THE FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE By the same author The British Voter: An atlas and survey since 1885 THE FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE The Political Crisis of 1922 MICHAEL KINNEAR Palgrave Macmillan © Michael Kinnear 1973 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1973 978-0-333-07884-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1973 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New Y ark Dublin Melbourne johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 07884 5 ISBN 978-1-349-00522-2 ISBN 978-1-349-00520-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00520-8 For Mary, David, Andrew and Sara Contents List of Illustrations vm ~~Th~ m Preface x1 Acknowledgements xv 1 Lloyd George and political change, 1919-22 1 2 Liberals and Conservatives in the early twenties 28 3 The Conservative constituency parties and the Coalition 63 4 The Conservative M.P.s and the Coalition 74 5 The ebb of coalition 92 6 The Carlton Club Meeting 120 7 The uncertain trumpet : political confusion in early November 1922 135 8 The general election of 1922 155 9 Lloyd George and Welsh politics after 1918 175 10 The victory of the second eleven 196 Appendix I: The Carlton Club Meeting, 19 October 1922 221 Appendix II: Liberal-Conservative co-operation in the 1922 election 243 References 256 Bibliography 274 Index 305 List of Illustrations 1 Lloyd George in 1921 page 12 David Low, LG & Co (1922) 2 Lloyd George in 1919 facing page 48 Bert Thomas, The World, 8 March 1919 3 Winston Churchill 49 Bert Thomas, The World, 22 March 1919 4 H. H. Asquith 49 Spy, Vanity Fair, 14 July 1904 5 Austen Chamberlain 80 Bert Thomas, The World, 12 July 1919 6 Sir George Younger 80 Radio Times-Hulton Picture Library 7 Andrew Bonar Law 81 Bert Thomas, The World, 26 April 1919 8 The Earl of Birkenhead 81 Bert Thomas, The World, 19 April 1919 9 Lloyd George on the eve of the Carlton Club meeting David Low, LG & Co (1922) page 118 List of Tables 1 Seats won, 1918-29 36 2 Occupations of Conservative M.P.s, 1922 77 3 Diehard voting in Parliament, 1919-22 83 4 Reasons given by Conservative M.P.s for ending the Coalition 87 5 Types of contest in 1922 143 6 Number of M.P.s with majorities under 1000, 1918-70 152 7 Religion and politics in Wales, 1920 180 8 War service and politics in Wales, 1920 180 9 Occupation and politics in Wales, 1920 181 10 Results of the 1922 election 196 Preface This book examines one of the most significant crises in the political restructuring of Britain after the First World War. Before the war, Liberals and Conservatives had vied for power, while after the 'red letter' election of 1924, the polarisation was effectively between Labour and Conservatives. In the inter­ vening decade the balance of probability favoured the emergence of a three-party system, but this system failed to develop pri­ marily because of serious tactical mistakes by the chief Conser­ vative supporters of Lloyd George's Coalition in 1922, and also because of mistakes by the Liberal leaders over a slightly longer period. Most of the material for this book comes from contemporary sources which were unaffected by the hindsight which afflicts historians of the period. Details well known to many people in 1922 faded from the historical record because they did not fit in with what happened later. The result has been that proposals for extended coalition which were noised about in the early 1920s have often been dismissed by historians as will-o' -the­ wisps. Only an examination of public opinion can indicate whether the historians or the party leaders of 1922 assessed the situation correctly. It is normally very difficult, if not impossible, to sample past public opinion, but fortunately the crisis of 1922 was fought in the open. Lloyd George was overthrown by a meeting attended by several hundred Conservative M.P.s, and those M.P.s outlined their views of the Government, of Lloyd George and of the general subject of coalition, to their constituents. On the Liberal side, many local associations were split over the leadership; and both Conservatives and Liberals exposed their problems in the local newspapers. In preparing this book, the author consulted more than 250 newspapers which covered Xll THE FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE political activity in virtually every constituency in Britain. In addition numerous sets of manuscripts have become available in recent years, the most significant for this study being the cabinet records and the private papers of Andrew Bonar Law, Austen Chamberlain and David Lloyd George. These manuscripts and the material from the local press made it possible