Mr Balfour's Poodle (36 page)

¹
Exactly why there should be constitutional danger in parties indicating that if the electorate voted for them their policies might be carried into effect is not clear.

¹
1852–1930. Reginald Baliol Brett. Succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount Esher, 1899. Liberal member for Penryn and Falmouth, 1880–85. Subsequently became a Liberal Unionist. Friend and confidant of King Edward VII and King George V.

¹
Asquith was a good deal criticised for having taken Crewe to the interview, ‘as if,' it was said, ‘he needed a witness of what passed'. (
See
Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
vol. I, p. 297
ⁿ
.) More characteristically he had made a hurried appearance at the wedding of a Unionist politician—Mr. L. S. Amery —before proceeding to what he described as ‘the most important political occasion in my life'.

²
In the Vote of Censure debate, August 7, 1911.

¹
In fact there is no evidence that King Edward had made up his mind what to do if and when the Cabinet demanded the exercise of the prerogative. He certainly approached the matter with distaste, and during his last visit to Biarritz was toying with the compromise idea of ennobling only the eldest sons of Liberal peers and thus rendering the damage to the House of Lords merely temporary (Nicolson,
op. cit.,
p. 129). But his death saved him from the difficulty of decision. Perhaps because he knew this, Sir Arthur Bigge was particularly incensed at Knollys introducing King Edward into the controversy. ‘This quoting what a dead person would do is to me most unfair, if not improper, especially to the King, who has such a high opinion of his father's judgment. But might I not equally have urged that 1 was perfectly certain Queen Victoria would have done what I advised?' (Nicolson,
op. cit,
pp. 138–9.)

¹
This part of the arrangement, of course, was inserted against the convenience of the Liberal Cabinet, in an attempt to ease the position of the King.

²
1851–1935. Clerk to the Privy Council, 1898–1923.

¹
As late as 1950, Lord Simon was rash enough, in a letter to
The Times
, to suggest that this would be a constitutionally proper course for King George VI to take.

¹
He expressed these views in a memorandum prepared for the King. (See
Journals and Letters,
III, pp. 30–3.)

¹
1871–1934. 9th Duke. In 1895 he had married Consuelo Vanderbilt of New York, his father having previously married, late in life, a rich American as his second wife.

¹
‘Ah, gentlemen, what a change eleven short months have wrought!' this passage began. ‘This ancient and picturesque structure has been condemned by its own inmates as unsafe. The parricidal pickaxes are already at work, and constitutional jerry-builders are hurrying from every quarter with new plans. Dr. Johnson once said of a celebrated criminal, who after his condemnation showed literary activity, “Depend upon it, Sir, when a man is going to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The activity recently displayed by the House of Lords in providing itself with a successor is surely a miracle of this kind of mental concentration. In a single sitting, not unduly prolonged, the venerable institution, which has withstood the storm and stress of ages, was transformed—in principle, of course; some of the details are still withheld—into a brand new modern Senate.… The motive for this feverish exhibition of destructive and constructive ardour is not far to seek. The Tory Party were determined at all hazards not to face another General Election with the incubus of the House of Lords on their back. There must be something to put in its place, something—it did not matter for the moment very much what—but something which could be called a Second Chamber, with a coat, however thin, of democratic varnish.' (Spender and Asquith,
op. cit.,
vol. 1, pp. 299–300.)

¹
1854–1935. Editor of
The Times,
1884–1912, and biographer of Disraeli.

²
1871–1930. Sir John Norton-Griffiths. Member for Wednesbury, 1910–18 and Wandsworth, Central, 1918–24.

¹
A list of the surprisingly large number of seats which changed hands at this election is given in appendix c.

¹
He was created a viscount at the end of March.

¹
1859–1942. William Waldegrave Palmer. 2nd Earl of Selborne. First Lord of the Admiralty, 1900–5. High Commissioner in South Africa, 1905–10. President of the Board of Agriculture, 1915–16.

¹
This point has again arisen recently (1952) in connection with Lord Simon's bill for the creation of life peerages.

