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Home , Bonar Law, David Lloyd George, Lord Randolph Churchill, The Other Club

was one of the famous politicians to have held high office in the administrations of two different parties. The text of this article was first delivered as a toast to the University Club of Toronto and a remembrance of the ‘Other Club’ in 1995 by Liberal Senator Jerry S Grafstein QCQC. WinstonWinston ChurchillChurchill asas aa LiberalLiberal

y topic for the toast to the club is Churchill: sive . Military strategists in England re- MWinston Churchill as a Liberal. A strange spond that Britain’s control of the seas should be ac- topic for a club toast as some might suggest Church- celerated by enlarging her already awesome fleet to ill himself was considered by some as not exactly safeguard the Empire in all her majesty and maintain ‘clubbable,’ though he was a member of a number of the balance of power in Europe. clubs. Since we, in the Senate, particularly these days, Meanwhile, on the domestic front, a number of get the feeling that we are not exactly ‘clubbable’ young sparkling political stars are emerging. Winston ourselves, Churchill as the classic irreverent outsider Spencer Churchill, first elected to Parliament as a seems rather a kindred spirit. To ry in the  election for the constituency of In  Churchill jointly founded, together with Oldham, is bent on following in the illustrious, if ill- the great F. E. Smith QC, later Lord , one fated, steps of his late father, Lord Randolph of the finest speakers of his day, yet another kind of Churchill, who was a leading member of the club. They established a dining club for politicians of establishment. Lord Randolph was a friend of the all stripes and outstanding non-politicians interested Prince of and inheritor, so young Churchill in ideas, served up with superb cuisine, laced with believed, of the great social policies of Benjamin fine wine and shrouded by mellow smoke of aged Disraeli, called by all ‘Tory Democracy.’ cigars. One purpose of the club was to cut across Unfortunately, ’s mete- party lines and create friendships to minimise politi- oric career, aimed right at the Prime Minister’s of- cal differences and partisanship. This they grandly fice, was cut down by a serious disease, upsetting his named ‘,’ and Churchill rarely rationality, causing him slowly to slide into a tor- missed its regular fortnightly dinners. ‘Great tact will mented and deranged death. be necessary in the avoiding of bad moments,’ After his father’s unhappy demise, young Church- Churchill wrote to about ‘The Other ill, already a soldier, became a notorious columnist Club’s’ organising idea. Churchill always believed and respected author, whose sensational escape from that personal friendship and civility were more im- a Boer gaol in South Africa was widely publicised in portant in public life than personalised political par- all the papers. He has returned to England tisanship. to pursue his fame and fortune in print and politics. I intend to give you a taste of one embattled England finds herself embroiled in a divisive na- Senator’s revisionist view of history, rather than cur- tional debate, splitting the led rent politics. Any semblance in my remarks between by the Conservative Party and its alliance with Lib- today’s politics and yesterday’s history is therefore erals and others who call themselves Unionists. Sud- purely coincidental. denly, the Tory prime minister, , re- The year is . The place is England. England verses fifty years of traditional Tory policy stands at the very height of her imperial power. Ger- and supports higher tariffs for the first time. Church- many plots to outstrip England’s superior sea-power ill, an unabashed Free Trader, uncomfortable with by secretly laying plans for the construction of mas- this sudden departure from the traditional policies of

