Journal of Issue 34/35 / Spring/Summer 2002 / £5.00
Liberal DemocratHISTORY
The suffragette revolt Dr J. Graham Jones Lloyd George and the Suffragettes at Llanystumdwy Paul Mulvey The Single-Taxers and the Future of Liberalism, 1906–14 Thomas Babington Macaulay ‘Let us open to them the door of the House of Commons’ On Jewish disabilities John Davies Keeper of the Liberal Flame Biography of Ivor Davies Dr J. Graham Jones Grimond’s Rival Biography of Roderic Bowen MP Liberal Democrat History Group Issue 34/35: Spring/Summer 2002 Journal of Liberal Democrat History The Journal of Liberal Democrat History is published quarterly by the Liberal Democrat History Group. 3 Lloyd George and the Suffragettes at ISSN 1463-6557 Llanystumdwy Editor: Duncan Brack Assistant Editor: Alison Smith Dr J. Graham Jones chronicles Lloyd George’s problems with the suffragettes Biographies Editor: Robert Ingham Reviews Editor: Sam Crooks 11 The Single-Taxers and the Future of Patrons Liberalism, 1906–1914 Dr Eugenio Biagini; Professor Michael Freeden; Professor Earl Russell; Professor John Vincent Paul Mulvey tells the story of the Liberal Party and the Land Tax movement Editorial Board Dr Malcolm Baines; Dr Roy Douglas; Dr Barry 15 Archives: University of Bristol Doyle; Dr David Dutton; Professor David Gowland; Dr Richard Grayson; Dr Michael Hart; Liberal archive sources at the University of Bristol Library; by M. T. Richardson Peter Hellyer; Ian Hunter; Dr J. Graham Jones; Tony Little; Professor Ian Machin; Dr Mark Pack; 17 Macaulay on Jewish Disabilities Dr John Powell; Iain Sharpe Editorial/Correspondence Tony Little introduces Thomas Babington Macaulay’s speech of 17 April 1833 Contributions to the Journal – letters, articles, and book reviews – are invited. The Journal is a 22 Keeper of the Liberal Flame refereed publication; all articles submitted will be reviewed. Contributions should be sent to:
The life and political career of Ivor Davies, by John Davies Duncan Brack (Editor) 38 Salford Road, London SW2 4BQ 26 Grimond’s Rival email: [email protected] All articles copyright © their authors. Dr J. Graham Jones recounts the life and career of Roderic Bowen MP Advertisements 34 Report: Speeches and Speech-makers Adverts are welcome; please contact the Editor for rates. with Roy Jenkins, Max Atkinson and Paddy Ashdown; report by Duncan Brack Subscriptions/Membership 38 Report: Public Services or State An annual subscription to the Journal of Liberal Democrat History costs £10.00 (£5.00 unwaged Services? – the Liberal Legacy rate). This includes membership of the History Group unless you inform us otherwise. with Professor Peter Marsh and Dr Graham Davis; report by Neil Stockley Overseas subscribers should add £5.00; or, a special three-year rate is available for 40 Reviews £40.00 total. Cheques (payable to ‘Liberal Democrat History Duncan Brack and Tony Little (eds): Great Liberal Speeches, reviewed by Conrad Group’) should be sent to: Russell; Eugenio Biagini: Gladstone, reviewed by Tony Little; Richard Grayson: Patrick Mitchell Liberals, International Relations and Appeasement, reviewed by Ian Hunter; Peter 6 Palfrey Place, London SW8 1PA; Kilfoyle: Left Behind, reviewed by Chris Rennard; David Cecil: The Young email: [email protected] Melbourne & Lord M, reviewed by David Nolan; Antony Lentin: Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, reviewed by David Dutton Cover design concept: Lynne Featherstone
Why a double issue? Published by the Liberal Democrat History Group, Readers will notice that this issue of the Journal is a double issue, 34/35 (spring/summer 2002), c/o 38 Salford Road, London SW2 4BQ containing approximately twice the material of a normal issue. The delay in producing number 33 (the special issue on Liberals and Ireland) meant that we were faced with either producing three Printed by Kall-Kwik, issues in six months or doubling up on one of them, and decided to adopt the latter course. Normal 426 Chiswick High Road, London W4 5TF service will be resumed from issue 36, due out in September. June 2002
2 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 Suffragettes Dr J. Graham Jones re-examines the reopening by Lloyd George in September 1912 of the village institute at his native Llanystumdwy, when the proceedings were blighted by constant suffragette interruptions. LloydLloyd GeorgeGeorge andand thethe SuffragettesSuffragettes atat LlanystumdwyLlanystumdwy
mong the Lloyd George correspondence asserted that the hair of one of the disturbers was acquired by the National Library of Wales actually pulled off in handfulls by the crowd. I was A from the third Earl Lloyd-George of close by at the time and saw what did take place. Dwyfor in is a single stray letter, dated Oc- The hat of the woman was taken off, and handfulls tober , from Evan William Evans (–), a of hair did come off with it. A friend of mine native of Dolgellau, a prominent journalist, editor picked up the hat, and I have it now in my posses- and publisher, and owner of the Dolgellau-based sion as well as a considerable quantity of the ‘hair’ printing office where Y Goleuad was produced. The said to have been plucked off. But will you allow Goleuad company assumed responsibility for the me to assure you that this woman did not on that publication of a number of local newspapers and occasion suffer the loss of any of her own hair! It journals and several substantial volumes. Evans was was false hair that was artfully inserted inside the himself an avid local historian and Calvinistic Meth- hat in such a way that it looked like natural hair, odist, and a diligent collector of manuscripts and and of course ‘it came off in handfulls’. I have been printed works. The former group now constitutes endeavouring to find out the name and address of the Frondirion Manuscripts in the custody of the the rightful owner of the hat and false hair, but so National Library. far I have failed. It was I think a very clever bit of The letter reads as follows: stage acting and it came off well! Yours sincerely The Suffragists at Llanystumdwy E. W. Evans Frondirion Dolgelley, Oct. , The letter casts further light on an occasion of con- siderable interest. The intensive suffragette campaign To the Right Hon D. Lloyd George MP to secure the enfranchisement of women was one of Dear Mr Lloyd George the most prominent political themes of the years im- mediately preceding the outbreak of the First World I find in to-day’s paper that questions are to be War. David Lloyd George, Liberal MP for the Caer- asked in the House of Commons on Monday about narfon Boroughs since , President of the Board the treatment of the Suffragists at Llanystumdwy. I of Trade, –, and subsequently Asquith’s radical was present at the meeting and was quite close to Chancellor of the Exchequer, was inevitably in a two of the women who disturbed the proceedings, pivotal position. Until about the end of the suf- and who were ejected. fragette campaign was strictly constitutional, rela- The reports published in many of the newspapers tively low-key, and generally keeping well within were greatly exaggerated. It has been repeatedly the law. From that point on, however, the techniques
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 3 of disruption ever more widely em- minutes) because of the incessant in- the whole House, temporarily blocking ployed by the Women’s Social and Po- terruptions by militant members of its progress. ‘Women Suffrage killed for litical Union (WSPU) brought their the WSPU lodged firmly (and some- this year – killed altogether as far as yes- demands increasingly into the public what menacingly) in front-row seats. terday’s Bill is concerned’, wrote Lloyd domain, while the eligibility of women During , fully preoccupied with George to William, ‘The suffragettes are to serve on town and county councils the preparation of the ‘People’s for the moment concentrating their from onwards gave the movement Budget’, Lloyd George was inevitably hate on Winston, although annoyed a powerful fillip. Moreover, the election more than happy to fall in with with me also.’ On several occasions of a relatively left-wing Liberal govern- Asquith’s delaying tactics as a number violent scenes ensued. ment under Campbell-Bannerman in of imprisoned suffragettes went on A revised Conciliation Bill was in- January raised real expectations of hunger strike, provoking the govern- troduced by a private member in the legislative change. It was estimated that ment to institute the highly publicised spring of , a measure which re- fully MPs in the new parliament, process of forcible feeding. moved the £ householder qualifica- drawn from all political parties, were By the beginning of the suf- tion of the previous bill. In May Lloyd pledged to the principle of women’s frage issue had attracted considerable George voted in favour of it, and in- suffrage, while the prime minister was public sympathy and support, and ap- deed seemed to endorse the revived himself a convert to the cause. Four preciable parliamentary backing. clamour in favour of ‘Votes for Women’ members of the new Liberal cabinet Asquith, however, refused to introduce at a time when he was fully preoccu- were said to be stalwart supporters of a women’s suffrage measure, and in the pied with his National Health Insur- the suffragette cause – Sir Edward Grey, January general election, the Liberals ance commitments. By the end of the Haldane, Birrell and Lloyd George. remained committed simply to carry- summer he had come to endorse a Other Liberal ministers were generally ing his nebulous pledge to give comprehensive reform of the franchise hostile, among them Asquith (the consideration to the franchise question on lines which he expounded insist- Chancellor of the Exchequer), Lord generally into the new parliament, not ently to the Liberal Chief Whip, the Loreburn (the Lord Chancellor), to any bolder initiative. Following the Master of Elibank: Churchill, Lewis Harcourt, McKenna poll, the WSPU declared a truce which I am very concerned about our and Herbert Samuel. They tended to lasted to some extent until . In the pledges on the Female Suffrage argue that women did not want the spring of the re-elected Liberal question. We seem to be playing vote and did not need the vote, as they government set up an all-party Parlia- straight into the hands of the enemy. had no real grievances of their own and mentary ‘Conciliation Committee’ The Conciliation Bill could, on bal- were already adequately represented. charged to draft suffrage legislation. The ance, add hundreds of thousands of These sharply contrasting viewpoints outcome was the first Conciliation Bill votes throughout the country to the caused a deep rooted schism within the which proposed that the vote should be strength of the Tory Party … We Liberal Party at a time when it was at- given to women who were £ house- have never really faced the situation tempting to maintain a positive mantle holders, with the further stipulation manfully and courageously. I think of radicalism. that married women could not qualify the Liberal Party ought to make up In the event, private members’ bills in respect of the same property as their its mind as a whole that it will either were introduced in the Commons in husbands. The measure received the have an extended franchise which and , but, deprived of gov- cautious endorsement of the suffrage would put working men’s wives on ernment support, inevitably made but societies on the ‘half-a-loaf’ principle, the Register, as well as spinsters and little headway. Lloyd George, who suc- and of Conservatives who depicted it as widows, or that it will have no fe- ceeded Asquith as Chancellor in April a means of strengthening the anti-radi- male franchise at all … We are likely , regularly faced well-orchestrated cal vote in the country. Both Lloyd to find ourselves in the position of heckling during many of his public George and Churchill opposed it for putting this wretched Conciliation speeches, which he sometimes found the very same reason, the former writ- Bill through the House of Com- difficulty in completing because of the ing to his brother William during the mons, sending it to the Lords, and constant interruptions. In October he debate on the second reading in July, eventually getting it through. Say was called as a prosecution witness in ‘Women’s Debate going strong. F. E. what you will, that spells disaster for the celebrated trial at Bow Street of Smith delivered a crushing speech Liberalism. Mrs Pankhurst, Miss Christabel against. I am dead against this Bill & Pankhurst and Mrs Drummond. To an mean to vote against it.’ Publicly he The suffragette camp in turn became audience at the Albert Hall on De- opposed the measure as being insuffi- highly suspicious of Lloyd George’s sin- cember he was optimistic concerning ciently broad and incapable of amend- cerity and intentions, Christabel the inclusion of women’s suffrage in a ment. Both Lloyd George and Church- Pankhurst writing in October: future Reform Bill. It was noted that ill voted against, but the bill was carried There exists a conspiracy of wreck- his speech took two hours to deliver by a majority in the Commons, there- ers and reactionaries who are bent (instead of the anticipated twenty after being referred to a committee of