to reconstruct the changing views of more than a thousand politicians during the political crisis which lasted from December 1921 to November 1922. Historians tend to see political trends through the distorting glass of later developments. For instance it is easier fifty years later to see the reasons why Lloyd George fell in 1922 than it is to see the reasons why he might have been able to retain power. Again the Liberals never returned to office after this crisis, except as a minor fragment, and in retrospect their weak­ nesses are more apparent than their strengths. This book assesses the decline of both the Liberals and Lloyd George in the light of the contemporary sources. Another topic this study examines is the support for coalition immediately after the war. At that time many leading Conservative and Liberal politicians favoured coalition, either to keep themselves in office or to keep Labour out. Their hopes were dashed by the Conservative victory in 1922, which rendered coalition unnecessary. Studies of the period have generally indicated that the result of the 1922 crisis demon­ strated that the Conservative leaders were out of touch with the M.P.s in trying to maintain a coalition, that the M.P.s sought total independence of the Liberals and that in effect the rejection of Lloyd George by the Conservatives at the Carlton Club Meeting of 19 October 1922 virtually doomed the Liberals to a permanent eclipse. The contemporary records show that it was not the Conservative leaders alone who favoured coalition, but backbenchers as well. The vote at the Carlton Club Meeting did not end co-operation with the Coalition Liberals, and the election campaign demonstrated that even after the meeting, most Conservative M.P.s anticipated the revival of coalition. The book falls into four sections which deal respectively with the basic alignment of political forces in Britain after the war; with the role of the Conservatives; with the election of 1922; and finally with the significance of the 1922 crisis in the overall development of the party system. The first section, Chapters 1 PREFACE X Ill and 2, looks at the role of Lloyd George as leader of the Govern­ ment from 1916 to 1922, and at his frequent changes in policy. It also considers the relative strength and weakness of the Liberal and Conservative Parties, and shows how personal failings of the Liberal leaders damaged their party's chance for recovery after the war. The second section, Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6, considers Conservative attitudes to the Coalition. Chapter 3 examines the power of the constituency parties and the extent of Conservative disunity in 1922. This chapter stresses that the main reason for the fall of the Coalition was the rebellion of the M.P.s, not the rebellion of local party groups. As Chapters 4, 5 and 6 show, the rebellion of the Conservative M.P.s resulted largely from the hesitant, confusing, and variable positions adopted during 1922 by the party's leader, Austen Chamberlain. This section indicates that most Conservative M.P.s failed to understand Chamberlain's intentions, but that they were not, in fact, in basic disagreement with him over their party's future. The third section, Chapters 7 and 8, considers the confusion of party programmes and leaders in the election of 1922, an election which was an important crossroads for Britain. It assesses the influence of several last-minute election issues, notably the renewed Turkish crisis of November, and an election scare directed against Labour. The final section, Chapters 9 and 10, examines the influence of political and social changes in Wales on the future of Lloyd George, and the general signifi­ cance of the 1922 crisis in British politics. The Fall of Lloyd George relies to a considerable extent on an examination of electoral and economic statistics. Some of these figures have been included in this book, and additional statistics may be found in my book The British Voter, in my Oxford D.Phil thesis on the 1922 election, and in E. A. Rowe's thesis on the 1929 election. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Mr Paul Buteux and Mr Maurice Shock for their many valuable comments on the manuscript. I also thank Mr Bryan Empson, Mr Leonard Manko, and Mr Larry McNish for their help, and I thank Mrs Caroline Sharp for translating the Welsh manuscripts mentioned in Chapter 9. The Canada Council and the Faculty of Graduate Studies for the University of Manitoba assisted me, and I thank them for this. I am grateful to many librarians for letting me use manuscripts in their keep­ ing; I thank particularly Mr A. Giles Jones of the University College of North Wales, Mr M.