Tragedy and Hope
A History of the World in Our Time
By Carroll Quigley
PART TEN
Part Ten: Britain: the Background to Appeasement: 1900-1939
Chapter 29: The Social and Constitutional Background
In the course of the twentieth century Britain experienced a revolution as profound, and considerably more constructive, than those in Russia or Germany. The magnitude of this revolution cannot be judged by the average American because Britain has been, to most Americans, one of the less familiar countries of Europe. This condition is not based on ignorance so much as on misconceptions. Such misconceptions seem to arise from the belief that the English, speaking a similar language, must have similar ideas. These misconceptions are as prevalent among the better-educated classes of Americans as in less well-informed circles, and, as a result, errors and ignorance about Britain are widespread, even in the better books on the subject. In this section, we shall emphasize the ways in which Britain is different from the United States, especially in its constitution and its social structure.
From this political point of view, the greatest difference between Britain and the United States rests in the fact that the former has no constitution. This is not generally recognized. Instead, the statement is usually made that Britain has an unwritten constitution based on customs and conventions. Such a statement seriously misrepresents the facts. The term `'constitution" refers to a body of ruses concerned with the structure and functioning of a government, and it clearly implies that this body of rules is superior in its force and is formed by a different process than ordinary statute law. In Britain this is not so. The so-called "constitutional law" of England consists either of statutes which differ in no way (either in method of creation or force) from ordinary statutes or it consists of customs and conventions which are inferior in force to statutes and which must yield to any statute.
The major practices of the "constitution" of Britain are based on convention rather than on law. The distinction between the two reveals at once the inferiority of the former to the latter. "Laws" (based on statutes and judicial decisions) are enforceable in courts, while "conventions" (based on past practices regarded as proper) are not enforceable in any legal way. The precedents of the British system of government are generally in the nature of conventions which cover the most important parts of the system: the Cabinet and the political parties, the monarchy, the two Houses of Parliament, the relationships between these, and the internal discipline and conduct of all five of these agencies.
The conventions of the system have been highly praised, and described as binding on men's actions. They are largely praiseworthy, but their binding character is much overrated. Certainly they are not sufficiently binding to deserve the name of constitution. This is not to say that a constitution cannot be unwritten. It is perfectly possible to have an unwritten constitution, but no constitution exists unless its unwritten practices are fairly clearly envisaged and are more binding than ordinary law. In Britain neither of these is true. There is no agreement even on fairly clear-cut issues. For example, every textbook asserts that the monarchy no longer has the power to veto legislation because that power has not been used since the reign of Queen Anne. Yet three of the four great authorities on constitutional law in the twentieth century (Sir William Anson, A. V. Dicey, and Arthur Berriedale Keith) were inclined to believe that the royal veto still existed.
The customs of the constitution are admittedly less binding than law; they are not enforceable in the courts; they are not clearly stated anywhere and, accordingly, their nature, binding or not, is left largely to the interpretation of the actor himself. Since so many of the relationships which are covered by conventions are based on precedents which are secret (such as relationships between monarchy and Cabinet, between Cabinet and political parties, between Cabinet and civil service, and all the relationships within the Cabinet) and since, in many cases, the secrecy of these precedents is protected by law under the Official Secrets Act, the binding nature of the conventions has become steadily weaker. Moreover, many of the so-called conventions which have been pointed out by writers on the subject were never true, but were inventions of the writers themselves. Among these was the convention that the monarch was impartial—a convention which accorded not at all with the conduct of Queen Victoria in whose reign the rule was explicitly stated by Walter Bagehot.
Another convention which appeared in textbooks for years was to the effect that Cabinets are overthrown by adverse votes in Parliament. In fact, there have been in the last two generations scores of cases where the Cabinet's desires met with an adverse vote, yet no Cabinet has resigned as a result of such a vote in over sixty years. As early as 1853 the Coalition government was defeated in Commons three times in one week, while as late as 1924 the Labour government was defeated ten times in seven months. It is seriously stated in many books that the Cabinet is responsible to the House of Commons, and controlled by it. This control is supposed to be exercised by the voting of the members of the Parliament with the understanding that the government will resign on an adverse vote and can be compelled to do so by the House of Commons' control over supply. This whole interpretation of the British system of government had little relationship to reality in the nineteenth century and has almost none in the twentieth century. In truth, the Cabinet is not controlled by the Commons, but the reverse.
As W. I. Jennings says in more than one place in his book Cabinet Government, "It is the Government that controls the House of Commons." This control is exercised through the Cabinet's control of the political party machinery. This power over the party machinery is exercised through control of party funds and above all by control of nominations to constituencies. The fact that there are no primary elections in Britain and that party candidates are named by the inner clique of the party is of tremendous importance and is the key to the control which the inner clique exercises over the House of Commons, yet it is rarely mentioned in books on the English political system.
In the United States the political parties are very decentralized, with all power flowing from the local districts inward to the central committee. Any man who wins the party nomination in a local primary and in the election can become a party leader, In Britain the situation is entirely different. The party control is almost completely centralized in the hands of a largely self-perpetuating inner clique, and this clique, because of the lack of primary elections, has power of approval over all candidates and can control party discipline by its ability to give the better constituencies to the more docile party members. The statement that the Commons controls the Cabinet, through its control over supply, is not valid, because the Cabinet, if it has a majority in Parliament, can force that majority, by using the party discipline, to pass a supply bill exactly as it forces it to pass other bills. This statement that control of supply provides control of the government was never used to justify the House of Lords' control over the Cabinet, although the Lords could refuse supply as well as the Commons could until 1911.
Another convention, generally stated in most emphatic terms, is concerned with the impartiality of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The validity of this convention can be judged by reading Hansard for 1939 and observing the way in which the Speaker protected the members of the government from adverse questioning. Such questioning of members of the government by the opposition in Parliament has frequently been pointed out as one of the guarantees of free government in Britain. In practice, it has become a guarantee of little value. The government can refuse to answer any question on the grounds of "public interest." To this decision there is no appeal. In addition, when questions are not refused, they are frequently answered in an evasive fashion which provides no enlightenment whatever. This was the regular procedure in answering questions on foreign policy in the period 1935-1940. In that period, questions were even answered by outright falsehoods without any possible redress available to the questioners.
Violation and distortion of the "conventions of the constitution" have steadily increased in the twentieth century. In 1921 a convention of over five hundred years' duration and another of over one hundred years' duration were set aside without a murmur. The former provided that the Convocations of the Church of England be simultaneous with the sessions of Parliament. The latter provided that the Royal Address be approved in council. Even more serious were the distortions of conventions. In 1931 the convention that the leader of the opposition be asked to form a government when the Cabinet resigns was seriously modified. In 1935 the rule regarding Cabinet solidarity was made meaningless. In 1937 the Conservative government even violated a constitutional convention with impunity by having George VI take the coronation oath in a form different from that provided by law.
This process of the weakening and dissolution of the so-called "constitution" went so far in the twentieth century that, by 1932, Sir Austen Chamberlain and Stanley (Lord) Baldwin were agreed that " 'unconstitutional' is a term applied in politics to the other fellow who does something that you do not like." This statement is too sweeping by far. A more accurate estimation of the situation would, perhaps, be worded thus: "'Unconstitutional' is any action likely to lead to public disorder in the immediate future or likely to affect adversely the government's chances at the polls in any future election."
The kind of act which could lead to such a result would be, in the first place, any open act of repression. More important, it would be, in the second place, any open act of "unfairness." This idea of "unfairness," or, on its positive side, "fair play," is a concept which is very largely Anglo-Saxon and which is largely based on the class structure of England as it existed up to the early twentieth century. This class structure was clearly envisioned in the minds of Englishmen and was so completely accepted that it was assumed without need to be explicitly stated. In this structure, Britain was regarded as divided into two groups the "classes" and the "masses." The "classes" were the ones who had leisure. This meant that they had property and income. On this basis, they did not need to work for a living; they obtained an education in a separate and expensive system; they married within their own class; they had a distinctive accent; and, above all, they had a distinctive attitude. This attitude was based on the training provided in the special educational system of the "classes." It might be summed up in the statement that "methods are more important than goals" except that this group regarded the methods and manners in which they acted as goals or closely related to goals.