Journal of Liberal Democrat History 25: Winter 1999–2000 15 So it is in spring ing his Liberal colours, and in June of  that , at the Cobden Club, held within Churchill rises to the auspices of the Midland Club in speak in Parliament Manchester (the home of Free Trade) after Lloyd George he launches a scathing attack on his in yet another tur- former Conservative colleagues. bulent debate on ‘We know perfectly well what to ex- Free Trade. pect … [the Tory Party] has become Churchill, a Tory the party of great vested interest; cor- still, is insulted ruption at home, aggression to cover it when the Tory up abroad; trickery of juggles, tyr- front bench and al- anny of party machine; sentiment by most all the back the bucketful, patronage by the pint; bench (except a open hand at the public exchequer; few hecklers) im- open door at the public house; dear mediately leave the food for the millions … and … cheap House and repair to labour by the millions …’ the smoking rooms In , a new Liberal government while he is speaking forms, led by Sir Henry Campbell- — a deliberate Bannerman. It is confirmed in office snub. Weeks later, the following year in a landslide elec- Churchill rises in tion victory for the Liberal Party. the House of Com- Winston Churchill becomes a youthful mons, loses his train member of the outer Cabinet as Under of thought in mid- Secretary of the Colonies under Lord speech and retires Elgin, who sits in the Lords. It was at Winston Churchill with , when both were embarrassed. Mem- this time that Eddie Marsh, soon to be- cabinet members. bers murmur that come Churchill’s lifelong assistant, re- he may be suffering luctantly agreed to join Churchill as his the Tory Party, seeks new friends and al- from the same defect that doomed his private secretary. He was told by Lady liances to maintain his principled phi- father decades before. Lytton, to assuage his fears about the losophy. At the same time, Churchill is Shortly thereafter, on May st, mercurial Churchill, that ‘the first time also becoming increasingly disen- Winston Churchill, revived, re-enters you meet Winston you see all of his chanted with the elitism of Tory social the House of Commons, pauses, bows faults and the rest of your life you spend policies that protected the prerogatives to the Speaker and crosses the floor to discovering his virtues.’ of the upper classes at the numbing dis- sit beside Lloyd George in the same seat My admiration for Churchill deep- advantage of the poor. Churchill meets occupied by his revered father when in ened even further after I happened and quickly becomes enamoured with opposition. The Parliamentary report in across a speech he gave in his successful another rising political star, David the Manchester Guardian of  June , by-election in  at . Asquith Lloyd George, destined to become the recorded how Churchill actually had brought him into the Cabinet as greatest Liberal of his age. They seem to crossed the floor to the Liberal benches President of the Board of Trade. At that share more things in common than set a number of times on the night of the time, Ministers on appointment were them apart. Lloyd George, a Welsh law-  May, just to make sure no-one required by law to resign their seats and yer rising from humble origins by his missed the significance of the occasion. fight a by-election. Churchill sought lyrical gift of tongue, is a mesmerising Churchill realised he must make the re-election in Northwest Manchester and charming personality. Churchill is move, even though his association de- but lost. He then found a new constitu- duly mesmerised and charmed. ferred taking further punitive action ency in Dundee. The Dundee speech Churchill writes and speaks in favour of against him. As a newly minted Liberal, was made during Churchill’s most en- Free Trade in the run-up to the coming he assays opportunities and chooses a lightened period, when he ran flat out election, antagonising Tory loyalists on Liberal constituency, a seat in North under Liberal colours. The speech also all sides, including Prime Minister West Manchester, the home of Cobden clarified for me my youthful confusion Balfour and Churchill’s own Tory Asso- and Bright, the bastion of Free Trade. when I was first attracted to the siren ciation in Oldham. Conspiring with When asked why he left the Con- song of Socialism. Churchill, with pow- the Tory whips in London, in his ab- servative Party, he retorts that he did not erful clarity, boldly contrasted Liberal- sence, his association passes a resolution leave the Conservative Party or his prin- ism and Socialism with these words suggesting Churchill seek another con- ciples. Rather, the Conservative Party which have echoed down through the stituency, since he so disagrees with deserted its principles and left him. decades, with even greater resonance. party trade policy. Churchill warms to the task, carry-