4 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 upon carrying widening amend- ments in Committee in the hope of destroying the majority for the Bill … The particular amendment which Mr Lloyd George intends to pro- mote is one to give a vote to the wife of every elector, in virtue of her husband’s qualification. This provi- sion would apply to no less than six millions of women, so that the Con- ciliation Bill, instead of enfranchis- ing one million women … would enfranchise seven million women. She was fully aware that no such meas- ure stood any prospect of clearing the Commons without government sup- port, and had come to the conclusion that the strategy of the devious Lloyd George was ‘not, as he professes, to se- cure to women a large measure of en- franchisement, but to prevent women from having the vote at all’. Within weeks Prime Minister Asquith had an- nounced, somewhat unexpectedly, that it was the Government’s intention dur- ing the next session to introduce a measure providing manhood suffrage for all bona fide residents, the bill being capable of amendment so that it might include the enfranchisement of women. ‘Asquith’s declaration on manhood suffrage has taken everyone David Lloyd George in 1903 by surprise’, wrote Lloyd George to William, ‘It is entirely my doing. But I ‘envisaged the whole suffrage move- riage at Dublin. By the spring of am amazed at the readiness & the ment … as a gigantic duel between intense disillusionment and mounting proflitude [sic] with which he took the herself and Lloyd George whom she exasperation prevailed in the suffra- fence. I anticipated much more trouble. designed to destroy’. The energetic gette camp because of the breaking The Pankhursts are furious.’ suffragette campaign continued una- was compounded by occasional arson Asquith’s announcement inevitably bated, violent outbreaks ensued regu- attacks. As yet another Conciliation heralded a return to a somewhat more larly, and political meetings were often Bill was debated in the Commons militant attitude on the part of the interrupted. ‘Meeting a great success. chamber during March , an exas- WSPU, while Christabel Pankhurst’s No interruptions inside’, reported a perated Lloyd George, still one of the intense fury was directed, first and relieved Lloyd George in mid-De- ministers more sympathetic to the foremost, at the ‘turncoat’ Chancellor cember, ‘Women outside were trou- suffragette cause, wrote dejectedly to of the Exchequer. In her broadsheet blesome flinging things at the car but his brother William: Votes for Women her wrathful indigna- no harm done. All of us delighted this tion knew no bounds – ‘The Govern- strenuous session is over. Now for rest March . Suffragettes broken ment’s latest attempt to cheat women & recreation.’ out once more. Smashed PM’s win- of the vote is, of course, inspired by Mr As the new year – – dawned, dows – shop windows in Oxford St Lloyd George. The whole crooked and feelings ran high and passions intensi- & Charing X. Lunatics. discreditable scheme is characteristic fied. Persistent conjecture ensued that March . Suffragettes raving of the man and of the methods he has suffragette-inspired assassinations mad. Another outbreak of window from the first employed against the were being planned against both smashing in West End to day. They are Suffrage cause.’ H. N. Brailsford, the Asquith and Lloyd George. The destroying the last chance of carrying secretary of the Conciliation Com- former, it was rumoured, had only their Bill. mittee, had already informed Liberal narrowly escaped death after a journalist C. P. Scott that Christabel hatchet had been flung into his car- March . Newydd. Bydd y
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 5 Pankhursts a’r Pethicks i gyd yn y am the only man in the Cabinet ante-rooms behind the building. One gaol cyn y boreu – os y delir hwy. who could render them effective of the constables remonstrated with [News. The Pankhurts and the Pethicks help & yet they have pursued me the crowd and a suffragette, whose will all be in the gaol before morning – if with unexampled malignity. Poor blouse was in tatters, and whose hair they are caught.] old PM, he has been worried by hung across her shoulders replied, them these past weeks – & he ‘We will go on doing it until we get The next day came the news that Sir A. minds them much more than I do. the vote!’ A man in the crowd was A. Haworth had been narrowly de- heard to explain, ‘They are in Wales feated in his bid to retain the tradition- Two weeks later, about to deliver a now. They are among ancient Britons, ally safe Liberal division of Manchester speech at Kensington, Lloyd George and we will show them how to deal South in a by-election necessitated by was attacked by a male suffragist sup- with suffragettes.’ his appointment as a Lord Commis- porter who came close to striking him sioner of the Treasury. Lloyd George on the head, provoking a scuffle which Only two weeks later even greater sav- wrote stoically to William: resulted in the Chancellor being pulled agery attended the opening of the vil- to the ground. On another occasion lage institute presented by the Chan- South Manchester. Bad luck. Strike – Prime Minister Asquith was clutched cellor to his native Llanystumdwy. To suffragettes, undoubtedly prejudi- by the lapels of his suit and shaken finance the munificent gesture he had cially affected result, probably lost us forcefully. Such tactics caused some- made use of libel damages of £, the seat. It was also the worst con- thing of a rift in the ranks of the suffra- paid to him in by The People stituency in which to fight Insurance gette sympathisers; at the end of August newspaper which had printed a series … We must set our teeth & fight Mrs Fawcett asserted that the militant of articles suggesting that Lloyd through the next yrs. At the end of faction had a ‘large share’ in causing the George was about to have been cited that time we war through into more defeat of the third Conciliation Bill in as a co-respondent in a divorce action, favourable country. Benefits flow in. March, and had become ‘the chief ob- but that the would-be plaintiff had Home Rule & Welsh Disestabt. will stacles in the way of the success of the been bought off for £,. The be through & we can put forward suffrage movement in the House of Chancellor sued the newspaper, mak- more attractive fare. Cabinet quite Commons, and far more formidable ing use of the professional services of resolute. opponents of it than Mr. Asquith or Mr. Rufus Isaacs, Raymond Asquith (son It was rumoured in political circles that Harcourt’. of the prime minister) and F. E. Smith. the third Conciliation Bill (again de- Further violent outbursts inevitably Damages of £, were eventually feated on its second reading at the end ensued. Upon his return from a late paid to Lloyd George which, three and of March) had been torpedoed by a summer vacation at Marienbad a half years later, he contributed to the whispering campaign initiated by (which he had at least ostensibly taken building of the village institute. Lloyd George and Churchill that for the sake of his health), Lloyd Ironically, by the time of the institute’s Asquith would resign following the in- George attended the National Ei- opening in September , the troduction of a private member’s wom- steddfod at Wrexham where on Sep- Chancellor was embroiled in an even en’s suffrage bill. This heartfelt fear, it tember his speech was interrupted by more menacing affair – the infamous was said, led to the loss of Irish Nation- persistent heckling – ‘When are you Marconi scandal – which again threat- alist supporters of the suffragette cause, going to give votes for women?’ He ened to destroy his political career. who looked suspiciously at any factor responded, ‘I do not know what these The opening of the institute was a which might impede or delay the foolish people gain for their cause. notably high-profile occasion. The progress of their measure. The fury of (Here another male interrupter was outer gates of the grounds were to be the more militant suffragettes knew no put out.) I was saying that I fail to see unlocked by Winston Churchill, the bounds; Lloyd George had become what they think they gain by insulting First Lord of the Admiralty, and the their especial bête noir. Every public a whole nation in the national festival door of the institute by Sir Rufus Isaacs, function which he attended saw the of its democracy (Applause).’ Violent the Attorney General. Both ministers Chancellor harried and threatened by scenes ensued outside the Eisteddfod were then to deliver short speeches, fol- the ‘female lunatics’. At the end of June Pavilion as the suffragette sympathisers lowed by Lloyd George and his close he was to address a political meeting at were mobbed by the crowd: political associate C. F. G. Masterman. Walthamstow in Essex, a parliamentary The Chancellor and his wife were then An auburn-haired lady had several of division represented by Sir John Simon, to give tea to the village schoolchildren her tresses torn out by the roots. In the Solicitor General: and old age pensioners, while the new spite of the protection afforded by the institute was to be the venue of an I am off with Llwydyn [his daugh- police the terror-stricken suffragettes evening concert with Isaacs presiding ter Olwen] to a meeting at were hustled and knocked about, and and Masterman conducting. A week Walthamstow in the Solicitor Gen- to protect them from the violence of before the occasion, fully aware that eral’s constituency. I shall probably the angry crowd the police eventu- suffragette interruptions were almost be harried by the female lunatics. I ally rushed them into one of the certain, the officials of the Criccieth
6 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 branch of the National Union for On the morning preceding the or party in religion or politics. Mr Women’s Suffrage had communicated opening, Lloyd George and C. F. G. Masterman delivered the only English with the WSPU: Masterman played golf on the speech of the afternoon: Criccieth golf links against Sir Rufus The suffrage cause is progressing As I am the only Englishman speak- Isaacs and G. P. Williams of Criccieth. steadily here under the auspices of ing this afternoon, perhaps I might be An autumn picnic on the banks of the the NUWSS [National Union of allowed to say in the name of a few Chancellor’s beloved River Dwyfor Women’s Suffrage Societies]. Mili- hundred thousand Englishmen I am followed in the afternoon. For the tant methods will only injure the very glad to join in the demonstra- opening ceremony itself the Chancel- cause which both societies have at tion. We are grateful to you for having lor was accompanied by his wife, chil- heart. Personal attacks on and abuse brought him up and taught him the dren and brother William, together of Mr Lloyd George on the part of way he should go – with some diffi- with political associates like Ellis W. strangers in his native village will culties perhaps – (laughter) – and Davies (Caernarfonshire Eifion), J. naturally not be tolerated, especially given him to us – (cries of ‘Oh, no’) – Herbert Lewis (Flintshire), Ellis Jones on an occasion such as this, which is for the comfort of some, for the dis- Griffith (Anglesey) and H. J. Ellis not even political. Serious damage turbance of others, and for the inter- Nanney, his Conservative opponent in will be done to the Suffrage cause if est and excitement of all (Laughter the Caernarfon Boroughs in and any attempt is made to prevent Mr and cheers). I think you will all agree . Lloyd George’s brother Lloyd George and his guests from with me, whatever our politics are, William was responsible for presenting speaking. and perhaps with different motives in the deed of gift of the land and your hearts, when I say that Mr Lloyd An evasive reply was received: ‘We beg premises to the institute trustees, not- George is one of the few men given to acknowledge the receipt of your let- ing that the gift was subject to two to us during a century of whom it ter. Speculation as to possible antics of conditions: no intoxicating liquors may be said that his life has changed ladies to-day is now all the more in- were to be sold or consumed on the the world a little. (Cheers) tense, as the reply is a polite intimation premises, and it should never be made to wait and see.’ Mrs Pankhurst, it was a condition of membership that mem- Lloyd George’s opening sentences reported, was unwilling to comment. bers should belong to a particular sect were immediately drowned by a cry of
Violent treatment of WSPU hecklers, Llanystumdwy, 21 September 1912
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 7 ‘Votes for Women’ from a woman near Two of the Liberal politicians appearance no one would conclude the platform. ‘Put her in the river’, re- present recorded the events in their that they were other than paid row- torted the crowd as she was escorted personal diaries. Sir John Herbert dies of a low class who did their work away by a police constable and buf- Lewis’ description of the occasion was merely because they were paid. In feted by the bystanders. As the Chan- predictably bland: ‘Went by early train time peace was restored but the ex- cellor urged his listeners not to harm to Carnarvon & motored thence to citement made it impossible for the the suffragette sympathisers who were Llanystumdwy for the opening of the Chancellor to speak effectively. disrupting the meeting, a succession of Institute by the Chancellor. A huge Davies’ words confirm the opinion of interruptions followed. In the words of crowd, a great suffragette disturbance E. W. Evans in his letter sent to Lloyd one of the press correspondents, ‘Their followed by calm & an excellent meet- George a month later. One of Lloyd treatment on the outskirts of the ing. In the evening a rollicking Concert George’s earliest biographers, Herbert crowd was, however, the reverse of in the Hall – Rufus Isaacs in the chair, du Parcq, who penned his work close mild. Each was assaulted in turn, and it Masterman conducting. That was a to the events which he was describing, was only through the intervention of a brilliant idea of LG’s for the attempts to made exactly the same point: ‘They got police constable and the congestion at pronounce the various items caused some rough handling, which Mr Lloyd that particular spot that one woman endless fun.’ Ellis W. Davies outlined George did all in his power to restrain. was saved being placed under the vil- the scene in greater detail: There is, however, fortunately, no doubt lage pump.’ Lloyd George spoke as The crowd was dense but very well- that the attack which they provoked follows: behaved & was representative of all was very far from being as savage or as I have now been nearly a quarter of parties & sects, the only exception effective as many accounts in the news- a century in political life, and I think being the local landowners. They papers led the public to believe. The la- I may say that, whether locally or na- were noticeably absent save Sir Hugh dies, expecting, as they were bound to tionally, I have during that period Ellis Nanney, who fought an election expect, a summary retribution, had generally been in the hottest of the with Lloyd George. One felt it a pity been prudent enough to put on old conflict, and I am glad to be able to that political and social bitterness clothes, and these were badly torn; but give you my observations after prevented others from being present the personal injuries which they suf- twenty-five years … I am very anx- at a function to do honour to the fered were happily slight.’ ious that this institute should pro- most eminent of living Welshmen & These more moderate, dispassionate vide at least one meeting place in one wondered how narrow and petty accounts give a more balanced version the village where the villagers, with- their minds must be. Is it any wonder of the events at Llanystumdwy in Sep- out distinctions of creed, can come that as a class they are held in such tember . At the time, however, the together to promote common ob- contempt by the people? exaggerated language of those involved jects and find joy in the same com- inevitably received widespread cur- He proceeded to describe the events mon entertainments. rency in both the local and national which he had witnessed: press. The London Evening News pub- It was noted in the local press that the When the Chancellor got up to lished a lengthy account of an inter- protestors had been stripped naked by a speak he had a great ovation but no view with Mrs S. Watson, one of the gang of local rowdies. The London sooner had he appealed to the crowd agitators attacked by the crowd, who papers, too, reported these alleged inci- in Welsh to be gentle with any suffra- claimed: dents graphically and in detail. One of gettes present than one of the women the women present described the I am bruised all down my side and quite near the stage shouted ‘Votes events as a ‘revelation of the latent beast arms and have had the skin kicked for Women’ & in the attempt to lead in man’, while, in the words of Sylvia off my ankles. I still can hear the her out – she herself fighting & kick- Pankhurst, ‘Men and women were noise which was made by the tear- ing those who tried to protect her – beaten, kicked and stripped almost na- ing out of my hair in handfuls … I the crowd pressed down & [an] ugly ked. The hair of the women was torn received a violent blow from behind, rush was made for the platform. No out in handfuls.’ It was further re- and my hat was torn off. In my sooner was one disposed of than ported that the shirts of the protesting pocket I had a dozen bannerettes other women cried in other parts of women were mercilessly cut up and with the sticks in a bundle. Some the field & whilst no doubt in the distributed among the crowd as souve- one snatched these from my pocket crush – at times dangerous – feeling nirs of the momentous occasion. Lu- and struck me fiercely on the head. got the better of some men, the ac- rid press publicity inevitably ensued; a At that I became half unconscious, counts in the paper were untrue & on large picture of the women being as- but I realised that I was being at- the whole the women came well out saulted and mauled dominated the tacked from all sides. My hair was of a row into which they deliberately front page of the Daily Mirror, and simi- being torn out in handfuls. Once I entered with a view of breaking up a lar photographs occupied a full page in was beaten down to the ground, but social gathering & judging by their the Illustrated London News. two constables and two other men
8 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 succeeded in getting me up and out handfulls, bereft of their garments, North Wales press as a focal point of the from among the hooligans. I was and even indecently assaulted, the village designed ‘to break the mo- taken to a cottage, but the woman newspapers term it ‘retaliation’. ‘Re- notony of rural life. The Llanystumdwy refused to give me admittance. The taliation’, forsooth! When will news- Institute will do a great deal to supply same thing happened at another cot- paper leader-writers realise a sense of recreation for the folk of that parish, tage, but at the third, with the help fairness, and teach men to be manly and make country life there more gen- of the police, I succeeded in getting towards his counter-part woman? ial to the young people.’ inside. I was driven miles in a trap to The opening sentence of the letter In his speech on Saturday Mr Lloyd get away from a remote railway sta- sent by E. W. Evans to Lloyd George George declared: ‘There is no coun- tion. The guard put me in his van, also referred to the questions about to try in the world where political war- and told me that had I gone into one be asked in the House of Commons fare is fought under stricter and more of the ordinary carriages the men concerning the Llanystumdwy distur- honourable rules of fair play than would have thought nothing of bances. Lord Robert Cecil had in fact Great Britain.’ flinging me on the line. He told me already asked the Home Secretary for that the hair which had been torn When has fair play ever been ac- his reaction to the ‘serious assaults’ from my head was distributed corded to women since the begin- which had occurred on September, among the men as a souvenir of the ning of their political agitation? The only to be told that ‘the police were un- meeting. Nearly all my clothing was militant methods adopted by the able to identify any of the assailants … torn to pieces. Women’s Social and Political Union Many of the persons at the meeting six years ago consisted simply in came from outside the county, and The Conservative Western Mail, too, questioning Cabinet Ministers after were strangers to the police who were published detailed accounts of the pro- political meetings and in sending there on duty, and who were fully oc- ceedings, concluding: deputations to the Prime Minister at cupied in affording protection to the The Welshmen behaved like fiends, Westminster. Their legitimate asking women.’ and but for the heroic action of the of questions was answered by their Lord Robert persisted, referring to Welsh policemen they would un- violent ejection and the decision of the photographs published in the doubtedly have been killed. One of Cabinet Ministers that thenceforward newspapers, but was again given an them informed me that, though the political meetings should be held for evasive reply. The matter was again men were bad, she had most to fear men only … Is this the ‘fair play’ that raised the following day, and again from the Welsh women, who took Mr Lloyd George talks about? The more forcefully on October by their hatpins out of their hats and only negative comfort that I could Lord Robert Cecil and Mr Harold made every attempt to use them. Nei- glean after reading about the Smith who demanded to know ther would the Welsh women allow Llanystumdwy horrors in this morn- whether ‘as a result of investigations the suffragettes to take refuge in their ing’s paper is that such dastardly out- into the recent disturbances at cottages. Wales just now is in the very rages could not be perpetuated any- Wrexham and Llanystumdwy, any in- bad books of those suffragettes who where outside the area in North formation [had] been obtained as to seek relaxation from their domestic Wales that suffers delirium each time the pulling out of women’s hair; and, if duties to cry “Votes for Women”, on the Chancellor visits that district. It so, whether any action [was] to be any and every occasion. was all very well for him to have said taken’. The Home Secretary replied on Saturday ‘No violence!’ This ac- that evidence of two cases of assault Subsequently the press was bombarded cords ill with the hint he gave them had been gathered by the Chief Con- with impassioned epistles from irate recently about ‘the little Eisteddfod stable, but he refused to elucidate fur- suffragette sympathisers, enraged by sticks being useful’. It is full time that ther as criminal proceedings were their view of the events at we had ministers sincere enough to likely. A further pertinent question on Llanystumdwy. The following letter is be fair to women and to concede to ‘the pulling out of the women’s hair’ typical of dozens published in various them in this country what women in provoked no response. Finally, Mr newspapers during the weeks immedi- other parts of the Empire (such as Smith asked pointedly, ‘May I ask if ately following the attacks: Australia and New Zealand) use for this is an attempt to whitewash the Llanystumdwy: A Woman’s Protest human betterment, namely the vote, Chancellor of the Exchequer?’ ‘There I am, &c. is not the slightest ground for any sug- To the editor Margaret Finlay gestion of that sort’, retorted Reginald Sir, - When women ask Cabinet min- Stow Park – Terrace, Newport, Mon. McKenna, the Home Secretary. isters about the vote, it is called by Sept. rd. By this time the cause of ‘Votes for newspapers ‘suffragette tactics’. When Women’ had been effectively blocked Ironically, the Llanystumdwy Institute, they are hustled, trampled upon, and within parliament. The Liberal govern- like many other such buildings in Eng- finally thrown out to a kindred crowd ment was really in no position to push land and Wales, had been hailed in the of ‘wild beasts’, their hair torn out in through any such measure; it was far
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 9 from united on the matter, and Prime At a time when the Government was 15 NLW, William George Papers 2543, DLG to Minister Asquith was firmly in the anti- pressing a Franchise Bill and was split WG, 16 December 1911. 16 Cited in Rover, op. cit., p. 166. suffragist camp. The subject largely van- on suffrage, the only man with politi- 17 NLW, William George Papers 2561, DLG to ished from parliamentary debate during cal force enough to secure the inclu- WG, 1 March 1912. what remained of the pre-war period. sion of suffrage, and prevent the 18 Ibid. 2562, DLG to WG, 4 March 1912. 19 Ibid. 2564, DLG to WG, 5 March 1912. It re-surfaced briefly in January break-up of the Government, was 20 Ibid. 2565, DLG to WG, 6 March 1912. during the debate on the government’s being embarrassed by charges of cor- 21 Rover, op. cit., p. 130. Franchise and Registration Bill. ‘Insur- ruption … At the very time when his 22 NLW, William George Papers 2615, DLG to WG, 29 June 1912. The next day he wrote, ance & Women’s Suffrage engaging my political instincts told him that the ‘Yesterday’s meeting was a very great success. attention today’, wrote Lloyd George Liberals must break out of the steril- Never saw suffragettes better handled – a little to his brother, ‘Although I hate the ity of coercion on suffrage, he was a too roughly – but that you cannot help when militants one must not allow that to de- captive of the chief architect of that people are enraged’. (Ibid. 2616, DLG to WG, 30 June 1912). flect his judgement on a great question policy – the Prime Minister … The 23 Lord Riddell, More Pages from my Diary, of principle.’ ‘Have no idea what will Marconi affair is the crucial back- 1908–1914 (London, 1934), pp. 81-82, entry happen in the voting’, he went on a cloth to the struggle that, at least in for 14 July 1912. 24 Evening Standard, 22 August 1912. week later, ‘except that I think we shall public, went on to amend the Gov- 25 See NLW MS 20,431C, DLG to Margaret Lloyd be beaten by a small majority. It is en- ernment’s Franchise Bill. George, 17 and 28 August 1912. tirely the fault of the militant section’. 26 North Wales Weekly News, 13 September But it should also be noted that Lloyd 1912. In the event, the Speaker of the George’s freedom of manoeuvre was 27 Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 6 September House of Commons, James Lowther, severely restricted, too, by Asquith’s 1912; North Wales Chronicle, 6 September ruled that the measure could not be 1912. implaccable opposition to the cause, amended to include women’s suffrage 28 See The Times, 23 September 1912, 6c. and by the fact that his fellow radical par 29 Ibid., 12 September 1912, 8e, and 21 Septem- clauses. Claiming betrayal, the WSPU excellence within the Cabinet, Winston ber 1912, 9a. immediately embarked upon another 30 Ibid., 20 September 1912, 5e. Churchill, was at best equivocal on campaign of destruction. Christabel 31 South Wales Daily News, 21 September 1912. women’s suffrage. Whatever the reasons, 32 This account is based on ibid., 23 September Pankhurst allegedly designed a strategy it is difficult to resist the conclusion that 1912, and the North Wales Weekly News, 27 which included the ‘pouring of acids September 1912. the failure of the pre-war Liberal gov- into pillar boxes, the cutting of tel- 33 South Wales Daily News, 23 September 1912. ernments to enfranchise women was 34 North Wales Weekly News, 27 September egraph wires, and the slashing of pic- one of the worst blots on their record. 1912. tures in public galleries … [suffragettes] 35 North Wales Observer and Express, 27 Sep- set fire to empty houses, they destroyed tember 1912. Dr J. Graham Jones is an assistant archivist golf courses, they threw bombs at 36 Sylvia Pankhurst, The suffragette Movement of the Welsh Political Archive at the Depart- (London, 1977), p. 392. churches’. On February the house ment of Manuscripts and records, the Na- 37 See the Daily Telegraph, 23 September 1912, which was being built for Lloyd and the Daily Mirror, 23 September 1912. tional Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. George near the golf course at Walton 38 NLW, Sir John Herbert Lewis Papers B26 , diary entry for 21 September 1912. Heath was blown up, and Mrs 1 Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 39 NLW, Ellis W. Davies Papers 7, diary entry for Pankhurst immediately claimed re- (London, 1959), p. 234. 21 September 1912. sponsibility, and, charged with incite- 2NLW MS 21,790E, f. 352, E. W. Evans to D. 40 Herbert du Parcq, Life of David Lloyd George, Vol. III (London, no date), p. 607. ment to commit a felony, was in due Lloyd George, 19 October 1912. 3 M. G. Fawcett, Women’s Suffrage (London 41 Cited in the South Wales Daily News, 24 Sep- course sentenced to three months’ pe- and Edinburgh, 1911), p. 69. tember 1912. nal servitude. The Chancellor was also 4 Constance Rover, Women’s Suffrage and 42 Western Mail, 24 September 1912. the recipient of regular assassination Party Politics in Britain, 1866–1914 (London 43 South Wales Daily News, 24 September 1912. and Toronto, 1967), pp. 64-65 44 Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 27 September threats, and Scotland Yard detectives 5 D. Lloyd George, speech at the Albert Hall, 5 1912. were assigned to shadow him, followers December 1908: The Times, 7 December 45 House of Commons Debates, 5th series, Vol. which irked him somewhat when he 1908. XLII, cc. 1061–62 (15 October 1912). 6NLW, William George Papers 2403, D. Lloyd 46 Ibid. c. 1248 (16 October 1912). took a late summer holiday at George to William George, 11 July 1910. 47 Ibid. cc. 1717-18 (21 October 1912). Marienbad together with Sir Rufus 7 Ibid. 2404, DLG to WG, 13 July 1910. 48 NLW, William George Papers 2674, DLG to Isaacs. He continued to be a major tar- 8 National Library of Scotland, Murray of Elibank William George, 16 January 1913. 49 Ibid. 2680, DLG to WG, 23 January 1913. get for suffragette violence right MSS 8802, f. 308, Lloyd George to Elibank, 5 September 1910. 50 Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Brit- through until the outbreak of war. 9 Votes for Women, 6 October 1911. ain, 1860-1914 (London, 1990), p. 202. One writer argues that the women’s 10 Ibid. 51 David Morgan, Suffragists and Liberals: the suffrage cause during the immediate 11 The Times, 8 November 1911. Politics of Women Suffrage in England (Ox- 12 NLW, William George Papers 2524, DLG to ford, 1975), pp. 108–09. pre-war years fell victim to the Chan- WG, 8 November 1911. cellor’s loss of influence which in turn 13 Votes for Women, 10 November 1911. he attributes to the impact of the Mar- 14 Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of coni scandal: C.P. Scott, 1911–1928 (London, 1970), p. 57.