This educational system was based on three great negatives, not easily understood by Americans. These were (a) education must not be vocational—that is, aimed at assisting one to make living; (b) education is not aimed directly at creating or training the intelligence; and (c) education is not aimed at finding the "Truth." On its positive side, the system of education of the "classes" displayed its real nature on the school level rather than on the university level. It aimed at developing a moral outlook, a respect for traditions, qualities of leadership and cooperation, and above all, perhaps, that ability for cooperation in competition summed up in the English idea of "sport" and "playing the game." Because of the restricted numbers of the upper class in Britain, these attitudes applied chiefly to one another, and did not necessarily apply to foreigners or even to the masses. They applied to people who "belonged," and not to all human beings.
The functioning of the British parliamentary system depended to a very great extent on the possession by the members of Parliament of this attitude. Until the end of the nineteenth century, most members of Parliament, coming from the same class background, had this attitude. Since then, it has been lost to a considerable extent, in the Conservative Party by the grow-in" influence of businessmen and the declining influence of the older aristocracy, and in the Labour Party by the fact that the majority of its members were never subjected to the formative influences, especially educational, which created this attitude. The loss of this attitude, however, has not been so rapid as one might expect because, in the first place, plutocracy in England has always been closer to aristocracy than in other countries, there being no sharp divisions between the two, with the result that the aristocracy of today is merely the plutocracy of yesterday, admission from the latter group to the former being generally accomplished in one generation through the financial ability of the first generation of wealth to send its children to the select schools of the aristocrats. This process is so general that the number of real aristocrats in Britain is very small, although the number of nominal aristocrats is quite large. This can be observed in the fact that in 1938 more than half of the peerage had been created since 1906, the overwhelming majority for no other reason than recognition of their ability to acquire a fortune. These new peers have aped the older aristocrats, and this has had the effect of keeping the attitudes which allow the constitution to function alive, although it must be confessed that the new businessmen leaders of the Conservative Party (like Baldwin or Chamberlain) displayed a more complete grasp of the forms than of the substance of the old aristocratic attitude.
Within the Labour Party, the majority of whose members have had no opportunity to acquire the attitude necessary to allow the proper functioning of the constitutional system, the problem has been alleviated to a considerable extent by the fact that the members of that party who are of working-class origin have given very wide influence to the small group of party members who were of upper-class origin. The working-class members of the Labour Party have proved very susceptible to what is called the "aristocratic embrace." That is, they have shown a deference to the points of view and above all to the manners and position of the upper classes, and have done so to a degree which would be impossible to find in any country where class lines were not so rigidly drawn as in England. The working-class members of the Labour Party, when they entered Parliament, did not reject the old upper-class methods of action, but on the contrary sought to win upperclass approval and to retain lower-class support by demonstrating that they could run the government as well as the upper class had always done. Thus the business-class leaders of the Conservative Party and the working-class leaders of the Labour Party both consciously sought to imitate the older aristocratic attitude which had given rise to the conventions of parliamentary government. Both failed in essence rather than in appearance, and both failed from lack of real feeling for the aristocratic pattern of thought rather than from any desire to change the conventions.
The chief element in the old attitude which both groups failed to grasp was the one which we have attempted to describe as emphasis on methods rather than on goals. In government, as in tennis or cricket, the old attitude desired to win but desired to win within the rules, and this last feeling was so strong as to lead a casual observer to believe that they lacked a desire to win. In parliamentary life this appeared as a diffidence to the possession of high office or to the achievement of any specific item of legislation. If these could not be obtained within the existing rules, they were gracefully abandoned.
This attitude was based to a very considerable degree on the fact that the members of both government and opposition were, in the time of Queen Victoria, from the same small class, subjected to the same formative influences, and with the same or similar economic interests. Forty out of 69 Cabinet ministers were sons of peers in 1885-1905, while 25 out of 51 were sons of peers in 1906-1916. To resign from office or to withdraw any item of projected legislation did not, at that time, represent any surrender to an adverse group. This was not an attitude which either the new business leaders of the Conservative Party or the working-class leaders of the Labour Party could accept. Their goals were for them of such immediate concrete value to their own interests that they could not regard with equanimity loss of office or defeat of their legislative program. It was this new attitude which made possible at one and the same time the great increase in party discipline and the willingness to cut corners where possible in interpreting the constitutional conventions.
The custom of the constitution thus rests only on public opinion as a sanction, and any British government can do what it wishes so long as it does not enrage public opinion. This sanction is not nearly so effective as might appear at first glance, because of the difficulty which public opinion in England has in obtaining information and also because public opinion in England can express itself only through the ballot, and the people cannot get an election unless the government wishes to give one. All the government needs to do is to prevent an election until public opinion subsides. This can be done by the Conservative much more easily than by the Labour Party because the Conservatives have had a wider control over the avenues of publicity through which public opinion is aroused and because the actions of a Conservative government can be kept secret more easily, since the Conservatives have always controlled the chief other parts of the government which might challenge a government's actions. The first point will be discussed later. The second point can be amplified here.
The Commons and Cabinet are generally controlled by the same party, with the latter controlling the former through the party machinery. This group can do what it wishes with a minimum of publicity or public protest only if the other three parts of the government cooperate. These three parts are the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the civil service. Since all three of these have been traditionally Conservative, a Conservative government could generally count on their cooperation. This meant that a Conservative government, on coming to power, had control of all five parts of the government, while a Labour government had control of only two. This does not necessarily mean that the Conservatives would use their control of the monarchy, the Lords, or the civil service to obstruct a Labour-controlled Commons, since the Conservatives have generally been convinced of the long-run value to be derived from a reluctance to antagonize public opinion. In 1931 they abandoned the gold standard, without any real effort to defend it, as a result of the mutiny in the British fleet; in 1935 they used their control of the British Broadcasting Corporation relatively fairly as a result of public protests at the very unfair way they had used it in 1931.
Nonetheless, the Conservative control of these other parts of the government at a time when they do not control the government have been very helpful to them. In 1914, for example, the army refused to enforce the Irish Home Rule bill which had been passed after two general elections and had been approved three times by the Commons. The army, almost completely Conservative, not only refused to enforce this bill but made it clear that in any showdown on the issue its sympathies would be with the opponents of the bill. This refusal to obey the Liberal government of the day was justified on the grounds that the army's oath of loyalty was to the king and not to the government. This might well be a precedent for a rule that a Conservative minority could refuse to obey the law and could not be forced by the army, a privilege not shared by a Liberal or Labour minority.
Again, in 1931, George V, on the resignation of MacDonald, did not call upon the leader of the opposition to form a government, but encouraged an intrigue which tried to split the Labour Party and did succeed in breaking off 15 out of 289 Labour M.P.'s. MacDonald, who then represented no party, became prime minister on a majority borrowed by the king from another party. That the king would have cooperated in such an intrigue in favor of the Labour Party is very dubious. The only satisfaction which Labour had was in defeating the sessionists in the election of 1935, but this did little to overcome the injury inflicted m 1931.
Or again, in 1929 1931, under the second Labour government, the Conservative House of Lords prevented the enactment of all important legislation, including a Trades Disputes Act, the long-needed democratization of education, and electoral reform. For any Act to pass over the opposition of the Lords, it must, since 1911, be voted in the Commons three times in identical form in not less than two years. This meant that the Conservatives have a suspensive veto over the legislation of opposition governments. The importance of this power can be seen in the fact that very few bills ever became law without the Lords' consent.