16 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 25: Winter 1999–2000 is not Socialism, and never times of unemployment (public jobs in ment. This sudden reversal in Liberal will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is reforestation and road building). He policy turned out to be a key to the fall not a gulf of method, it is a gulf of prin- promoted legislation restricting eight- of Lloyd George and the Liberal Party. ciple … Socialism seeks to pull down wealth, Liberalism seeks to raise up hour work days for coal miners and re- The Irish Treaty was fatal to them, as it poverty. Socialism would destroy pri- strictions on child labour. He repeat- led not to peace but continuing civil vate interests; Liberalism would pre- edly advocated a ‘safety net’ to protect unrest. This sudden reversal in policy serve private interests in the only way the victims from the ravages of compe- was the beginning of the end for the in which they can be safely and justly tition. While he believed in Free Trade Liberal Party in England. preserved, namely by reconciling them  with public right. Socialism would kill and competition, he also believed in of- In Churchill fell ill with appen- enterprise; Liberalism would rescue en- fering some protection to those who dicitis during an election. He wrote terprise from the trammels of privilege simply could not compete. looking back on this period a decade and preference … Socialism exalts the He declaimed on public platforms later: ‘In a twinkling of an eye, I found rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Social- that the biggest threat to the cause of myself without an office, without a seat, ism attacks capital, Liberalism attacks peace came not from abroad but the without a party, and without an appen- monopoly. crisis at home: the gap between rich dix’. Later, in , Churchill ran two And so, in the next two decades, from and poor, obsolete laws protecting in- more times and was defeated. He finally  to , Churchill held a dizzying herited property and the vested inter- reverted to again, after array of portfolios as a Liberal minister ests. He argued repeatedly for ‘mini- making his peace with Baldwin, the — President of the Board of Trade; mum standards of life and work’ to at- Leader of the Conservative Party, who, ; First Lord of the Ad- tain domestic civility. after the  election immediately ap- miralty; ; Secre- Viscount Simon, a close and lifelong pointed Churchill to the Exchequer. tary of State for War and Air; and Secre- contemporary, wrote after Churchill Churchill never would return to the tary of State for the Colonies. became Prime Minister again in : Liberal fold and the Liberal Party never His vibrating fortunes, matching his regained its lustre. Again, Churchill be- At the root of his many-sided nature … ideas, raced up and down in public remains the essence of Liberalism. His lieved that he had not left the Liberal opinion like a roller coaster. In each tolerance, his sympathy with the op- Party but that the Party had deserted its ministry he brought a volcanic energy pressed and the underdog, his courage own principles and lost its way. and a visionary stream of ideas. He was, in withstanding clamour, his belief … One of the most fascinating insights in turn, the father of the submarine, of in the individual … all derive from a into Churchill’s attraction to the Liberal the , of oil-driven warships. He heart, a head [and] made him a Liberal statesman … his Liberal views were not Party was his lifelong helpmate, com- created the first Anglo/Arab oil consor- a mere pose, so that he has carried his panion and wife, , tium to fuel and secure British naval Liberal temper with him throughout born and bred a Scottish Liberal. might. his life …’ Churchill was once asked why his mar- As President of the Board of Trade, Other colleagues riage was so successful. He responded by he organised la- noted that a major saying that he had never had breakfast bour exchanges to ‘In a twinkling of an eye, theme of his life was with his wife. Of the volumes written prevent sweated la- individual rights about his relationship with Clementine, bour. He first es- I found myself without and his unswerving awkward, complex and difficult at times, tablished unem- an office, without a seat, belief in the one note endeared me to his famous ployment insur- to work out, as one wife. Throughout their loving and illus- ance in England. without a party, and civil servant wrote, trious relationship, spanning six decades He led attacks without an appendix.’ one’s own salvation, together, she always voted Liberal. against the House to follow one’s own of Lords when it star. So Churchill wished to afford Senator Grafstein has served as policy ad- defeated a Liberal budget — the fa- equal for others to do like- viser in a number of Canadian government mous ‘People’s Budget’ — which led to wise. ‘I stand for Liberty’ he proudly Ministries and is an author and expert in the first reform of the Lords.  proclaimed more than once. This was media issues. In , he founded and edited He wrote articulate books – radical his lifelong Liberal theme. He vehe- the Journal of Liberal Thought. In Janu- in their time – entitled Liberalism and  mently opposed Bolshevism and ary , Prime Minister Trudeau appointed the Social Problem and The People’s Rights, Communism because he believed him to the Senate of Canada. He currently defining a sweeping social agenda of re- each was, at its very roots, opposed to serves as a member of the Foreign Affairs form that only became accepted public individual liberty. He carried over this Committee. policy decades later. belief in the essence of liberty as the The text of this article was first published He railed against property specula- foundation for relations between states in Finest Hour, the internet magazine of tion and contrasted wealth built on real that so informed all his foreign policy the Winston Churchill Center in Washing- estate as ‘Plunder’ compared to ‘produc- principles. ton DC, by whose kind permission, and that tion’ of goods as being in the public in- In –, Churchill was a player in of Senator Grafstein, it is reprinted (in a terest. He advocated public works in negotiations that led to the Irish Settle- slightly edited version) here.

Journal of Liberal Democrat History 25: Winter 1999–2000 17