10 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 Land value tax Paul Mulvey examines what was hailed, in the early years of the twentieth century, as the radical alternative to collectivism and even the New Liberalism. TheThe Single-TaxersSingle-Taxers andand thethe FutureFuture ofof Liberalism,Liberalism, 1906–19141906–1914
he Single-Taxers were one of those political The politics of land was central to pre- pressure groups, so typical of Edwardian radicalism. Aristocratic landowners were still pow- T Britain, whose adherents believed that they erful enough to prompt radical indignation. The had found a relatively simple way to cure the ills of growing awareness of urban and rural squalor society. Their inspiration was the American eco- aroused radical compassion, while the massive in- nomic theorist, Henry George, who in the s creases in the rates over the previous generation, hit had blamed the persistence of poverty, in spite of hard at radical wallets. An attack on the landlords economic growth, on the rapacious exaction of rent seemed to offer a solution to all three problems, by landlords on land which, in truth, was the birth- and in doing so would hopefully win working-class right of all men. The cure to this injustice, George support for the Liberals without splitting the elec- argued, was the appropriation by the community of torate on class lines. But although radicals could all rent on the unimproved value of the land. agree that land reforms were needed, they could Around a core of committed advocates of the not agree on which ones. ‘Single Tax’, as it was called, there grew a wider Land The debate took place largely in the arena of lo- Tax movement that supported the introduction of cal taxation where, by the end of the Edwardian property taxes based on site value. These, they hoped, period, rates and taxes took up some % of the would improve the efficiency of land use and dis- annual rental value of property, and in some areas tribute the tax burden more fairly. The Single-Taxers exceeded %. Rates were widely seen as unfair, themselves hoped for much more. Firmly in the lib- disproportionately hitting the poor, while the im- ertarian tradition, they hoped George’s scheme provements they were used to fund – public trans- would bring about a new society – one without port, drainage, better roads – enhanced the value of poverty, crime, or the exploitation of the weak by land at little or no direct cost to the benefited land- the strong. They had little time for the collectivist owners, as such windfall profits, or unearned incre- measures advocated by other progressive reformers. ments, were not taxed. They were suspicious of state power, and hoped that Several groups campaigned to improve matters. their reform would shrink government, rather than The two most significant were the Land increase it. They saw their theories as the natural Nationalisers and the Land-Taxers, both of which progression of the Victorian radical ideals of liberty, contained a core of committed ideologues and a pe- laissez-faire and retrenchment, as true Liberalism in numbra, overlapping between the groups, of less fact. Although few in number, they enjoyed a dispro- dogmatic supporters. The Land Nationalisers wanted portionate voice in pre- Liberal activism and a greater degree of government control over land. the extent of their influence on Liberal support in The Land-Taxers sought, as a minimum, a more eq- the country, for good or bad, was a matter of dispute uitable distribution of the tax burden between large at the time, as it has been since. landowners and small ratepayers.
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 11 The most committed Land-Taxers be forced to pay more to keep their by local authorities, the Liberal leader- were the Single-Taxers, followers of workers. They would be able to afford ship and Members of Parliament, the Henry George, whose book, this because the proceeds of the land Labour movement, and even by some Progress and Poverty, had inspired move- tax would allow for the abolition of all To r ies, and in and , bills to ments for land reform in North other taxes. effect it, introduced by Charles America, Europe and the British Em- George, unlike his socialist contem- Trevelyan, comfortably passed their pire. George argued that land, and the poraries, saw the fundamental social second readings. The Liberal landslide minerals in it, which God had created battle as not between labour and capital, of further swelled the ranks of for the whole community, was the es- but between their combined forces and supporters and the Parliamentary Land sential prerequisite to the creation of all the landowners. He assumed that once Values Group, which campaigned for other forms of wealth. For those who the land monopoly was removed, men taxes based on site value, grew to owned no land, rent became a tax on would be free and social harmony members. Most of these were not their production. As population grew, would prevail. His arguments were Single-Taxers; many supported land competition for land increased, raising made with passion and style and were nationalisation, but all of them wanted rents and suppressing real wages – infused with religious sentiment. The to see the introduction of a valuation which were driven to subsistence levels. Single Tax would, he claimed: mechanism as a precursor to further Landlords withheld land from the mar- Raise wages, increase the earnings of reforms. ket to drive prices yet higher, and so capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish The Single-Tax centre of the move- further increased overcrowding and poverty, give remunerative employment ment was small. One of its leaders, the destitution. George saw the evidence to whoever wishes it, afford free scope Radical MP, Josiah Wedgwood, claimed for this in the cities of North America to human powers, lessen crime, elevate it was seven MPs in , including and Europe, where sky-high property morals, and taste, and intelligence, pu- himself, Philip Morrell, Charles prices existed alongside empty lots and rify government and carry civilisation Trevelyan and the Scottish Lord Advo- severe poverty. to yet nobler heights. cate, Alexander Ure. However, they His remedy was to tax the unim- George visited the British Isles five were committed campaigners inside proved value of land and minerals, so times between and . In his Parliament, and outside it via the vari- reclaiming for the community any rise wake, Land Restoration Leagues were ous Land Values leagues. Membership in value that was not due to the land- established and a journal, The Single Tax of the leagues was modest – the total lord’s own efforts. This would also en- (later renamed Land Values), was number of activists did not exceed a courage the efficient use of land by tax- founded, which by had a circula- few thousand – but though relatively ing it on its re-sale value whether it was tion of ,. The movement soon be- few in number, the movement’s sup- being used effectively or not. As more came identified with the radical wing porters were very enthusiastic. J. A. land came into production, its price of the Liberal Party and from on- Hobson later helped to explain what would fall, giving every man the op- wards, the National Liberal Federation motivated them: portunity to work on the land if he so endorsed the taxation of land values Henry George … was able to drive wished. With this alternative to accept- every year. an abstract notion, that of economic ing starvation wages, employers would Site value rating was well supported rent, into the minds of a large number of ‘practical’ men, and so generate therefrom a social movement … The lid of a cigar box showing Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty. George had all the popular gifts of the American orator and journalist, with something more. Sincerity rang out of every utterance. George’s mixture of simple economics and moral certainty, delivered in an evangelical style, filled a gap for some in an otherwise increasingly secular age. As Wedgwood said of his first encoun- ter with George’s work: ‘Ever since I have known “that there was a man from God, and his name was Henry George.” I had no need hence- forth for any other faith.’ George’s ideas fitted in well with popular romantic notions of a free peasantry deprived of their birthright by foreign oppressors. They also offered
12 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 a conceptually simple and fiscally cheap Government to tack the measure into way of returning population to the land the Budget. Asquith’s assurance, in Oc- – an aim widely supported right across tober , that this was indeed the the political spectrum. By removing the plan prompted a countrywide cam- oppression of the landlord and reveal- paign in which the Government was ing the inner goodness of men, society’s deluged with petitions asking for a ills would be cured without recourse to valuation and land taxes. The Daily the bureaucratic meddling and concur- Chronicle, Daily News, Morning Leader rent limitations on personal freedom and Manchester Guardian all ran sympa- which came with the reforms advo- thetic articles. cated by socialists and, of course, by Lloyd George’s final land taxation many other Liberals. Indeed, it was a proposals were very modest, but the radical vision that competed with the Land-Taxers were sanguine about that, collectivist ideas of ‘New Liberalism’ or for the Chancellor had agreed to a land of the Labour Party, and which its ad- valuation – the first step on the road to vocates claimed was more dynamic taxing land values. They and other than either. Writing in the Christian land reformers celebrated at the Great Commonwealth of February , for Land Reform Demonstration in July example, Wedgwood claimed that the at Hyde Park, which was attended Charles Trevelyan MP, one of the strongest Liberal supporters of the Land Tax Single-Taxers embodied the extraordi- by up to , people. movement nary spirit of rebellion that was abroad The Budget was, of course, initially in the country, while the Labour Party rejected by the Lords, and between the both, and saw this as proof of the was becoming more and more con- two general elections which fol- popularity of their cause. servative. Labour men were essentially lowed Land Values listed the Land- It was not necessarily so. In rural bureaucratic socialists, while his move- Taxers’ demands: North-West Norfolk, Edward ment was individualistic: Hemmerde, who held the seat for the . To abolish rates … replacing them Liberals with a reduced majority, had We believe that The State Has No with a tax on the unimproved value argued that taxing land values would Right to take from the individual of land. raise agricultural wages and had called anything that the individual creates. . To help rural districts by making for a minimum wage for farm workers. All that the State has a right to take is ‘national’ services a national burden What the Land-Taxers saw as a great what the community creates – for in- paid for by a national land value tax victory for their policy may simply stance, the economic rent of land. … [and] have been a vote for higher pay. At Such language was not best suited to Hanley, very much Wedgwood terri- . To abolish taxes on all foods and appeal to cautious voters, and through- tory, the Land-Taxers ran a candidate, comforts of the people. out their campaign, the Single-Taxers Leonard Outhwaite, against the wishes had a constant problem in distinguish- Meanwhile, the campaign continued in of Liberal headquarters, and in defiance ing the revolutionary implications of the country with a scheme to send out of Labour claims for a free run at the George’s idea – an effective end to pri- ten million sets of leaflets, one for every seat. Taxation of land values was an is- vate property in land and much re- household. sue that played well in an urban con- duced government revenues – from the By May , the legal and admin- stituency where the rates were eleven modest improvements in land use that istrative complexity of the valuation shillings in the pound. As Outhwaite they claimed site value rating would meant that it was not now expected to began to outpace the uninspiring La- bring. The ambiguity over the real aims be completed until . The bour candidate, Asquith and Lloyd of the movement played directly into members of the Parliamentary Land George jumped on the bandwagon the hands of their opponents, as the Values Group (out of Liberal and with messages of support, though these Single-Taxers well knew. Edward Labour MPs), frustrated by the de- did not specifically mention land tax. Hemmerde, another Georgeite MP, for lays, all signed a memorial listing their In the last days of the campaign, La- example, warned a Land Values confer- demands, which was presented to bour’s support collapsed and ence in to avoid any suggestion of Asquith and Lloyd George. In re- Outhwaite won a surprising victory, the Single Tax when pushing for rates sponse, the Chancellor appointed a which Land Values claimed as a great based on site value. Departmental Committee on Local achievement, but which The Times put Government bills to introduce site Taxation. Not satisfied with this, the down to anti-Labour tactical voting. value rating in Scotland were twice re- Single-Taxers decided to make the A month after his victory, jected, in and , by the House taxation of land values the principle is- Hemmerde was made a member of of Lords, making futile any similar at- sue in two by-elections – at North- Lloyd George’s new Land Enquiry, set tempt for England. To overcome this West Norfolk in May and at up to look into rural conditions and ur- problem, the Land-Taxers urged the Hanley two months later. They won ban rating reform. This, alongside the