Unlike the government of the United States, that of England involves no elements of federalism or separation of powers. The central government can govern in respect to any subject no matter how local or detailed, although in practice it leaves considerable autonomy to counties, boroughs, and other local units. This autonomy is more evident in regard to administration or execution of laws than it is in regard to legislation, the central government usually blocking out its wishes in general legislation, leaving the local authorities to fill in the gaps with administrative regulations and to execute the whole under supervision of the central authorities. However, the needs of local government, as well as the broadening scope of general governmental regulation, have made a congestion of legislation in Parliament so great that no member can be expected to know much about most bills. Fortunately, this is not expected. Voting in Parliament is on strict party lines, and members are expected to vote as their party whips tell them to, and are not expected to understand the contents of the bills for which they are voting.
There is also no separation of powers. The Cabinet is the government and "is expected to govern not only within the law, but, if necessary, without law or even against the law." There is no limit on retroactive legislation, and no Cabinet or Parliament can bind its successors. The Cabinet can enter into war without Parliament's permission or approval. It can expend money without Parliament's approval or knowledge, as was done in 1847 for relief in Ireland or in 1783-1883 in regard to secret-service money. It can authorize violations of the law, as was done in regard to payments of the Bank of England in 1847, in 1857, or in 1931. It can make treaties or other binding international agreements without the consent or knowledge of Parliament, as was done in 1900, 1902, and 1912.
The idea, widely held in the United States, that the Commons is a legislative body and the Cabinet is an executive body is not true. As far as legislation is concerned, Britain has a multi-cameral system in which the Cabinet is the second chamber, the Commons the third, and the Lords the fourth. Of these three the Conservatives always have control of the Lords, and the same party generally has control of the other two. Legislation originates in the meetings of the inner clique of the party, acting as a first chamber. If accepted by the Cabinet it passes the Commons almost automatically. The Commons, rather than a legislative body, is the public forum in which the party announces the decisions it has made in secret party and Cabinet meetings and allows the opposition to criticize in order to test public reactions. Thus all bills come from the Cabinet, and rejection in Commons is almost unthinkable, unless the Cabinet grants to party members in Commons freedom of action. Even then this freedom usually extends only to the right to abstain from voting, and does not allow the member to vote against a bill. Although machinery for private members' bills exists similar to that in the United States, such bills rarely become law. The only significant one in recent years was an unusual hill of an unusual member from an unusual constituency. It was the divorce law of A. P. Herbert, famous humorist, and Member from Oxford.
This situation is sometimes called "Cabinet dictatorship." It could more accurately be called "party dictatorship." Both the Cabinet and the Commons are controlled by the party, or more accurately by the inner clique of the party. This inner clique may hold seats in the Cabinet, hut the two are not the same thing, since members of one may not be members of the other, and the gradations of power are hy no means the same in one as in the other. The inner clique of the Conservative Party sometimes meets in the Carlton Club, while the inner clique of the Labour Party meets in a trade-union conclave, frequently in Transport House.
The implication here that the Cabinet controls the Commons, that Commons will never overthrow the Cabinet, and that it will not reject legislation acceptable to the Cabinet is based on the assumption that the party has a majority in Commons. A minority government, usually a coalition government, has no such control over Commons because its powers of party discipline are very weak over any party but its own. With other parties than its own, a government has few powers beyond the threat of dissolution, which, while it does threaten members of all parties with the expenses of an election and the possibility of losing their seats, is a double-edged weapon that may cut both ways. Over its own members the Cabinet has the additional powers arising from control of nominations to constituencies, party funds, and appointment to government offices.
It is not generally recognized that there have been many restrictions on democracy in Britain, most of them in nonpolitical spheres of life, but nonetheless effectively curtailing the exercises of democracy in the political sphere. These restrictions were considerably worse than in the United States, because in the latter country they have been made on a variety of grounds (racial, religious, national, and so on), and because they are recognized as being unjust and are the occasion for feelings of guilt from those whom they benefit and loud protests from others. In Britain the restrictions were almost all based on one criterion, possession of wealth, and have been the occasion for relatively mild objections, because in Britain the idea that wealth entitled its possessor to special privileges and special duties was generally accepted, even by the non-possessing masses. It was this lack of objections from both classes and masses which concealed the fact that Britain, until 1945, was the world's greatest plutocracy.
Plutocracy restricted democracy in Britain to a notable but decreasing degree in the period before 1 945. This was more evident in social or economic life than in political life, and in politics it was more evident in local than in national affairs. In political life local government had a restricted suffrage (householders and their wives; in some localities only half as many as in national suffrage). This restricted suffrage elected members of local boards or councils whose activities were unpaid, thus restricting these posts to those who had leisure (that is, wealth). In local government the old English tradition that the best government is government by amateurs (which is equivalent to saying that the best government is government by the well-to-do) still survived. These amateurs were aided by paid secretaries and assistants who had the necessary technical knowledge to handle the problems that arose. These technicians were also of the middle or upper classes because of the expense of the educational system which screened out the poor on the lower levels of schooling. The paid expert who advised the unpaid members of the borough councils was the town clerk. The paid expert who advised the unpaid justice of the peace in the administration of local justice was the clerk of Quarter Sessions.
In national politics the suffrage was wide and practically unrestricted, but the upper classes possessed a right to vote twice because they were allowed to vote at their place of business or their university as well as at their residence. Members of Parliament were, for years, restricted to the well-to-do by the expenses of office and by the fact that Members of Parliament were unpaid. Payment for Members was adopted first in 1911 and fixed at ฃ400 a year. This was raised in 1936 to ฃ500 with an additional ฃ100 for expenses. But the Member's expenses in Commons were so great that a Conservative Member would need at least ฃ 1,000 a year additional income and a Labour Member would need about ฃ350 a year additional. Moreover, each candidate for Parliament must post a deposit of ฃ150, which is forfeited if he does not receive over one-eighth of the total vote. This deposit amounted to more than the total annual income of about three-quarters of all English families in 1938, and provided another barrier to the great majority if they aspired to run for Parliament. As a result of these monetary barriers, the overwhelming mass of Englishmen could not participate actively in politics unless they could find an outside source of funds. By finding this source in labor unions in the period after 1890, they created a new political party organized on a class basis, and forced the merger of the two existing parties into a single group also organized on a class basis.
From this point of view the history of English political parties could be divided into three periods at the years of 1915 and 1924. Before 1915 the two major parties were the Liberals and the Unionists (Conservatives); after 1924 the two major parties were the Conservatives and Labour; the decade 1915-1924 represented a period in which the Liberal Party was disrupted and weakened.
Until 1915 the two parties represented the same social class—the small group known as "society." In fact both parties—Conservatives and Liberals—were controlled from at least 1866 by the same small clique of "society." This clique consisted of no more than half-a-dozen chief families, their relatives and allies, reinforced by an occasional recruit from outside. These recruits were generally obtained from the select educational system of "society," being found in Balliol or New College at Oxford or at Trinity College, Cambridge, where they first attracted attention, either by scholarship or in the debates of the Oxford or Cambridge Union. Having attracted attention in this fashion, the new recruits were given opportunities to prove their value to the inner clique of each party, and generally ended by marrying into one of the families which dominated these cliques.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the inner clique of the Conservative Party was made up almost completely of the Cecil family and their relatives. This was a result of the tremendous influence of Lord Salisbury. The only important autonomous powers in the Conservative Party in 1900 were those leaders of the Liberal Party who had come over to the Conservatives as a result of their opposition to Gladstone's project for Home Rule in Ireland. Of these, the most important example was the Cavendish family (dukes of Devonshire and marquesses of Hartington). As a result of this split in the Liberal Party, that party was subjected to a less centralized control, and welcomed into its inner clique many newer industrialists who had the money to support it.