²
On March 3, Lord Crewe had collapsed and become seriously ill while attending the dinner at Claridge's Hotel which it was then the custom for the Lord President to give annually in connection with the ‘pricking' of the Sheriffs. Apart from a brief appearance in the Vote of Censure debate in August, he subsequently took no further part in the constitutional struggle. Morley temporarily took his place both as Secretary of State for India and as leader of the House of Lords, assuming a new importance in relation to the Parliament Bill.

¹
1850–1936. Member for Peckham, 1892–1906, and for the City of London, 1906–24. Created 1st Lord Banbury, 1924.

²
1870–1948. Member for Sheffield, Brightside, 1900–6, and Sheffield, Central, 1908–29. Chairman of Committees and Deputy Speaker, 1921-February, 1924, and December, 1924–29. Created 1st Lord Rankeillour, 1932.

³
1852–1941. Charles Alfred Cripps. Created 1st Lord Parmoor, 1914. Conservative member for Stroud, 1895–1900, Stretford division of Lancashire, 1901–6, and Wycombe, 1910–14. Later joined the Labour Party and was Lord President of the Council in 1924 and 1929–31.

¹
1865–1946. Member for Tonbridge, 1892–1906, Dudley, 1910–21, and Taunton, 1921–23. Minister of Agriculture, 1921–22. Minister of Health, 1922–23.

¹
It was in the debate on the second reading of this bill, on May 30, that Mr. Churchill, whose radicalism reached its apogee during this summer, made his famous and much-criticised comment that ‘while the courts were eminently fair between man and man, where class issues and party issues were involved they did not command the same degree of confidence'. (
Annual Register,
1911, p. 132.)

¹
1879–1952. Member for Plymouth, 1910–19. Succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount Astor, 1919.

¹
The Nationalist members for Louth, North, and Cork, East, the Unionist members for Hull, Central, and the Liberal members for Cheltenham and West Ham, North, all met this fate. The last of these was C. F. G. Masterman, then Under-Secretary at the Home Office and electorally most unfortunate of politicians. He found another seat at Bethnal Green, lost it when forced to seek re-election by his promotion to the Cabinet three years later, and then proceeded to lose in quick succession two further bye-elections in formerly Liberal seats. After this he ceased to try, and did not re-enter the House of Commons until 1923. In addition to these successful election petitions, there were unsuccessful ones against the Unionist members for West Bromwich, Nottingham, East, and Exeter. At the conclusion of the hearing in the last case the Liberal appellant ‘publicly denounced the judges at the railway station'.

¹
It is recorded, however, that the effect of the noble Marquess's speech on this occasion was ‘rather marred by the passing of an aeroplane'. It must either have been a very short speech or a very slow aeroplane.

¹
1865–1948. Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. Conservative member for Westinghouse, 1892–1906. Succeeded to earldom, 1908. Secretary of State for War, 1916–18 and 1922–24. H.M. Ambassador in Paris, 1918–20.

¹
Probably from Lord Knollys; although, in view of the terms of Esher's letter to the King of the same date (
Journal and Letters,
III, pp. 54–6), it is difficult to believe that he did not make the position quite clear at his meeting with Balfour on July 5.

¹
The Dukes of Somerset, Bedford, Northumberland, and Sutherland, the Marquesses of Salisbury and Abergavenny, the Earls of Lauderdale, Amherst, Portsmouth, Halsbury, Cathcart, Kinnoull, Sondes, Lovelace, Minto, Lindsey, Scarbrough, Selborne, Bathurst, and Londesborough, and Lords Ampthill, Vaux, Ebury, Vivian, Bateman, Abinger, Wynford, Hatherton, Raglan, Lovat, and Willoughby de Broke.

¹
The London home of the Duke of Westminster.

¹
See
pp. 230–2
infra.

²
1863–1913. Conservative member for Dover, 1889–1913. Private Secretary to A.J. Balfour, 1887–92. Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1900–5.

³
1871–1940. Conservative member for Chorley, 1895–1913. Chief Opposition Whip, 1906–13, when he succeeded his father as 27th Earl of Crawford. Lord Privy Seal, 1916–18, and holder of various other offices, 1918–22.