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 13 by-election victories, gave the Single- the delegates at a Land Taxing avoid the risk of splitting the progres- Taxers great confidence, and even more Conference at Cardiff, wishing them sive vote, and not because they feared than usual they claimed to be speaking God’s speed to every effort to put an losing seats directly to Labour. for Liberalism as a whole. As early as end to the land monopoly. They, in re- Did the Single-Taxers help or a July , Wedgwood, in urging the turn, strongly supported the Liberal hinder the Liberals? Bentley Gilbert has Government to get on with the valua- Party – and booed an activist who sug- argued that land reform divided and tion, talked of the need to ‘bring Liber- gested that the Chancellor was not to embittered the Liberals as tariff reform alism in this House more into line with be trusted. Lloyd George, though, had the Tories, and as we have seen, Liberalism in the country’. Speaking continued to play hot and cold – his the Single-Taxers certainly did prompt to Land Taxers in July , Frank Swindon speech on October pro- disquiet in the Liberal ranks, but on the Neilson, by now the most active Sin- posed an agricultural minimum wage, whole the evidence presented here gle-Tax MP, dismissed the significance a new bureaucracy and state land pur- suggests that they helped the party. of Home Rule, franchise reform and chase, but made no mention of land They offered a radical and non- Welsh disestablishment and added: value taxation. collectivist alternative to socialism, and Wedgwood, who saw this as sympto- their belief in individualism and a When the decks are cleared of ‘tradi- matic of a government whose actions minimalist state appealed to many tional Liberalism’ what is the Liberal got ever more ‘Whiggish’, flew a kite working-class voters who were un- Party going to do? What is its policy in the Glasgow Forward to see if the happy with the increased tax burden to be? The ‘new Liberalism’ that is ris- Radicals could establish a joint land and element of compulsion that came ing in this country today is moving policy with Labour. This was soon with such New Liberal measures as the under various names. It will want dropped, however, as it became appar- National Insurance Act. Not least, their something very radical, very funda- ent that Lloyd George had not aban- plan for site value rating had wide ap- mental; something new that is going doned site value rating after all, accept- peal to those who lived in rented ac- down to the bottom of things. ing its partial application in principle in commodation and paid high rates. It wanted taxation of land values. The a speech on February . They provided the Liberal leader- monomania of the Land-Taxers was by In the May Budget, the Chan- ship with a tool with which to balance now causing concern in more moder- cellor offered £ million in grants in the more conservative wing of their ate Liberal circles. Victory at Hanley relief of rates if valuation and revenue party, and both Asquith and Lloyd had a price – the Land-Taxers had bro- bills were passed in the next session al- George played the game of encourag- ken the unofficial Gladstone- lowing for the introduction of site ing the Single-Taxers while denying MacDonald electoral pact, costing La- value rating. The grants were popular – any Georgeite aspirations themselves. bour a safe seat and they, in retaliation, they were equivalent to nine pence off The Single-Taxers often sniped at the ran a candidate in the Crewe by-elec- the rates – but the Budget’s novelty Liberal leadership and threatened re- tion of July , who took nineteen in making current expenditure con- volt, but they had nowhere else to go, per cent of the vote and so prevented a tingent on future revenue legislation certainly not to a Labour Party that re- Liberal victory. Wedgwood and prompted opposition from a ‘cave’ of fused to accept the principles of Henry Outhwaite got a very offhand recep- about forty fiscally conservative Lib- George and saw the future in tion at a Liberal conference in Edin- eral MPs, and with the deadline for collectivist terms. Certainly, in the sum- burgh at the end of August, and the passing a Finance Act approaching, the mer of , the Single-Taxers had Chief Whip warned Lloyd George of Government was forced to drop the every reason to believe that they would the dangers of supporting too radical a grants and postpone the requisite leg- continue to play an important, and policy – something most of the Cabi- islation until the autumn, by which growing, part in Liberal and progressive net agreed with. In October, to ap- time, of course, it had other matters to politics for the foreseeable future. pease these concerns, both Asquith and deal with. Lloyd George publicly denied that they In the summer of , the Land- were Single Taxers. Land Values was Taxers were more optimistic of success Afterthought not concerned, however, asserting that: than at any time since . The Gov- In , on the verge of seeing a mod- ernment had at last agreed to introduce est version of their hoped for-tax intro- The repudiation of the Single Tax by site value rating, and the legislation was duced, the Single-Taxers were defeated the Prime Minister and other Liber- due in a few months’ time. The move- by the advent of war. The war destroyed als means nothing. It leaves the prac- ment was solidly, if not always enthusi- the Land Tax movement as it destroyed tical steps toward that policy supreme astically, behind the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Party, because it provided an in the Liberal programme, for the their by-election successes seemed to issue that divided Land Taxers more party is pledged to the hilt to the show that they did have a viable and than their pre-war ideology had united Rating and Taxation of Land Values. radical alternative to the collectivist them. Wedgwood, for example, went This view seemed to be endorsed proposals and class appeal of the Labour off to fight almost immediately, while when, on October , Lloyd Party. If they wanted to cooperate with Trevelyan opposed entry to the war and George sent a message of support to Labour, and most of them did, it was to Outhwaite was an outright pacifist. As
14 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 the Liberal Party divided, so did the 2 Henry George, Progress and Poverty, (London, 18 Land Values, June 1911, p.1. Land Taxers. In the election, of the 1908), p.288. 19 Wedgwood, Memoirs, pp.83–84. 3 Elwood P. Lawrence, Henry George in the Brit- 20 The Times, 9 July 1912, p.8, col.B. fourteen pre-war MPs most closely as- ish Isles (East Lansing, 1957), p.122. 21 ibid., 12 July 1912, p.11, col. D and 13 July sociated with the movement, four re- 4 Offer, pp.317–18. 1912, p.10, col. D. ceived the ‘coupon’, eight stood as 5 Josiah C. Wedgwood, Memoirs of a Fighting 22 Land Values, August 1912, p.98. Life, (London, 1940), p.67. 23 The Times, 15 July 1912, p.7, col. B. Asquithians, one as an independent 6 Sadie Ward, Land Reform in England 1880– 24 Parliamentary Debates, Fifth series, Vol.28, Liberal, and one, Wedgwood, as an In- 1914, unpublished PhD thesis (Reading Univer- col.s 1549–50, 25 July 1911. dependent. sity, 1976), pp.552–53. 25 Land Values, August 1912, p.139. 7 Quoted in G.R. Geiger, The Philosophy of 26 Kinloch Papers 1/31, Wedgwood Correspond- Although there were later attempts Henry George (Grand Forks, Dakota, 1931), ence, Ethel Wedgwood to J.L. Kinloch, 30 Au- to tax land value, most notably in p.174, according to Ursula Vogel, ‘The Land gust 1912. Philip Snowden’s budget of , Question: A Liberal Theory of Communal Prop- 27 H.V. Emy, ‘The Land Campaign: Lloyd George never again was George’s Single Tax erty’, History Workshop, (1989), vol.27, as a Social Reformer, 1909–14’, in A.J.P. Taylor pp.106–35, 129. (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London, taken as a serious political idea in Brit- 8Wedgwood, Memoirs, p.60. 1971), pp.48. ain. The movement shrank to insignifi- 9 See Francis Neilson, My Life in Two Worlds, 28 Roy Douglas, Land, People and Politics (Lon- cance as differences over the war frac- vol.1 1867–1915 & vol.2 1915–1952, don, 1976), p.158. (Appleton, Wisconsin, 1952), p.241 & p.248 29 Land Values, November 1912, p.262. tured its membership and as the costs and Francis Neilson, ‘What Progress and Pov- 30 ibid., November 1913, p.229. of the war, both financial and in terms erty did for me’, American Journal of Economics 31 Hanley Library, JCW Newscuttings, volume 1, of personal liberty, undermined their & Sociology, vol.14 [1], (1954), p.214 and J.C. Manchester Guardian, letter to the editor, 13 and Ethel Wedgwood, The Road to Freedom November 1913. arguments and marginalised their and what lies Beyond, (London, 1913), p.35. 32 Forward, 27 December 1913, p.1, col. E. – To policies. Without big government and First published in The Open Road, 1912. include the abolition of game laws, site value a wide tax base, Britain would not 10 Hanley Library, JCW Newscuttings, volume 1, rating, State purchase of all land valued at less have won the war. There was to be no The Christian Commonwealth, 11 February than ten pounds an acre, and free use of the 1914. poorest land return to small government. 11 The Times, 8 October 1912, p.8, col. D. 33 A minority report from the Departmental Com- 12 Ward, pp.491–92. mittee on Local Taxation in March and the Ur- Paul Mulvey is a Ph.D. student at the Lon- 13 Land Values, May 1909, p.232. ban Report of the Land Enquiry in April also 14 Ward, p.497; though the sceptical Daily Mail supported the idea. don School of Economics, researching the life estimated the numbers around the speakers’ 34 Bruce K. Murray, ‘Battered and Shattered: and political career of Josiah Clement Wedg- platforms at a more modest 36–39,000, Hanley Lloyd George and the 1914 Budget fiasco’, wood, –. Library, JCW Newscuttings, volume 1, Daily Albion, vol. 23[3], (1991), p.495. Mail, 26 July [1909]. 35 Bentley B. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: the reform 15 Land Values, July 1910, p.26. of British land holding and the Budget of 1914’, The 1Avner Offer, Property and Politics 1870–1914, 16 ibid., p.37. Historical Journal, vol. 21[1], (1978), p.141. (Cambridge, 1981), p.161. 17 Ward, p.513. 36 Douglas, p.172. ArchiveArchive SourcesSources University of Bristol Library By M. T. Richardson
he Liberal Party collections at bookish of British statesmen. Surviving LCC addresses covers elections until the University of Bristol collections demonstrate that the , with the exception of , and T Library originate from the founders’ enthusiasm was channelled records, inter alia, the early involvement acquisition in of the Gladstone effectively and imaginatively into the of women in the political process. Library of the National Liberal Club. creation of a library addressing not General election coverage continues The Club was founded in to only matters of historical record but to the present day. Every declared focus political energies in an era of also current political issues, an aim candidate is requested to submit to the widening political involvement and, shared by its custodians today. Thus the Library an address and any other from the earliest days, it was intended collection of the election addresses of supporting material thought suitable. to develop at the Club a political and candidates in London County Council In addition, the Library attempts to historical library, a fitting tribute to the and general elections began in garner a full range of party manifestos. national services of one of the most and respectively. The series of A similar tradition has developed in the