Since 1915 the Liberal Party has almost disappeared, its place being taken by the Labour Party, whose discipline and centralized control bears comparison with that of the Conservative Party. The chief differences between the two existing parties are to be found in methods of recruitment, the inner clique of the Conservative Party being built on the basis of family, social, and educational connections, while that of the Labour Party is derived from the hard school of trade-union politics with a seasoning of upper-class renegades. In either case the ordinary voter in Britain, in 1960 as in 1900, was offered a choice between parties whose programs and candidates were largely the creations of two small self-perpetuating groups over which he (the ordinary voter) had no real control. The chief change from 1900 to 1960 was to be found in the fact that in 1900 the two parties represented a small and exclusive social class remote from the voters' experience, while in 1960 the two parties represented two antithetical social classes which were both remote from the average voter.
Thus, the lack of primary elections and the insufficient payment for Members of Parliament have combined to give Britain two political parties, organized on a class basis, neither of which represents the middle classes. This is quite different from the United States, where both the major parties are middle-class parties, and where geographic, religious, and traditional influences are more important than class influences in determining party membership. In America the prevalent middle-class ideology of the people could easily dominate the parties because both parties are decentralized and undisciplined. In Britain, where both parties are centralized and disciplined and controlled by opposing social extremes, the middle-class voter finds no party which he can regard as representative of himself or responsive to his views. As a result, by the 1930's the mass of the middle classes was split: some provided continued support for the Liberal Party, although this was recognized as relatively hopeless; some voted Conservative as the only way to avoid Socialism, although they objected to the proto-Fascism of many Conservatives; others turned to the Labour Party in the hope of broadening it into a real progressive party.
A study of the two parties is revealing. The Conservative Party represented a small clique of the very wealthy, the one-half percent who had incomes of over ฃ2,000 a year. These knew each other well, were related by marriage, went to the same expensive schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, controlled the civil service, the empire, the professions, the army, and big business. Although only one-third of one percent of Englishmen went to Eton or Harrow, 43 percent of Conservative members of Parliament in 1909 had gone to these schools, and in 1938 the figure was still about 32 percent. In this last year ( 1938) there were 415 Conservative M.P.'s. Of these, 236 had titles and 145 had relatives in the House of Lords. In the Cabinet which made the Munich Agreement were one marquess, three earls, two viscounts, one baron, and one baronet. Of the 415 Conservative M.P.'s at that time, only one had had poor parents, and only four others came from the lower classes. As Duff Cooper (Viscount Norwich) said in March, 1939, "It is as difficult for a poor man, if he be a Conservative, to get into the House of Commons as it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle." This was caused by the great expenses entailed in holding the position of Conservative M.P. Candidates of that party u ere expected to make substantial contributions to the party. The cost of an electoral campaign was ฃ400 to ฃ1,200. Those candidates who paid the whole expense and in addition contributed ฃ 500 to ฃ1,000 a year to the party fund were given the safest seats. Those who paid about half of these sums were given the right to “stand” in less desirable constituencies.
Once elected, a Conservative M. P. was expected to be a member of one of the exclusive London clubs where many important party decisions were formed. Of these clubs the Carlton, which had over half of the Conservative M. P.’s as members in 1938, cost a ฃ40 entrance fee and 17 guineas annual dues. The City of London Club, with a considerable group of Conservatives on its rolls, had an entrance fee of 100 guineas and annual dues of 15 guineas. Of 33 Conservative M. .’s who died leaving recorded wills in the period before 1938 all left at least ฃ1,000, while the gross estate of the group was ฃ7,199,151. This gave an average estate of ฃ218,156. Of these 33, 14 left over ฃ10,000 each; 14 more left from ฃ20,000 to ฃ100,000; and only 5 left between ฃ10,000 and ฃ20,000.
Of the 415 M. P.’s on the Conservative side in 1938, 44 percent (or 181) were corporation directors, and these held 775 directorships. As a result, almost every important corporation had a director who was a Conservative M. P. These M. P.’s did not hesitate to reward themselves, their companies, and their associates with political favors. In eight years (1931-1939) thirteen directors of the "Big Five banks" and two directors of the Bank of England were raised to the peerage by the Conservative government. Of ninety peers created in seven years (1931-1938), thirty-five were directors of insurance companies. In 1935 Walter Runciman, as president of the Board of Trade, introduced a bill to grant a subsidy of ฃ2 million to tramp merchant vessels. He administered this fund, and in two years gave ฃ92,567 to his father's company (Moor Line, Ltd.) in which he held 21,000 shares of stock himself. When his father died in 1937 he left a fortune of ฃ2,388,453. There is relatively little objection to activities of this kind in England. Once having accepted the fact that politicians are the direct representatives of economic interests, there would be little point in objecting when politicians act in accordance with their economic interests. In 1926 Prime Minister Baldwin had a direct personal interest in the outcome of the coal strike and of the General Strike, since he held 194,526 ordinary shares and 37,591 preferred shares of Baldwin's, Ltd., which owned great collieries.
The situation of 1938 was not much different from the situation of forty years earlier in 1898 except that, at the earlier date, the Conservative Party was subject to an even more centralized control, and the influence of industrial wealth was subordinated to the influence of landed wealth. In 1898 the Conservative Party was little more than a tool of the Cecil family. The prime minister and leader of the party was Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil (Lord Salisbury), who had been prime minister three times for a total of fourteen years when he retired in 1902. On retirement he handed over the leadership of the party as well as the prime minister's chair to his nephew, prot้g้, and hand-picked successor, Arthur James Balfour. In the ten years of the Salisbury-Balfour government between 1895 and 1905, the Cabinet was packed with relatives and close associates of the Cecil family. Salisbury himself was prime minister and foreign secretary (1895-1902); his nephew, Arthur Balfour, was first lord of the Treasury and leader in Commons (1895-1902) before becoming prime minister (1902-1905); another nephew, Gerald Balfour (brother of Arthur), was chief secretary of Ireland (1895-1900) and president of the Board of Trade (1900-1905); Lord Salisbury's son and heir, Viscount Cranborne, was undersecretary for foreign affairs (1900-1903) and lord privy seal (1903-1905); Salisbury's son-in-law, Lord Selborne, was undersecretary for the colonies (18951900) and first lord of the Admiralty (1900 1905); Walter Long, a prot้g้ of Salisbury, was president of the Board of Agriculture (18951900), president of the Local Government Board (1900-1905), and chief secretary for Ireland (1905-1906); George Curzon, another prot้g้ of Salisbury, was undersecretary for foreign affairs (1895-1898) and viceroy of India (1899-1905); Alfred Lyttelton, Arthur Balfour's most intimate friend and the man who would have been his brother-in-law except for his sister's premature death in 1875 (an event which kept Balfour a bachelor for the rest of his life), was secretary of state for the colonies; Neville Lyttelton, brother of Alfred Lyttelton, was commander in chief in South Africa and chief of the General Staff (1902-1908). In addition, a dozen close relatives of Salisbury, including three sons and various nephews, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, and a score or more of prot้g้s and agents were in Parliament or in various administrative positions, either then or later.
The Liberal Party was not so closely controlled as was the Conservative Party, but its chief leaders were on intimate relations of friendship and cooperation with the Cecil crowd. This was especially true of Lord Rosebery, who was prime minister in 1894-1895, and H. H. Asquith, who was prime minister in 1905-1915. Asquith married Margot Tennant, sister-in-law of Alfred Lyttelton, in 1894, and had Balfour as his chief witness at the ceremony. Lyttelton was the nephew of Gladstone as Balfour was the nephew of Salisbury. In later years Balfour was the closest friend of the Asquiths even when they were leaders of two opposing parties. Balfour frequently joked of the fact that he had dinner, with champagne, at Asquith's house before going to the House of Commons to attack his host's policies. On Thursday evenings when Asquith dined at his club, Balfour had dinner with Mrs. Asquith, and the prime minister would stop by to pick her up on his way home. It was on an evening of this kind that Balfour and Mrs. Asquith agreed to persuade Asquith to write his memoirs. Asquith had been almost as friendly with another powerful leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Milner. These two ate their meals together for four years at the scholarship table in Balliol in the 1870's, and had supper together on Sunday evenings in the 1880's. Mrs. Asquith had a romantic interlude with Milner in Egypt in 1892 when she was still Margot Tennant, and later claimed that she got him his appointment as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue by writing to Balfour from Egypt to ask for this favor. In 1908, according to W. T. Stead, Mrs. Asquith had three portraits over her bed: those of Rosebery, Balfour, and Milner.