⁴
1852–1915. 6th Marquess. Unionist member for Down, 1878–84. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1886–89. Postmaster-General, 1900–2. President of the Board of Education and Lord President of the Council (from 1903), 1902–5.

⁵
1837–1913. Edward Gibson. Created 1st Lord Ashbourne, 1885. Conservative member for Dublin University, 1875–85. Attorney-General for Ireland, 1877–80. Lord Chancellor for Ireland, 1885–86, 1886–92 and 1895–1905.

¹
1841–1923. Created 1st Viscount Chaplin, 1916. Conservative member for Mid-Lincolnshire, 1868–1906, and for Wimbledon, 1907–16. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1885–86. President of the Board of Agriculture, 1889–92, and of the Local Government Board, 1895–1900.

²
1842–1929. Created 1st Lord Finlay of Nairn, 1916 (Viscount, 1919). Liberal Unionist member for Inverness Burghs, 1885–92 and 1895–1906, and for Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities, 1910–16. Solicitor-General, 1895–1900. Attorney-General, 1900–5. Lord Chancellor, 1916–18.

³
1876–1935. Unionist member for Birmingham, East, 1910–18, Birmingham, Erdington, 1918–29, and Tamworth, 1929–35. Minister of Labour, 1924–29. Attended Shadow Cabinet in 1911 as chairman of the Unionist Party Organisation.

¹
Those in favour of resistance became known at this time as ‘die-hards' or ‘ditchers', both words being derived from the phrase ‘dying in the last ditch'.
Per contra,
the moderates became known as ‘hedgers', or, as the hysteria of some of their opponents increased
(see,
for example, pp. 266–7,
infra),
by more uncomplimentary names.

¹
This had become the headquarters of the die-hard movement.

¹
The general alignment of the Unionist press at the time was that
The Times, Daily Telegraph, Scotsman, Yorkshire Post,
and
Birmingham Daily Post
(showing surprising independence of the Chamberlain influence) favoured submission, while the
Observer, Morning Post, Standard, Globe, Pall Mall Gazette,
and
Manchester Courier
called for resistance. The subsequent casualty rate has been noticeably higher amongst die-hard papers.

²
1847–1928. Member for Epping, 1892–1917. Created 1st Lord Lambourne, 1917.

¹
1840–1922. Conservative candidate for Camberwell, 1885. Liberal candidate for Kidderminster, 1886. Poet, landowner, traveller, and breeder of Arab horses.

²
The Duke of Westminster, George Wyndham's stepson.

¹
In fact he was eighty-seven.

¹
Halsbury must be the only Lord Chancellor to have been placed in the Fourth Class at Oxford (after quite hard work), and none of his fellow signatories, from Salisbury (who was one of the less distinguished heads of his family) to the fox-hunting Willoughby, had much mental prowess.

¹
According to W. S. Blunt, however, only forty peers were present, and to some extent the dinner was therefore a discouragement to those who were organising the die-hards. (
My Diaries,
p. 772.)

¹
In that it contained something of interest, not that it was lacking in demagogy. He spoke of a ‘revolution, nurtured in lies, promoted by fraud, and only to be achieved by violence'. ‘The Prime Minister and his colleagues,' he added, ‘have tricked the Opposition … entrapped the Crown, and … deceived the people.'

²
Some of the responsibility for this widespread impression seems to rest with the King. When he saw Lansdowne on July 24, he said that both himself and his Ministers were anxious to avoid a large creation. He added that the Prime Minister would be satisfied with a majority of one for the bill, which was a slightly ambiguous remark in the context.
(See
Newton,
op. cit.,
p. 425.) Furthermore, Austen Chamberlain's letter to Balfour of July 26 refers to the King having informed Salisbury that his promise extended only to the smallest creation necessary to pass the Bill, and to his determination not to allow a wider use of the prerogative. Chamberlain took this as firm evidence against the risk of a large creation, and argued accordingly to Balfour (
see
Petrie,
op. cit.,
vol. I, p. 284.) Later, however, His Majesty took positive steps to counteract this impression (
infra,
p. 259).