King’s Pledge ” (total abstinence for the duration of the war) in early April led to a notable diminution in his energy and buoyancy. As soon as he ceased to be a minister Haldane reverted to more normal habits. “ When you come to London let us meet as of yore one evening,” he wrote to Rosebery on June 9th. “ As I am no longer a servant of the Crown I have ceased to confine myself to soda-water.” (Heuston;
Lives of the Lord Chancellors
, 1885-1940, p. 225). Asquith himself never made the mistake of following the example which Lloyd George had persuaded the King to set}
.

The agreement of the party leaders to the formation of a Coalition Government was announced on Wednesday, May 19th, but it was not until a week later that the Cabinet list was ready for publication. During the latter part of this interval Asquith’s grip on events tightened considerably. He began to exert himself to achieve what he regarded as the most able and cohesive Cabinet for the carrying on of the war. This did not mean that he wanted it to be narrowly based. Once the relative intimacy of a Liberal Government had gone, he was in favour of the widest possible representation. He brought in Henderson from the Labour Party, and he tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to secure the adhesion of Redmond. But it did mean that he was reluctant to give high posts to Conservatives simply because of their position in that party’s hierarchy. In particular, he was loath to offer a crucial post to Bonar Law.

This was for two reasons. First, he had no respect for either the ability or the character of Law. (A few months before he had come across Bolingbroke’s remark about Bishop Warburton: “ Sir, I never wrestle with a chimney-sweep”; and had commented: “A good saying, which I sometimes call to mind when I am confronting Bonar Law.”) Second, his whole instinct was against allowing the new Government to become a two-headed monster. Unlike Lloyd George after him he did not wish to turn the leader of the Unionist Party into a specially trusted (and specially burdened) lieutenant. A Coalition there had to be, but it was to be as much like a normal party Government as possible, with no unusual position for the leader of the minority party. All ministers should have their direct lines to the head of the Government, which would in practice function with varying frequency and clarity according to his view of their position and abilities, but there
should be no subsidiary exchange. This system, which Asquith operated for the next nineteen months, did not turn out to be a recipe for political stability.

In accordance with it, Asquith pushed up those Conservatives whom he liked or trusted, and pushed down Law. He was happy to give Balfour (who, as a member first of the Committee of Imperial Defence and then of the War Council, had been almost in the Government since the outbreak of war) the key post at the Admiralty, although this was not an appointment which particularly commended itself to the new First Lord’s Unionist colleagues. He gave Curzon high precedence if not much work as Lord Privy Seal, and he was generous about admitting Carson, as Attorney-General, to the Cabinet, despite complaints from Redmond. He was determined to keep Grey at the Foreign Office, and, after a momentary hesitation on May 17th, Kitchener at the War Office. This left two posts of first-rate importance, the one— the Exchequer—carrying great traditional prestige—and the other— the new Ministry of Munitions—offering the greatest challenge. Lloyd George obviously had to have one of them. Asquith believed it right to prevent Bonar Law having the other; and in this blocking aim he was surprisingly successful.

Lloyd George accepted Munitions. This in itself was a relief to Asquith, and he wrote in glowing terms to the new minister to thank him for his “ self-forgetfulness.” But it made the exclusion of Bonar Law still more difficult. The Exchequer was a more obviously suitable post for him than the Ministry of Munitions. Asquith then toyed (as in 1908) with a plan for reverting to Gladstone’s 1880 arrangement (but how different were the circumstances) and doubling the Treasury with the Premiership. This was coldly received on all sides.
¹
Asquith therefore decided on a simple show of strength against Law. But, as he and the Unionist leader were always uncomfortable in each other’s company, he used Lloyd George as an intermediary.

¹
_{It was a strangely perverse idea. Apart from the impossible burden which would have been thrown upon Asquith himself, it would have exacerbated rather than eased the political problem with which he was trying to deal. The difficulty in forming a Coalition is to find jobs for men rather than
vice versa.}

“ On the morning of Tuesday, 25 May,” Asquith recorded in a
pencilled memorandum, “ I commissioned Ll. George to see B.
Law, & to point out

(1) the resentment of our party at the exclusion of Haldane

(2) their resentment at the inclusion of Carson

(3) the impossibility from a party point of view of both Admiralty and War Office being in Tory hands
¹

(4) the impossibility of having a Tariff Reformer at the Exchequer.