After the disruption of the Liberal Party and the beginnings of the rise of the Labour Party, many members of the Liberal Party went over to the Conservatives. Relationships between the two parties became somewhat less close, and the control of the Liberal Party became considerably less centralized..
The Labour Party arose because of the discovery by the masses of the people that their vote did not avail them much so long as the only choice of candidates was, as Bagehot put it, “Which of two rich people will you choose?” The issue came to a head because of a judicial decision. In the Taff Vale case (1901) the courts decided that labor unions were responsible for damages resulting from their economic actions. To overcome this decision, which would have crippled the unions by making them financially responsible for the damages arising from strikes the working classes turned to political action by setting up their own candidates in their own party. The funds needed were provided by the labor unions, with the result that the Labour Party became for all practical purposes, the Trade-Union Party.
The Labour Party is, in theory, somewhat more democratic than the Conservatives, since its annual party conference is the final authority on policies and candidates. But, since unions provide the bulk of the members and the party funds, the unions dominate the party. In 1936, when the party membership was 2,444,357, almost 2 million of these were indirect members through the 7 3 trade unions which belonged to the party. Between party conferences, administration of the party’s work was in the hands of the National Executive Committee, 17 of whose 25 members could be elected by the unions.
Because of its working-class basis, the Labour Party was generally short of funds. In the 1930's it spent on the average ฃ300,000 a year, compared to ฃ600,000 a year for the Conservatives and ฃ400,000 a year for the Liberals. In the election of 1931 the Labour Party spent ฃ81,629 in campaigning, compared to the ฃ472,476 spent by non-Labour candidates. In the election of 1935 the two figures were ฃ196,819 and ฃ526,274.
This shortage of money on the part of the Labour Party was made worse by the fact that the Labour Party, especially when out of office, had difficulty in getting its side of the story to the British people. In 1936 the Labour Party had support from one morning paper with a circulation of two million copies, while the Conservatives had the support of six morning papers with a circulation of over six million copies. Of three evening papers, two supported the Conservatives and one supported the Liberals. Of ten Sunday papers with an aggregate circulation of 13,130,000 copies, seven with a circulation of 6,330,000 supported the Conservatives, one with a circulation of 400,000 supported Labour, and the two largest, with a circulation of 6,300,000, were independent.
The radio, which is the second most important instrument of publicity, is a government monopoly, created by the Conservatives in 1926. In theory it is controlled by an impartial board, but this board was created by Conservatives, is generally manned by Conservative sympathizers, and permits the government to make certain administrative decisions. Sometimes it is run fairly; sometimes it is run very unfairly. In the election of 1931 the government allowed fifteen periods on the B.B.C. for political campaigning; it took eleven periods for the Conservatives, gave three to Labour, and one to the Liberals. In 1935, somewhat more fairly, it permitted twelve periods, taking five for the Conservatives, and giving four to Labour and three to the Liberals.
Since the two chief parties in England do not represent the ordinary Englishman, but instead represent the entrenched economic interests directly, there is relatively little “lobbying,” or attempting to influence legislators by political or economic pressure. This is quite different from the United States where lobbyists sometimes seem to be the only objects on a congressman’s horizon. In England, where the economic interests are directly represented in Parliament, lobbying comes chiefly from groups influenced by non-economic issues like divorce, women's suffrage, antivivisection, and so on.
On the whole, if we were to look at politics Britain would appear at least as democratic as America. It is only when we look outside the sphere of politics to the social or economic spheres that we see that the old division into two classes was maintained relatively rigidly until 1939. The privileged classes were generally able to maintain their grasp on the professions, the educational system, the army, the civil service, and so on, even when they were losing their grasp on the political system. This was possible because training in the expensive educational system of the upper classes continued to be the chief requirement for entrance into these nonpolitical activities. The educational system, as we have said, was divided roughly into two parts: (a) one part for the ruling classes consisted of preparatory schools, the so-called "public schools" and the old universities; and (b) the other for the masses of the people consisted of public elementary schools, the secondary schools, and the newer universities. This division is not absolutely rigid, especially on the university level, but it is quite rigid on the lower level.
As Sir Cyril Norwood, headmaster of Harrow School, said, "The boy of ability from a poor home may get to Oxford—it is possible, though not easy—but he has no chance to enter Eton." A private school (called "public school") cost about ฃ300 a year in 1938, a sum which exceeded the annual income of more than 80 percent of English families. The masses of the people obtained free primary schools only after 1870, and secondary schools in 1902 and 1918. These latter, however, were not free, although there were many part-payment places, and less than 10 percent of children entered a secondary school in 1938. On the highest level of education, the twelve universities of England and Wales had only 40,000 students in 1938. In the United States, at the same period, the number of students on the university level was 1,350,000, a difference which was only partially compensated by the fact that the population of the United States was four times as numerous as that of Britain.
The educational system of Britain has been the chief bottleneck by which the masses of the people are excluded from positions of power and responsibility. It acts as a restriction because the type of education which leads to such positions is far too expensive for any but an insignificant fraction of Englishmen to be able to afford it. Thus, while Britain had political democracy at a fairly early period it was the last civilized country to obtain a modern system of education. In fact, it is still in process of obtaining such a system. This is in sharp contrast with the situation in France where the amount of education obtainable by a student is limited only by his ability and willingness to work; and positions of importance in the civil service, the professions, and even business are available to those who do best in the educational system. In Britain ability to a considerable degree commands positions for those who pass through the educational system, but the right to do this is based very largely on ability to pay.
The civil service in Britain in 1939 was uniform in all the regular departments of the government, and was divided into three levels. From the bottom up, these were known as "clerical," "executive," and "administrative." Promotion from one level to another was not impossible but was so rare that the vast majority remained in the level they first entered. The most important level—the administrative—was reserved to the well-to-do classes by its method of recruitment. It was open in theory to everyone through a competitive examination. This examination, however, could be taken only by those who were twenty-two or twenty-four years old; it gave 300 out of 1,300 points for the oral part; and the written part was based on liberal subjects as taught in the "public schools" and universities. All this served to restrict admission to the administrative level of the civil service to young men whose families could afford to bring them up in the proper fashion. In 1930, of 56 civil servants in posts commanding salaries of over ฃ2,000 each, only 9 did not have the upperclass background of Oxford, Cambridge, or a "public school." This policy of restricting was most evident in the Foreign Office, where from 1851 to 1919 every person on the administrative level was from Oxford or Cambridge, one-third were from Eton, and one-third had titles. The use of educational restrictions as a method for reserving the upper ranks of the civil service to the well-to-do was clearly deliberate and was, on the whole, successful in achieving the purpose intended. As a result, as H. R. G. Greaves wrote, "The persons to be found in the principal positions of the civil service in 1850, 1900, or 1930 did not differ markedly in type.”
A similar situation was to be found elsewhere. In the army in peacetime the officers were almost entirely from the upper class. They obtained commissions by an examination, largely oral, based on study at the universities or at the two military schools (Sandhurst and Woolwich) which cost ฃ300 a year to attend. The pay was small, with heavy deductions for living expenses, so that an officer needed a private income. The navy was somewhat more democratic, although the proportion of officers risen from the ranks decreased from 10.9 percent in 1931 to 3.3 percent in 1936. The naval school (Dartmouth) was very expensive, costing ฃ788 a year.