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 15 monitoring of the UK elections to the relating to the proceedings of the Liberal Councillors has given papers European Parliament and the recent Cobden Club, the Eighty Club and the covering not only the operation of the Scottish and Welsh elections were Political and Economic Circle. Docu- association but also a formidable covered as well. Some retrospective but ments concerning Liberalism beyond record of local party publications in piecemeal acquisition of election the confines of the Club have remained the period –. These papers are ephemera, chiefly posters and hand- in Bristol and have been augmented complemented by a presentation from bills, went on at the Gladstone Library through the good offices of local and the Yorkshire Region of the Liberal and this tradition is also honoured in national associations and interested Party of records from the s. In the Bristol. The earliest material is a individuals. Bristol region the Bristol West Liberal substantial collection of posters and Thanks to a magnanimous gesture Democrats papers, relating to the bills from the Durham County elec- on the part of the British Library of Liberals and the Social Democrats tion of , in which the Whig Political and Economic Science, in from the s through to the ’s interest was triumphant and small transferring Minute Book of the were deposited as recently as July caches survive for Plymouth (– Liberal Central Association to Bristol, but under a rule of thirty years’ closure ); Bristol (); and Shaftesbury there now exists a run of the minutes from the date of creation of each (). One group of papers charts the of this body from , at the very document. The focus of the collection involvement of the Stanton family in beginning of the Liberal Party, through is local government. They have joined the Stroud constituency and includes to . Other national bodies for the minute books and ledgers of the election materials dating from which minute books have survived in Western Counties Liberal Federation through to . the collection include the Liberal (–). Among the remaining An early start was made at the Council (Executive Committee,– small collections originating in local Gladstone Library in the accumula- ); the Liberal Social Council (Com- associations mention should be made tion of pamphlet literature. Much mittee,– and –, and of an album of letters and postcards came from the library of Charles Executive Committee, – and from the Accrington Liberal Associa- Bradlaugh (–), the freethinker –, in incomplete form); the tion (–). and ‘member for India’. To date well National League of Young Liberals Caches of personal papers housed over , records have been added (Executive Committee, –, in the library include letters of to the University of Bristol Library’s General Purposes Committee, – Charles Geake, head of the Liberal catalogue, thanks to grants from the , and Joint Political Planning Com- Publication Department; Sir Geoffrey Higher Education Funding Council mittee with the Union of Liberal Le Mesurier Mander, MP for Wolver- for England and the Research Sup- Students, –); and the Union of hampton East; James White, MP for port Libraries Programme. These Liberal Students (Executive Commit- Brighton; and Alfred Austin, the poet records include over , items tee, –). laureate. There are political papers issued by the Liberal Party Publica- The Women’s Liberal Federation has (approximately –) belonging tion Department. The Department’s generously deposited its archive, a to Derick Mirfin, who was involved annual accumulation of publications, major collection, including Executive with the Union of University Liberal the Pamphlets and Leaflets series, has Committee minutes (– and Societies and there is a substantial been catalogued item by item from –), agendas for Council, corre- collection of letters to Jane Cobden until . As yet the annual spondence, and many of its publica- Unwin, accompanied by pamphlets volumes for the period – have tions. The National Liberal Federation and ephemera, covering the period not been so catalogued but some is represented through the printed to . The chief subjects are pamphlets from the period have proceedings of its council, –, Irish independence, Eastern Europe, survived separately and have been and the correspondence of its galvanic anti-slavery agitation and the entered on the catalogue. Naturally, secretary, Francis Schnadhorst (– Aboriginees Protection Society. the Library holds other important ), in the form of copies of letters An overview of the Liberal and serials issued by the Publication apparently prepared for a publication other holdings of the Special Collec- Department, including the Liberal which never saw the light of day. tions Department of the University Magazine (–); the Liberal Resolutions, memoranda and other Library may be consulted at Yearbook (–, –, –); papers of the Liberal Party Organisa- www.bris.ac.uk/is/services. These and the Liberal Agent (–, tion Executive it is thought have holdings are made available to all, –). The online catalogue is survived routine disposal in the case of subject to appointment and the freely available at: www.lib.bris.ac.uk/ a single decade, –, and have production of proof of identity. The ALEPH. been sorted roughly under such hours of opening are . – . In a substantial part of the headings as constituency and parlia- Monday to Wednesday; . – . on archive of the National Liberal Club mentary strategy, trade unions, and Thursdays and . – . on Fridays. itself was returned to the Club on Commonwealth and colonial affairs. The Department is located in the Arts permanent loan. The University Library Looking to the provincial presence and Social Sciences Library, Tyndall has retained materials principally of Liberalism, the Association of Avenue, Bristol, BS TJ.
16 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 Speech Tony Little introduces one of the speeches not included in Great Liberal Speeches because of shortage of space. ‘Let‘Let usus openopen toto themthem thethe doordoor ofof thethe HouseHouse ofof Commons’Commons’ Thomas Babington Macaulay on Jewish Disabilities (House of Commons, 17 April 1833)
homas Babington Macaulay was born on issue to the forefront. In the face of a threat of revo- October , , the son of the Evangeli lution in Ireland, Catholic Emancipation was con- T cal philanthropist Zachary Macaulay, a lead- ceded, but this still left the Church of England in a ing opponent of the slave trade. A precocious child, privileged position against which the dissenting he began writing poetry and history before he was churches were to campaign for most of the century. ten. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he developed his It also left Jewish people unable to obtain high of- skills as a debater. His essay on the English poet John fice. Macaulay spoke against the civil disadvantaging Milton, published in the Edinburgh Review in , of Jews – ‘Jewish disabilities’ – several times, and was the foundation of his fame. Although called to wrote one of his more impassioned essays on the the bar he preferred politics and entered the House, subject. As is very clear from the speech featured ironically given his support for parliamentary re- here, the case for full citizenship for Jews is the same form, as the member for Lord Lansdowne’s pocket as for tolerance for any other minority group. He borough of Calne. was fighting the same bigotry which opposed The speech that made Macaulay’s parliamentary Catholic Emancipation and he powerfully argues reputation occurred early in his career, on March the case for the inclusion of all groups in civil soci- , and is included in Great Liberal Speeches under ety. Although resolutions were passed in the Com- the title ‘Reform that you may preserve’; it paved the mons from the s, it was Disraeli, as part of Lord way for the Great Reform Act of . But Macaulay Derby’s government, who delivered Jewish emanci- was a classic Whig reformer, and also fought against pation in . The Liberal Lionel de Rothschild, religious intolerance, the subject of the speech we re- who had been winning elections for the City of produce here. London since but had felt unable to take the In the nineteenth century the critical battle oath of office as a matter of conscience, was finally against discrimination was fought not on the ground able to occupy his seat. of race or sexual orientation but of religion. Al- After holding various government posts, though a small minority of the population in Brit- Macaulay lost his own seat in , partly as a result ain, Roman Catholics were the overwhelming ma- of his views on religious tolerance. His attack on the jority in Ireland, which had been part of the United concept of leaving education to philanthropists (the Kingdom since and was subject to British legal subject of the second speech of his included in Great discrimination. By winning a seat in parliament that Liberal Speeches) and his defence of funding Anglican he could not occupy, Daniel O’Connell forced the schools both antagonised nonconformists, and for
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 17 that, when this subject was discussed ‘Those conclusions are so three years ago, it was remarked, by one whom we both loved and whom we monstrous’ both regret, that the strength of the case Now, surely, my honourable friend can- of the Jews was a serious inconvenience not have considered to what conclu- to their advocate, for that it was hardly sions his reasoning leads. Those conclu- possible to make a speech for them sions are so monstrous that he would, I without wearying the audience by re- am certain, shrink from them. Does he peating truths which were universally really mean that it would not be wrong admitted. If Sir James Mackintosh felt in the legislature to enact that no man this difficulty when the question was should be a judge unless he weighed first brought forward in this House, I twelve stone, or that no man should sit may well despair of being able now to in parliament unless he were six feet offer any arguments which have a pre- high? We are about to bring in a bill for tence to novelty. the government of India. Suppose that Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59) My honourable friend, the Member we were to insert in that bill a clause for the University of Oxford, began his providing that no graduate of the Uni- his Edinburgh constituents, this com- speech by declaring he had no intention versity of Oxford should be Governor pounded the offence of his support for of calling in question the principles of General or Governor of any Presidency, the funding of the Catholic College at religious liberty. He utterly disclaims would not my honourable friend cry Maynooth in Ireland. persecution, that is to say, persecution as out against such a clause as most unjust The first two volumes of the History defined by himself. It would, in his opin- to the learned body he represents? And of England from the Accession of King ion, be persecution to hang a Jew, or to would he think himself sufficiently an- James II were finished in and at flay him, or draw his teeth, or to im- swered by being told, in his own words, once achieved success. In prison him, or to fine him; for every man that appointment to office is a mere Macaulay returned to Parliament, but who conducts himself peaceably has a matter of favour, and that to exclude an because of a weak heart he refused of- right to his life and his limbs, to his per- individual or a class from office is no in- fice. He was created Baron Macaulay sonal liberty and his property. But it is jury? Surely on consideration, he must of Rothley in , a very early liter- not persecution, says my honourable admit that official appointments ought ary peerage, and died on December friend, to exclude any individual or any not to be subject to regulations purely . He is buried in Westminster Ab- class from office; for nobody has a right arbitrary, to regulations for which no bey. Macaulay is best known, now, for to office: in every country official ap- reason can be given but mere caprice, his History, which is the epitome of the pointments must be subject to such and that those who would exclude any Whig view of history as progress but it regulations as the supreme authority class from public employment are is best read as great Victorian literature, may choose to make; nor can any such bound to show some special reason for for Macaulay’s opinionated, rhetorical, regulations be reasonably complained of the exclusion. driving narrative style. by any member of society as unjust. He My honourable friend has appealed who obtains any office, obtains it not as a to us as Christians. Let me then ask him On th April , the House of Com- matter of right, but as a matter of favour. how he understands the great com- mons resolved itself into a committee to con- He who does not obtain an office is not mandment which comprises the law sider the civil disabilities of the Jews. Mr wronged; he is only in that situation in and the prophets. Can we be said to do Warburton took the chair. Mr Robert Grant which the vast majority of every coun- unto others as we would that they moved the following resolution: try must necessarily be. There are in the should do unto us if we wantonly in- ‘That it is the opinion of this committee United Kingdom five and twenty mil- flict on them even the smallest pain? As that it is expedient to remove all civil dis- lion Christians without places; and, if Christians, surely we are bound to con- abilities at present existing with respect of they do not complain, why should five sider first, whether by excluding the His Majesty’s subjects professing the Jewish and twenty thousand Jews complain of Jews from all public trust, we give them religion, with the like exceptions as are pro- being in the same case? In this way my pain; and secondly, whether it be neces- vided with respect to His Majesty’s subjects honourable friend has convinced him- sary to give them that pain in order to professing the Roman Catholic religion.’ self that, as it would be most absurd in avert some greater evil. That by exclud- The resolution was passed in the Com- him and me to say that we are ing them from public trust we inflict mons but rejected by the House of Lords. wronged because we are not Secretar- pain on them my honourable friend Jews were eventually allowed to enter the ies of State, so it is most absurd in the will not dispute. As a Christian, there- Commons in . Jews to say that they are wronged be- fore, he is bound to relieve them from cause they are, as a people, excluded that pain, unless he can show what I am Mr Warburton, I recollect and my hon- from public employment. sure he has not yet shown, that it is nec- ourable friend the Member for the essary to the general good that they University of Oxford will recollect, should continue to suffer.