This was intended to prevent B. Law taking either the office of

Munitions or the Ex
^er
.

Later in the day the Tory leaders in substance accepted the position,

Ll.G. going to Munitions and McKenna to Exchequer.”
^a

This was a remarkable capitulation on Law’s part. McKenna had no particular claim on the Exchequer—his wife wrote Asquith a letter of almost amazed gratitude—and, after Haldane and Churchill, he was the Liberal whom the Conservatives would most like to have excluded completely. Instead they accepted his promotion without even the compensation of securing his former place at the Home Office for one of their own men. Walter Long, who wrote to Asquith asking in precise and pressing terms for this post, was given the Presidency of the Local Government Board. Simon was promoted to be Home Secretary. And Law him self became Colonial Secretary, by no means a convenient position from which to co-ordinate the Unionist forces in the Government.

Why did he allow this to happen? Part of the reason probably lay in the criminal prosecution which was pending against William Jacks and Company. This was the firm in which Bonar Law had pursued an active business career until 1901. His brother was still a fully participating partner. He himself habitually lent the company any loose money which he had available. The charge against the business was that, in the early days of the war, it had traded with the enemy. During May it looked as though John Law would be one of the accused. In fact, when the case came on in Edinburgh in June, he was left out. But two other partners were found guilty and sentenced to brief terms of imprisonment.

No one seriously thought that Bonar Law had himself behaved improperly. But in view of the attitude which both he and his party had taken, first about the Marconi affair and then towards Haldane,
he could hardly expect to escape all of the backwash.
¹
Asquith’s comment when he heard of the matter in February was fairly typical of Liberal feeling: “It will be one of the ironies of fortune (after what we innocently suffered over Marconi) if B.L. (equally innocent) were to encounter a like injustice.” Innocent though he might be, the incident hardly made mid-May the ideal time for Law to demand either the Exchequer, with its Inland Revenue function, or the Ministry of Munitions, with its intimate supervisory functions over a large number of industrial firms.

¹
_{What, it may fairly be asked, would the Unionists have said had some family firm of Haldane’s been involved in this way?}

The final shape of the Cabinet gave twelve posts to Liberals, eight to Unionists, one to Labour, and one to Kitchener. The real preponderance of the Liberals was greater than this; only Balfour and Kitchener impaired their monopoly of key positions. Apart from Haldane, Asquith had to drop from the Cabinet seven previous members: Samuel, Pease, Emmott, Lucas, Hobhouse, Beauchamp and Montagu. He found lesser jobs for five of them, and re-promoted Montagu in a little over a year.

The new Cabinet came together for the first time on May 27th, and settled down to a routine of much more frequent meetings than had been the recent habit of the old. Until the beginning of August at least two and sometimes three meetings a week was the pattern. The old War Council had disappeared, but was to some extent replaced by a new Dardanelles Committee of eleven members. Five of them were Unionists. As the summer wore on this Committee, under the guidance of its secretary, Colonel Hankey, began increasingly to concern itself with general military matters. In August Carson was added to the list of members. Kitchener, after the change of Government, had suggested a new War Council, to be composed only of the Prime Minister, Balfour and himself, with Hankey as secretary. But this was impracticable. The Unionists would never have agreed to delegate real authority to a body on which their only representative was Balfour, whom they regarded as implicated in the mistakes of the previous Government.

In June the uneasy Coalition began to face a new problem—that of compulsory military service—which was to be with it, often in an acute form, for much of the remainder of its life. At this stage all that was proposed and agreed to was a Registration Bill, but some members of the Cabinet—notably Lloyd George, Curzon, Austen Chamberlain and Churchill—saw it as paving the way to conscription. So, probably, did the King, who wrote somewhat disingenuously to Asquith on the 23 rd of the month:

I fear recruiting for the Army is by no means as brisk as it was a fortnight ago. I earnestly trust that the Cabinet will agree without delay to registration being carried out as no one could object to that. I trust we shall not be obliged to come to compulsion; but I am interested to see it has been advocated in the H. of C. this evening by one of your late whips who has been at the front for ten months! ! !
^b