The clergy of the Established Church represented the same social class, since, until well into the twentieth century, the upper ranks of the clergy were named by the government, and the lower acquired their appointments by purchase. As a consequence, in the 1920's, 71 of 80 bishops were from expensive "public" schools.
The various members of the legal profession were also very likely to be of the upper class, because legal training was long and expensive. This training generally began at one of the older universities. For admission to the bar a man had to be a member of one of the four Inns of Court (Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn). These are private clubs to which admission was by nomination of members and payment of large admission fees varying from ฃ58 to ฃ208. A member was expected to eat dinners in his inn twenty-four nights a year for three years before being called to the bar. Then he was expected to begin practice by acting as "devil" (clerk) to a barrister for a couple of years. During these years the "devil," even in 1950, paid 100 guineas to the barrister, ฃ130 a year for his share of the rent, 50 guineas a year to the clerk, 30 guineas for his wig and gown, and numerous other "incidental" expenses. Accordingly, it is not surprising to find that sons of wage earners formed less than 1 percent of the admissions to Lincoln's Inn in 1886-1923 and were only 1.8 percent in the period 1923-1927. In effect, then, a member of the bar might well pass five years after receiving the bachelor's degree before he could reach a position where he could begin to earn a living.
As a result, members of the bar have been, until very recently, almost entirely from the well-to-do classes. Since judges are appointed exclusively from barristers with from seven to fifteen years of experience, the judicial system has also been monopolized by the upper classes. In 1926, 139 out of 181 judges were graduates of expensive "public" schools. The same conditions also exist on the lower levels of justice where the justice of the peace, an unpaid official for whom no legal training was required, was the chief figure. These justices of the peace have always been offshoots of the "county families" of well-to-do persons.
With a system of legal administration and justice such as this, the process of obtaining justice has been complex, slow and, above all, expensive. As a result, only the fairly well-to-do can defend their rights in a civil suit and, if the less well-to-do go to court at all, they find themselves in an atmosphere completely dominated by members of the upper classes. Accordingly, the ordinary Englishman (over 90 percent of the total) avoid all litigation even when he has right on his side.
As a result of the conditions just described, the political history of Britain in the twentieth century has been a long struggle for equality. This struggle has appeared in various forms: as an effort to extend educational opportunities, as an effort to extend health and economic security to the lo\ver classes, as an effort to open the upper ranks of the civil services and the defense forces, as well as the House of Commons itself, to those classes which lacked the advantages in leisure and training provided by wealth..
In this struggle for equality the goal has been sought by leveling the upper classes down as well as by leveling the lo\ver classes up. The privileges of the former have been curtailed, especially by taxation and more impersonal methods of recruitment to office, at the same time that the opportunities of the latter have been extended by widening educational advantages and by the practice of granting a living payment for services rendered. In this struggle, revolutionary changes have been made by the Liberal and Conservative parties as well as by the Labour Party, each hoping to be rewarded by the gratitude of the masses of the people at the polls.
Until 1915 the movement toward equality was generally supported by the Liberals and resisted by the Conservatives, although this alignment was not invariable. Since 1923 the movement toward equality has generally been supported by Labour and resisted by the Conservatives. Here, again, the alignment has not been invariable. Both before and after World War I there have been very progressive Conservatives and very reactionary Liberals or Labourites. Moreover, since 1924 the two major parties have, as already mentioned, come to represent two opposing vested economic interests—the interests of entrenched wealth and of entrenched unionism. This has resulted in making the positions of the two parties considerably more antithetical than they were in the period before 1915 when both major parties represented the same segment of society. Moreover, since 1923, as the alienation of the two parties on the political scene has become steadily wider, there has arisen a tendency for each to take on the form of an exploiting group in regard to the great middle class of consumers and unorganized workers.
In the two decades, 1925-1945, it seemed that the efforts of men like Lord Melchett and others would create a situation where monopolized industry and unionized labor would cooperate on a program of restricted output, high wages, high prices, and social protection of both profits and employment to the jeopardy of all economic progress and to the injury of the middle and professional classes who were not members of the phalanxed ranks of cartelized industry and unionized labor. Although this program did succeed to the point where much of Britain's industrial plant was obsolescent, inefficient, and inadequate, this trend was partly ended by the influence of the war but chiefly by the victory of the Labour Party in the election of 1945.
As a result of this victory, the Labour Party began an assault on certain segments of heavy industry in order to nationalize them, and initiated a program of socialized public services (like public medicine, subsidized low food prices, and so on) which broke the tacit understanding with monopolized industry and began to distribute the benefits of the socialized economy outside the ranks of trade-union members to other members of the lower and lower middle classes. The result was to create a new society of privilege which from some points of view looked like an inversion of the society of privilege of 1900. The new privileged were the trade-union elite of the working classes and the older privileged of the upper classes, while the exploited were the middle class of white-collar and professional workers who did not have the unionized strength of the one or the invested wealth of the other.
Chapter 30: Political History to 1939
The domestic political history of Britain in the twentieth century could well be divided into three parts by the two great wars with their experience of coalition or "national" government.
In the first period ten years of Conservative government (in which Salisbury was succeeded by Balfour) were followed by ten years of Liberal government (in which Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Asquith). The dates of these four governments are as follows:
A. Conservative
1. Lord Salisbury, 1895-1902
2. Arthur J. Balfour, 1902-1905
B. Liberal
1. Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 1905-1908
2. Herbert Henry Asquith, 1908-1915
The government of Balfour was really nothing but a continuation of the Salisbury government, but it was a pale imitation. Balfour was far from being the strong personality his uncle was, and he had to face the consequences of the Salisbury government's mistakes. In addition he had to face the beginnings of all those problems of the twentieth century which had not been dreamed of during the great days of Victoria: problems of imperialist aggressions, of labor agitation, of class animosities, of economic discontents.
The sorry record of the British war administration during the Boer War led to the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee of Investigation under Lord Esher. The report of this group resulted in a whole series of reforms which left Britain far better equipped to stand the shocks of 1914-1918 than she would otherwise have been. Not the least of the consequences of the Committee of Investigation was the creation, in 1904, of the Committee on Imperial Defence. On this latter committee Esher was, for a quarter-century, the chief figure, and as a result of his influence, there emerged from the obscurity of its secretarial staff two able public servants: (Sir) Ernest Swinton, later inventor of the tank, and Maurice (Lord) Hankey, later secretary at the Peace Conference of 1919 and for twenty years secretary to the Cabinet.
The Balfour government was weakened by several other actions. The decision to import Chinese coolies to work the mines of the Transvaal in 1903 led to widespread charges of reviving slavery. The Education Act of 1902, which sought to extend the availability of secondary education by shifting its control from school boards to local government units and by providing local taxes (rates) to support private, church-controlled schools, was denounced by Nonconformists as a scheme to force them to contribute to support Anglican education. The efforts of Joseph Chamberlain, Balfour's secretary of state for the colonies, to abandon the traditional policy of "free trade" for a program of tariff reform based on imperial preference succeeded only in splitting the Cabinet, Chamberlain resigning in 1903 in order to agitate for his chosen goal, while the Duke of Devonshire and three other ministers resigned in protest at Balfour's failure to reject Chamberlain's proposals completely.
Added to these difficulties, Balfour faced a great ground-swell of labor discontent from the fact that the wage-earning segment of the population experienced a decline in standards of living in the period 1898-1906 because of the inability of wages to keep up with the rise in prices. This inability arose very largely from the decision of the House of Lords, acting as a Supreme Court, in the Taff Vale case of 1902, that labor unions could be sued for damages arising from the actions of their members in strikes. Deprived in this fashion of their chief economic weapon, the workers fell back on their chief political weapon, the ballot, with the result that the Labour membership of the House of Commons increased from three to forty-three seats in the election of 6.
This election of 1906 was a Liberal triumph, that party obtaining a plurality of 220 over the Conservatives and a majority of 84 over all other parties. But the triumph was relatively short-lived for the upper-class leaders of that party, like Asquith, Haldane, and Edward Grey. These leaders, who were closer to the Conservative leaders both socially and ideologically than they were to their own followers, for partisan reasons had to give free rein to the more radical members of their own party, like Lloyd George, and after 1910 were unable to govern at all without the support of the Labour Party members and the Irish Nationalists.
The new government started off at full tilt. The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 overturned the Taff Vale decision and restored the strike as a weapon to the armory of the workers. In the same year a Workingmen's Compensation Act was put on the books, and in 1909 came an Old Age Pension system. In the meantime the House of Lords, the stronghold of Conservatism, tried to halt the Liberal tide by its veto of an Education bill, of a Licensing bill which would have reduced the number of "public houses," of a bill restricting plural voting, and, as the coup de grace, of Lloyd George's budget of 1909. This budget was aimed directly at Conservative supporters by its taxation of unearned incomes, especially from landed property. Its rejection by the Lords was denounced by Asquith as a breach of the constitution, which, according to his belief, gave control over money bills to the Lower House.
From this dispute emerged a constitutional crisis which shook English society to its foundations. Even after two general elections, in January and in December 1910, had returned the Liberals to power, although with a reduced majority, the Lords refused to yield until Asquith threatened to create enough new peers to carry his Parliament bill. This bill, which became law in August 1911, provided that the Lords could not veto a money bill and could not prevent any other bill from becoming law if it was passed in three sessions of the Commons over a period of at least two years.
The election of 1910 had so reduced Acquith’s plurality that he became dependent on Irish and Labourite support, and, for the next four years, was of necessity compelled to grant both concessions for which he personally had little taste. In 1909 the Lords, again as a Supreme Court, declared the use of union funds in political campaigns to be illegal, thus destroying the political weapon to which Labour had been driven by the Taff Vale decision of 1902. Asquith was not eager to overthrow this so-called "Osborne Judgement," at least for a while, for as long as union political activities were illegal the Labourite members of the Commons had to support Asquith in order to avoid a general election they could no longer finance. In order to permit the existing Labour members to live without union funds, the Asquith government in 1911 established payment for members of Parliament for the first time. Labour was also rewarded for its support of the Asquith government by the creation of Health and Unemployment Insurance in 1911, by a Minimum Wage Law in 1912, and by a Trades-Union Act in 1913. This last item made it legal for labor organizations to finance political activities after approval by a majority of their members and from a special fund to be raised from those union members who did not ask to be exempt.
Assaulted by the supporters of women suffrage, dependent on the votes of Labour and the Irish Nationalists, and under steady pressure from Nonconformist Liberals, the Asquith government had an unpleasant period from 1912- to 1915. The unpleasantness culminated in violent controversies over Irish Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment. Both bills were finally jammed through without the acceptance of the Lords in September 1914, in both cases with provisions which suspended their application until the end of the war with Germany. Thus the weakness and divisions of the Asquith government and the alarming divisions in Britain itself were swallowed up in the greater problems of waging a modern war of unlimited resources.
The problem of waging this war was given eventually to coalition governments, at first (1915-1916) under Asquith and later (1916-1922) under the more vigorous direction of David Lloyd George. The latter coalition was returned to power in the "Khaki Election" of December 1918, on a program promising punishment of German "war criminals," full payment by the defeated powers of the costs of the war, and "homes fit for heroes." Although the Coalition government w as made up of Conservatives, Liberals, and Labour, with an ex-Liberal as prime minister, the Conservatives had a majority of seats in Parliament and were in closest contact with Lloyd George so that the coalition government was, except in name, a Conservative government.
The political history of Britain in the years between 1918 and 1945 is a depressing one, chiefly because of Conservative errors in domestic economic policy and in foreign policy. In this period there were seven general elections (1918, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1929, 1931, 1935). In only one (1931) did a party receive a majority of the popular vote, but in four the Conservatives obtained a majority of seats in the House of Commons. On the basis of these elections Britain had ten governments in the period 1918-1945. Of these, three were Conservative-dominated coalitions (1918, 1931, 1940), two were Labour supported by Liberal votes (1924, 1929), and five were Conservatives (1922, 1923, 1924, 1935, 1937), thus:
Lloyd George December 1918 - October 1922
Bonar Law October 1922 - May 1923
Stanley Baldwin May 1923 - January 1924
Ramsey MacDonald January 1924 - November 1924
Second Baldwin November 1924 - June 1929
Second MacDonald June 1929 - August 1931
National Government (McDonald) August 1931 - June 1935
Third Baldwin June 195 - May 1937
Neville Chamberlain May 1937 - May 1940
Second National Government
(Churchill) May 1940-July 1945
The Lloyd George coalition was almost a personal government, as Lloyd George had his own supporters and his own political funds and feuds. Although technically a Liberal, Lloyd George had split his own party, so that Asquith was in opposition along with the Labour party and about an equal number of Conservatives. Since the 80 Irish Nationalists and Irish Republicans did not take their seats, the 334 Conservatives in the coalition had a majority of the Commons, but allowed Lloyd George to take the responsibility for handling the postwar problems. They waited four years before throwing him out. During this time domestic affairs were in a turmoil, and foreign affairs were not much better. In the former, the effort to deflate prices in order to go back on the gold standard at the prewar parity was fatal to prosperity and domestic order. Unemployment and strikes increased, especially in the coal mines.
The Conservatives prevented any realistic attack on these problems, and passed the Emergency Powers Act of 1920, which, for the first time in English history, gave a peacetime government the right to proclaim a state of siege (as was done in 1920, 1921, and 1926). Unemployment was dealt with by establishment of a "dole," that is, a payment of 20 shillings a week to those unable to find work. The wave of strikes was dealt with by minor concessions, by vague promises, by dilatory investigations, and by playing one group off against another. The revolt in Ireland was met by a program of strict repression at the hands of a new militarized police known as "Black and Tans." The protectorate over Egypt was ended in 1922, and a reexamination of imperial relations was made necessary by the refusal of the Dominions to support the United Kingdom in the Near East crisis arising from Lloyd George's opposition to Kemal Atatrk.
On October 23, 1923, the Conservatives overthrew Lloyd George and set up their own government under Bonar Law. In the following General Election they obtained 344 of 615 seats, and were able to continue in office. This Conservative government lasted only fifteen months under Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. In domestic affairs its chief activities were piecemeal action on unemployment and talk about a protective tariff. On this last issue Baldwin called a General Election in December 1923 and lost his majority, although continuing to have the largest block in Commons, 258 seats to Labour's 191 and the Liberals' 159. Asquith, who held the balance of power, could have thrown his support either way, and decided to throw it to Labour, hoping to give Labour a "fair chance." Thus the first Labour government in history came to office, if not to power.
With an unfriendly House of Lords, an almost completely inexperienced Cabinet, a minority government, a large majority of its members in Commons trade unionists with no parliamentary experience, and a Liberal veto over any effort to carry out a Socialist or even a Labourite program, little could be expected from MacDonald's first government. Little was accomplished, nothing of permanent importance at least, and within three months the prime minister was looking about for an excuse to resign. His government continued the practice of piecemeal solutions for unemployment, began public subsidies for housing, lowered the taxes on necessities (sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa), abolished the corporation tax and the wartime duties of 33 1/3 percent on motorcars, watches, clocks, musical instruments, hats, and plate glass, as well as the 1921 duties on "key industries" (optical glass, chemicals, electrical apparatus) .
The chief political issue of the day, however, was Communism. This rose to a fever heat when MacDonald recognized Soviet Russia and tried to make a commercial treaty with the same country. MacDonald cooperated with the Liberals with ill-grace and resigned when Parliament decided to investigate the quashing of the prosecution, under the Incitement to Mutiny Act, of the editor of a Communist weekly paper. In the resulting general election the Conservatives played the "red scare" for all it was worth. They were aided greatly when the permanent officials of the Foreign Office issued, four days before the election, the so-called "Zinoviev Letter." This forged document called upon British subjects to support a violent revolution in behalf of the Third International. It undoubtedly played some role in gaining the Conservatives their largest majority in many years, 412 out of 615 seats.
Thus began a Conservative government which was in office under Baldwin for five years. Winston Churchill as chancellor of the Exchequer carried out the stabilization policy which put England on the gold standard with the pound sterling at the prewar rate of parity. As we have indicated in Chapter 7, this policy of deflation drove Britain into an economic depression and a period of labor conflict, and the policy was so bungled in its execution that Britain was doomed to semi-depression for almost a decade, was in financial subjection to France until September 1931, and was driven closer to domestic rebellion than she had been at any time since the Chartist movement of 1848. The recognition of Russia and the trade agreement with Russia were abrogated; the import duties were restored; and the income tax was lowered (although the inheritance tax was raised). As deficits grew, they were made up by a series of raids on available special funds. The chief domestic event of the period was the General Strike of May 3-12, 1926.
The, General Strike developed from a strike in the coal mines and from the determination of both sides to bring the class struggle to a showdown. The British mines were in bad condition because of the nature of the coal deposits and because of mismanagement which left them with inadequate and obsolete technological equipment. Most of them were high-cost producers compared to the mines of northern France and western Germany. The deflation resulting from the effort to stabilize the pound hit the mines with special impact, since prices could be cut only if costs were cut first, an action which meant, for the mines above all, cutting of wages. The loss of the export trade resulting from Germany's efforts to pay reparations in coal, and especially the return of the Ruhr mines to full production after the French evacuation of that area in 1924 made the mines the natural focal point for labor troubles in England.
The mines had been under government control during the war. After that conflict ended, many Liberals, Labourites, and the miners themselves wanted nationalization. This attitude was reflected in the report of a royal commission under Lord Sankey which recommended nationalization and higher wages. The government gave the latter but refused the former (1919). In 1921, when government control ended, the owners demanded longer hours and reduced wages. The miners refused, went out on strike for three months (March-June 1921), and won a promise of a government subsidy to raise wages in the worse-paid districts. In 1925, as a result of stabilization, the owners announced new wage cuts. Because the miners objected, the government appointed a new royal commission under Sir Herbert Samuel. This group condemned the subsidy and recommended closing down high-cost mines, selling output collectively, and cutting wages while leaving hours of work the same. Since owners, government, and labor were all willing to force a showdown, the affair drifted into a crisis when the government invoked the Emergency Powers Act of 1920 and the Trades Union Congress answered with an order for a General Strike.
In the General Strike all union labor went out. Upper- and middle-class volunteers sought to keep utilities and other essential economic activities functioning. The government issued its own news bulletin (The British Gazette under Churchill), used the British Broadcasting Corporation to attack the unions, and had their side supported by the only available newspaper, the anti-union Daily Mail, which was printed in Paris and flown over.
The Trades Union Congress had no real heart in the strike, and soon ended it, leaving the striking miners to shift for themselves. The miners stayed out for six months, and then began to drift back to work to escape starvation. They were thoroughly beaten, with the result that many left England. The population of the worst-hit area, South Wales, fell by 250,000 in three years.
Among the results of the failure of the General Strike, two events must be mentioned. The Trades Dispute Act of 1927 forbade sympathy strikes, restricted picketing, prohibited state employees from affiliating with other workers, restored the Taff Vale decision, and changed the basis for collection of labor-union political funds from those who did not refuse to contribute to those who specifically agreed to contribute. The Trades Union Congress, disillusioned with economic weapons of class conflict, discarded the strike from its arsenal, and concentrated its attention on political weapons. In the economic field it became increasingly conservative and began to negotiate with the leaders of industry, like Lord Melchett of Imperial Chemical Industries, on methods by which capital and labor might cooperate to mulct consumers. A National Industrial Council, consisting of the Trades Union Congress, the Federation of British Industries, and the National Conference of Employers, was set up as the instrument of this cooperation.
The last three years of the Conservative government were marked by the creation of a national system of electric-power distribution and of a government-owned monopoly over radio (1926), the extension of the electoral franchise to women between twenty-one and thirty years of age (1928), the Road Transport Act, and the Local Government Act ( 1929). In these later years the government became increasingly unpopular because of a number of arbitrary acts by the police. As a result, the general election of 1929 was almost a repetition of that of 1923: the Conservatives fell to 260 seats; Labour, with 288 seats, was the largest party but lacked a majority; and the Liberals, with 59 seats, held the balance of power. As in 1923, the Liberals threw their support to Labour, bringing to office the second MacDonald government.
The MacDonald government of 1929-1931 was even less radical than that of 1924. The Labour members were unfriendly to their Liberal supporters and were divided among themselves so that there was petty bickering even within the Cabinet. The Liberal members were more progressive than Labour, and became impatient with Labour's conservative policies. Snowden, as chancellor of the Exchequer, kept the import duties and raised other taxes, including the income tax. Since this was not sufficient to balance the budget, he borrowed from various separate funds and moved forward the date on which income-tax was due.
The Lord Privy Seal, J. H. Thomas, a railroad union leader, was made head of a group seeking a solution to the problem of unemployment. After a few months the task was given up, and he was made secretary of state for the Dominions. This failure appeared worse because both the Liberals and Sir Oswald Mosley (then of the Labour Party) had worked out detailed plans based on public-works projects. Unemployment benefits were increased, with the result that the Insurance Fund had to he replenished by loans. The Coal Mines Act (1930) set up a joint-selling agency, established a subsidy for coal exports and a national wage board for the mines, but left hours of work at seven and a half a day instead of the older seven.
The House of Lords refused to accept an Electoral Reform bill, an Agricultural Land Utilization bill, and Sir Charles Trevelyan's Education bill. The last of these provided free secondary education and raised the school-leaving age to fifteen years; but the Labour government was not insistent on these bills, and Trevelyan resigned in protest at its dilatory attitude. An Agricultural Marketing bill, which benefitted the landed group in the House of Lords and raised food prices to the consumer, was passed. Throughout these efforts at legislation it was clear that the Labour Party had difficulty controlling its own members, and the Labour protest vote on most divisions in Commons was quite large.
The problem of the growing budgetary deficit was complicated in 1931 by the export of gold. The National Confederation of Employers and the Federation of British Industries agreed in prescribing wage cuts of one-third. On February 11th a committee under Sir George May, set up on a Liberal motion, brought in its report. It recommended cuts in government expenditures of ฃ96 million, two-thirds to come from unemployment benefits and one-third from employees' wages. This was rejected by the Trades Union Congress and by a majority of the Cabinet.
In June the Macmillan Committee, after two years' study, reported that the whole financial structure of England was unsound and should be remedied by a managed currency, controlled by the Bank of England. Instead of making efforts in any consistent direction, MacDonald, unknown to any of his Cabinet except Snowden and Thomas, resigned but secretly agreed to continue as prime minister supported by the Conservatives and whichever Labour and Liberal members he could get. Throughout the crisis MacDonald consulted with the leaders of the other two parties but not with his own, and he announced the formation of the National government at the same Cabinet meeting at which he told the ministers that they had resigned.
The National government had a Cabinet of ten members, of which four were Labour, four Conservative, and two liberal. The non-Cabinet ministers were Conservative or Liberal. This Cabinet had the support of 243 Conservatives, 52 Liberals, and 12 Labour, and had in opposition 242 Labour and 9 Independents. Only thirteen Labour M.P.'s followed MacDonald, and they were soon expelled from the party.
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