18 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 ‘The intolerance which those persecutors who use the rack and declaring of war or the signing of a stake have much to say for themselves. treaty till they have conferred with him. he thinks a duty’ They are convinced that their end is All this is as it should be; but he must But where, he says, are you to stop, if good; and it must be admitted that they not be a Privy Councillor. He must not once you admit into the House of employ means which are not unlikely to be called the Right Honourable, for Commons people who deny the au- attain their end. Religious dissent has re- that is political power. And who is it we thority of the Gospels? Will you let in a peatedly been put down by sanguinary are trying to cheat in this way? Even Mussulman? Will you let in a Parsee? persecution. In that way the Albigenses Omniscience. Yes, sir; we have been Will you let in a Hindoo, who worships were put down. In that way Protestant- gravely told that the Jews are under the a lump of stone with seven heads? I will ism was suppressed in Spain and Italy, so divine displeasure, and that, if we give answer my honourable friend’s ques- that it has never since reared its head. But them political power, God will visit us tion by another. Where does he mean I defy anybody to produce an instance in in judgement. to stop? Is he ready to roast unbelievers which disabilities such as we are now Do we think that God cannot distin- at slow fires? If not, let him tell us why considering have produced any other ef- guish between substance and form? – and I will engage to prove his reason fect than that of making the sufferers an- Does not He know that, while we is just as decisive against the intolerance gry and obstinate. withhold from the Jews the semblance which he thinks a duty as against the My honourable friend should either and name of political power, we suffer intolerance which he thinks a crime. persecute to some purpose or not per- them to possess the substance? The Once admit that we are bound to inflict secute at all. He dislikes the word perse- plain truth is that my honourable friend pain on a man because he is not of our cution. He will not admit that the Jews is drawn in one direction by his opin- religion, and where are you to stop? are persecuted. And yet I am confident ions and in a directly opposite direction Why stop at the point fixed by my hon- that he would rather be sent to the by his excellent heart. He halts between ourable friend rather than at the point King’s Bench Prison for three months the two opinions. He tries to make a fixed by the honourable Member for or be fined a hundred pounds than be compromise between principles which Oldham (Mr Cobbett), who would subject to the disabilities under which admit of no compromise. He goes a make the Jews incapable of holding the Jews lie. How can he then say that certain way in intolerance. Then he land? And why stop at the point fixed to impose such disabilities is not perse- stops, without being able to give a rea- by the honourable Member for cution, and that to fine and imprison is son for stopping. But I know the rea- Oldham rather than at a point which persecution? All his reasoning consists son. It is his humanity. Those who for- would have been fixed by a Spanish In- in drawing arbitrary lines. What he does merly dragged the Jew at a horse’s tail, quisitor of the sixteenth century? When not wish to inflict he calls persecution. and singed his beard with blazing furze once you enter on a course of persecu- What he does wish to inflict he will not bushes, were much worse men than my tion, I defy you to find any reason for call persecution. What he takes from the honourable friend; but they were more making a halt till you have reached the Jews he calls political power. What he is consistent than he. extreme point. When my honourable too good-natured to take from the Jews friend tells us that he will allow the he will not call political power. The Jew Jews to possess property to any amount, must not sit in Parliament, but he may ‘Not for differing from us but that he will not allow them to pos- be the proprietor of all the ten-pound in opinion’ sess the smallest political power, he uses houses in a borough. He may have It has been said that it would be mon- contradictory language. Property is more fifty-pound tenants than any peer strous to see a Jewish judge try a man power. The honourable Member for in the kingdom. He may give the voters for blasphemy. In my opinion it is Oldham sees very clearly that it is im- treats to please their palates, and hire monstrous to see any judge try a man possible to deprive a man of political bands of gypsies to break their heads, as for blasphemy under the present law. power if you suffer him to be the pro- if he were a Christian and a marquess. But if the law on that subject were in prietor of half a county, and therefore All the rest of this system is of a piece. a sound state, I do not see why a con- very consistently proposes to confiscate The Jew may be a juryman, but not a scientious Jew might not try a blas- the landed estates of the Jews. judge. He may decide issues of fact, but phemer. Every man, I think, ought to But even the honourable Member for not issues of law. He may give a hun- be at liberty to discuss the evidences Oldham does not go far enough. He has dred thousand pounds’ damages, but he of religion, but no man ought to be at not proposed to confiscate the personal may not in the most trivial case grant a liberty to force on the unwilling ears property of the Jews. Yet it is perfectly new trial. He may rule the money mar- and eyes of others sounds and sights certain that any Jew who has a million ket; he may influence the exchanges; he which must cause annoyance and ir- may easily make himself very important may be summoned to congresses of ritation. The distinction is clear. I in the state. By such steps we pass from emperors and kings. Great potentates, think it is wrong to punish a man for official power to landed property, and instead of negotiating a loan with him selling Paine’s Age of Reason in a back from landed property to personal prop- by tying him in a chair and pulling out shop to those who choose to buy or erty, and from personal property to lib- his grinders, may treat with him as with for delivering a Deistical lecture in a erty and from liberty to life. In truth, a great potentate, and may postpone the private room to those who choose to
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 19 listen. But if a man exhibits at a win- tries in which they sojourn. Now, Sir, I honourable friend, the Member for dow in the Strand a hideous carica- am confident that I can demonstrate the University of Oxford, must ac- ture of that which is an object of awe that this is not the sense of any proph- knowledge that the Jewish religion is and adoration to nine hundred and ecy which is part of Holy Writ. For it is of all erroneous religions the least mis- ninety nine out of every thousand of an undoubted fact that, in the United chievous. There is not the slightest the people who pass up and down States of America, Jewish citizens do chance that the Jewish religion will that great thoroughfare; if a man, in a possess all the privileges possessed by spread. The Jew does not wish to make place of public resort, applies oppro- Christian citizens. Therefore, if the proselytes. He may be said to reject brious epithets to names held in rev- prophecies mean that the Jews never them. He thinks it almost culpable in erence by all Christians; such a man shall, during their wanderings, be ad- one who does not belong to his race ought, in my opinion, to be severely mitted by other nations to equal par- to presume to belong to his religion. It punished, not for differing from us in ticipation of political rights, the proph- is therefore not strange that a conver- opinion, but for committing a nui- ecies are false. But the prophecies are sion from Christianity to Judaism sance which gives us pain and disgust. certainly not false. Therefore their should be a rarer occurrence than a to- He is no more entitled to outrage our meaning cannot be that which is attrib- tal eclipse of the sun. There was one feelings by obtruding his impiety on uted to them by my honourable friend. distinguished convert in the last cen- us, and to say that he is exercising his Another objection which has been tury, Lord George Gordon; and the right of discussion, than to establish a made to this motion is that the Jews history of his conversion deserves to yard for butchering horses close to look forward to the coming of a great be remembered. For if ever there was a our houses and to say he is exercising deliverer, to their return to Palestine, to proselyte of whom a proselytising sect his right of property, or to run naked the rebuilding of their temple, to the would have been proud, it was Lord up and down the public streets and to revival of their ancient worship, and George, not only because he was a say that he is exercising his right of that therefore they will always consider man of high birth and rank; not only locomotion. He has a right of discus- England, not their country, but merely because he had been a member of the sion, no doubt, as he has a right of their place of exile. But, surely, Sir, it legislature, but also because he had property and a right of locomotion. would be the grossest ignorance of hu- been distinguished by the intolerance, But he must use all his rights so as not man nature to imagine that the antici- nay, the ferocity, of his zeal for his own to infringe the rights of others. pation of an event which is to happen form of Christianity. But was he al- These, Sir, are the principles on at some time altogether indefinite, of an lured into the synagogue? Was he even which I would frame the law of blas- event which has been vainly expected welcomed to it? No, Sir, he was coldly phemy; and if the law were so framed, I during many centuries, of an event and reluctantly permitted to share the am at a loss to understand why a Jew which even those who confidently ex- reproach and suffering of the chosen might not enforce it as well as a Chris- pect that it will happen do not confi- people; but he was sternly shut out tian. I am not a Roman Catholic, but if dently expect that that they or their from their privileges. He underwent I were a judge at Malta, I should have children or their grandchildren will see, the painful rite which their law en- no scruple about punishing a bigoted can ever occupy the minds of men to joins. But when, on his deathbed, he Protestant who should burn the Pope such a degree as to make them regard- begged to be buried among them ac- in effigy before the eyes of thousands of less of what is near and present and cer- cording to their ceremonial, he was Roman Catholics. I am not a tain. Indeed Christians, as well as Jews, told that his request could not be Mussulman; but if I were a judge in In- believe that the existing order of things granted. dia, I should have no scruple about will come to an end. Many Christians I understand that cry of ‘Hear’. It punishing a Christian who should pol- believe that Jesus will visibly reign on reminds me that one of the arguments lute a mosque. Why, then, should I earth during a thousand years. Exposi- against this motion is that the Jews are doubt that a Jew, raised by his ability, tors of prophecy have gone so far as to an unsocial people, that they draw learning, and integrity to the judicial fix the year when the millenial period is close to each other, and stand aloof bench, would deal properly with any to commence. The prevailing opinion from strangers. Really, Sir, it is amusing person who in a Christian country is, I think in favour of the year ; to compare the manner in which the should insult the Christian religion? but, according to some commentators, question of Catholic emancipation the time is close at hand. Are we to ex- was argued formerly by some gentle- ‘Are we to exclude all clude all millenarians from parliament men with the manner in which the and office, on the ground that they are question of Jewish emancipation is ar- millenarians from impatiently looking forward to the mi- gued by the same gentlemen. When office?’ raculous monarchy which is to super- the question was about Catholic But, says my honourable friend, it has sede the present dynasty and the emancipation, the cry was, ‘See how been prophesied that the Jews are to be present constitution of England, and restless, how versatile, how encroach- wanderers on the face of the earth, and that therefore they cannot be heartily ing, how insinuating, is the spirit of the that they are not to mix on terms of loyal to King William? Church of Rome. See how her priests equality with the peoples of the coun- In one important point, Sir, my compass earth and sea to make one
20 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 proselyte. How indefatigably they toil, have been said that they were Gallicised. paths of ambition; and then we despise how attentively they study the weak It was the same with the Calvinists. What them for taking refuge in avarice. and strong points of every character, more deadly enemies had France in the During many ages we have, in all how skilfully they employ literature, days of Louis the Fourteenth than the our dealings with them, abused our arts, sciences, as engines for the propa- persecuted Huguenots? But would any immense superiority of force; and gation of their faith. You find them in rational man infer from these facts that then we are disgusted because they every region and under every disguise, either the Roman Catholic as such, or have recourse to that cunning which is collating manuscripts in the Bodleian, the Calvinist as such, is incapable of lov- the natural and universal defence of fixing telescopes in the observatory of ing the land of his birth? If England were the weak against the violence of the Pekin, teaching the use of the plough now invaded by Roman Catholics, how strong. But were they always a mere and the spinning wheel to the savages many English Roman Catholics would money-changing, money-getting, of Paraguay. Will you give power to go over to the invader? If France were money-hoarding race? Nobody the members of a Church so busy, so now attacked by a Protestant enemy, knows better than my honourable aggressive, so insatiable?’ Well, now the how many French Protestants would friend the Member for the University question is about people who never lend him help? Why not try what effect of Oxford that there is nothing in their try to seduce any stranger to join would be produced on the Jews by that national character which unfits them them, and who do not wish any body tolerant policy which has made the Eng- for the highest duties of citizens. He to be of their faith who is not also of lish Roman Catholic a good English- knows that, in the infancy of civiliza- their blood. And now you exclaim, man, and the French Calvinist a good tion, when our island was as savage as ‘Will you give power to the members Frenchman. New Guinea, when letters and arts of a sect which remains sullenly apart were still unknown to Athens, when from other sects, which does not in- ‘Such has in every age scarcely a thatched hut stood on what vite, nay, which hardly even admits was afterwards the site of Rome, this neophytes?’ been the reasoning of contemned people had their fenced The truth is, that bigotry will never bigots’ cities and cedar palaces, their splendid want a pretence. Whatever the sect be Another charge has been brought Temple, their fleets of merchant ships, which it is proposed to tolerate, the pe- against the Jews, not by my honourable their schools of sacred learning, their culiarities of that sect will, for the time, friend the Member for the University great statesmen and soldiers, their be pronounced by intolerant men to be of Oxford – he has too much learning natural philosophers, their historians the most odious and dangerous that can and too much good feeling to make and their poets. be conceived. As to the Jews, that they such a charge – but by the honourable are unsocial as respects religion is true; Member for Oldham, who has, I am ‘Let not us fight the and so much the better: for surely, as sorry to say, quitted his place. The hon- Christians, we cannot wish that they ourable Member for Oldham tells us battle of truth with the should bestir themselves to pervert us that the Jews are naturally a mean race, weapons of error’ from our own faith. But that the Jews a sordid race, a money-getting race; that What nation ever contended more would be unsocial members of the civil they are averse to all honourable manfully against overwhelming odds community, if the civil community did callings; that they neither sow nor reap; for its independence and religion? its duty by them, has never been proved. that they have neither flocks nor herds; What nation ever, in its last agonies, My honourable friend who made the that usury is the only pursuit for which gave such signal proofs of what may be motion we are discussing has produced a they are fit; that they are destitute of all accomplished by a brave despair? And great body of evidence to show that they elevated and amiable sentiments. Such, if, in the course of many centuries, the have been grossly misrepresented; and sir, has in every age been the reasoning oppressed descendants of warriors and that evidence has not been refuted by of bigots. They never fail to plead in sages have degenerated from the quali- my honourable friend the Member for justification of persecution the vices ties of their fathers, if, while excluded the University of Oxford. But what if it which persecution has engendered. from the blessings of law, and bowed were true that the Jews are unsocial? England has been to the Jews less than down under the yoke of slavery, they What if it were true that they do not re- half a country; and we revile them be- have contracted some of the vices of gard England as their country? Would cause they do not feel for England outlaws and of slaves, shall we consider not the treatment that they have under- more than half patriotism. We treat this as a matter of reproach to them? gone explain and excuse their antipathy them as slaves, and wonder that they do Shall we not rather consider it as a to the society in which they live? not regard us as brethren. We drive matter of shame and remorse to our- While the bloody code of Elizabeth them to mean occupations, and then selves? Let us do justice to them. Let us was enforced against English Roman reproach them for not embracing hon- open the door of the House of Com- Catholics, what was the patriotism of ourable professions. We long forbade mons. Let us open to them every ca- Roman Catholics? Oliver Cromwell them to possess land; and we complain reer in which ability and energy can said that in his time they were that they chiefly occupy themselves in Espaniolised. At a later period it might trade. We shut them out from all the concluded on page 47
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 21 Biography John Davies examines the life of Ivor Davies (1915–1986), who would have been the Liberal candidate at the Oxford by-election in 1938. KeeperKeeper ofof thethe LiberalLiberal FlameFlame
n the late s, Ivor Davies was one of the It was Davies’ misfortune that the years of his po- brightest of the Liberal Party’s rising young litical prime coincided with the bleakest period of I stars. For the leadership of the Union of Uni- the Liberal Party’s electoral fortunes, culminating, versity Liberal Students and for the candidacy in after the Carmarthen by-election, in its reduc- Central Aberdeenshire he was preferred respec- tion to five Members of Parliament with the major- tively to Frank Byers and Jo Grimond, who be- ity of those dependent to an extent on the formal or came two of the most noted Liberals of that gen- informal agreement of the Conservatives not to field eration. He was three times elected President of his a candidate. Consequently he was never afforded the university Liberal Club and a profile in the student opportunity to serve in Parliament, which many magazine concluded that ‘he has many of the po- thought to be his due. Drawing words from the old tentialities of a great man’. He was certainly seen hymn, One Church, One Faith, One Lord, he was in as a coming man in the Liberal Party and constitu- the habit of referring to himself and his small band encies were almost queuing up for the services of of supporters as ‘the faithful few’. The present Liberal this eloquent and personable young Liberal. He Party has every reason to be grateful to these few turned down a far from unpromising candidacy in who kept the flame burning in its darkest days and Bewdley. His celebrity within the party was such maintained and developed bases from which it was that it came as no surprise when he was chosen to possible to elect Liberal Members of Parliament in fight a by-election of the highest profile in Oxford happier times for the party. at the time of the Munich Crisis. Ivor Davies was born in Pontrhydygroes, Davies came from the Celtic, nonconformist Cardiganshire, on August . He was the sec- tradition of many of the Liberal activists of that pe- ond son of Roderick Glyn Davies, a noted Minister riod. His political beliefs were in the main radical of the Congregationalist Church and Elizabeth and to the left of the Liberal Party of the day. His Florence, neé Morgan, daughter of the local doctor. election addresses frequently led on world peace In those days, this area of Wales was undisputed Lib- and support for the United Nations. He supported eral territory and Ivor became a convinced and pas- unilateral nuclear disarmament and opposed con- sionate Liberal in the radical Welsh tradition. His po- scription and German rearmament. He was an ar- litical hero was David Lloyd George, with whom his dent free trader and advocate of separate Parlia- family was acquainted. Throughout his whole life, ments for Scotland and Wales. He pressed continu- his home was full of books, pictures and memora- ally for the full implementation of the Beveridge bilia connected with the great Welsh statesman. Report, for affordable housing for those on low in- His father’s ministries took him first to Kent and comes and for Keynesian programmes of public then to Shepherds Bush and to Acton in London, works. He was very strongly anti-racist. His agenda where Ivor received his early education. The family included profit sharing and partial nationalisation. then moved to Morningside in Edinburgh and Ivor He wished to reduce indirect taxation and reform completed his education at George Watson’s College purchase tax, leasehold obligations and industrial and Edinburgh University. rates of taxation. He was opposed to comprehen- While at University he edited the undergraduate sive schools and farm subsidies. magazine The Student and quickly gained a reputation
22 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 as an outstanding debater in the Liberal made representations to Labour Party and Davies stood aside and handed cause. He was elected President of the Headquarters and were met with a over his organisation to Lindsay … Union of University Liberal Societies. blank refusal. It was not until Transport The election itself came as something On leaving university, he worked as a House agents came into the Division of an anti-climax after the historic journalist on the Liberal News Chronicle. and saw the exact position that some preliminaries. Hogg was a first-rate His writings for this and for other news- progress was made. Mr Gordon- candidate and made rings round papers and magazines added to his Walker was most reluctant to with- Lindsay, whose classroom style and standing within the party and he was draw, but three days before nomina- uninspiring delivery were ill-fitted soon adopted as Liberal candidate for tion day he agreed to do so and a for the hustings … An unusual fea- Central Aberdeenshire. move was promoted to persuade Mr ture of the contest was that a number In October , a by-election oc- A.D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol, to of prominent Liberals, who had de- curred in Oxford as a result of the death go forward. clared their inability to speak for their of the sitting Conservative member, and own candidate, found it convenient He required little persuasion; few Ivor Davies was chosen by the local Lib- to visit Oxford to support Lindsay. candidates can have manifested a eral Association to fight the seat. The greater enthusiasm to be adopted. By Ivor Davies said that during the nego- Conservative candidate was Quintin this time the local Liberal Association, tiations he formed a high opinion of Hogg and the Labour candidate Patrick and even their candidate, were disap- Pakenham’s integrity and a poor opin- Gordon-Walker, both later Cabinet pointed that their sound work was to ion of his ability, and vice versa for Ministers for their respective parties. . be in vain and took some persuading Crossman. The Munich Agreement had been to withdraw from the fight. After an One of the arguments put forward for signed at the end of September and the emotional and fervid meeting, their adopting Lindsay as candidate was that issue of appeasement dominated the correct course of action became plain ‘everyone knew him’. Because he was a campaign. This was the first and most famous in a series of by-elections in which a Popular Front was formed against the Government’s foreign policy. The Labour Party opposed any co- operation with the Liberal Party, but the Liberal Party Executive passed a resolution in October declaring that ‘because of the present emergency it is ready to subordinate party consid- erations and to cooperate wholeheart- edly with men and women of all par- ties, who realise the gravity of the time.’ Davies entered the campaign against the wishes of the Liberal Party leader- ship, and received no support from the national party organisation. According to Davies’s own account:
The contest had not been in progress long before it became quite clear that the Liberals were succeeding beyond their most sanguine expectations. The prospect of success was small but the Labour candidate seemed destined to be a bad third. In view of the interna- tional situation, Davies offered early in the contest to withdraw, if Gordon- Walker would do the same, to allow an independent anti-Munich candi- date to go forward. The offer was treated with scorn, but as the pattern became plain, the local Socialists in their alarm reconsidered the position quickly. Their leaders … Frank Pakenham and R.H.S. Crossman …
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 23 great figure in the university, his donnish John Junor, later editor of the Sunday supporters assumed that everyone in the Express, who was fighting the neigh- town would know him as well. They did bouring constituency, he toured the not. Over half the electorate had no idea Highlands and Islands speaking for the who he was. There was great interest in Liberal cause. The Scottish Labour the by-election among undergraduates, Party was interested in attracting his many of whom did not have a vote, and political talents to their ranks, and it was a fair amount of apathy among towns- suggested that he might be offered the people, who had. The Popular Front safe seat of Dunfermline Burghs, but candidate and some of his supporters Ivor was a resolute Liberal and spurned were, however, unwilling to campaign in these advances. a way that would win the popular vote. In the streets of Central Aberdeen- The street slogan was ‘Oxford Wants shire, local schoolchildren who sup- Lindsay. Hitler wants Hogg’, but, cam- ported the Liberals sang this rhyme paigning in the city, Lindsay palpably about the three candidates: lacked the common touch. As a distin- Vote for Spence guished philosophy don and Lindsay And you’ll get no pence. supporter put it: ‘If he can’t win on his Vote for Hay own merits, without being vulgar, better Ivor Davies in 1955 And you’ll get no pay. to lose’. Hogg was elected by just under Vote for Ivor , votes. mental health, drug abuse, aid to travel- And you’ll get a fiver. Ivor Davies had always been a strong lers and the winding up of the National advocate of the League of Nations and – not to be taken literally, of course! In Liberals. Johnson had an eccentric streak an opponent of fascism and had been in- what proved to be a poor general elec- and at one time mounted furious oppo- volved in some fierce demonstrations tion for the Liberals, Ivor finished sition to the dangers he saw in the intro- against Sir Oswald Mosley. When the strongly in third place, very close be- duction of winking indicators on cars, Second World War was declared, he en- hind the Labour candidate. insisting that arm-operated indicators listed in the Royal Air Force on the first Following the election, his in- should continue. The situation that we day and rose through the ranks to be- terest in international affairs and world would now face on modern motorways come Flying Officer, acting Flight Lieu- peace led to him taking the post of Re- had he prevailed can barely be imagined. tenant. He served in Burma and was gional Officer for the United Nations Johnson owned the Marlborough wounded in the drive for Rangoon. In Association in the North East of Eng- Arms Hotel in Woodstock but later con- he married Jean McLeod, who land. He returned to Scotland in to centrated his energies on his small pub- had been a fellow student at Edinburgh, contest what was now West Aberdeen- lishing firm Christopher Johnson (later in his father’s church. They had three shire. He increased his vote but again just Johnson Publications). Ivor was his co-di- children who followed them in their failed to overtake the Labour candidate. rector and in published his own interest in politics. His daughter Mary, He had, however, established the strong book, Tr ial by Ballot, a political history of prior to her tragic early death in , base that contributed to Liberal electoral the years to , regarded by aca- had followed her father as President of victories later in the century. demics as one of the best accounts of the Edinburgh University Liberal Club and In , he moved his family to Ox- period. He was also heavily involved in had been elected a Liberal councillor in ford to work in partnership with Donald writing and editing the best-selling I was the London Borough of Havering. His McIntosh Johnson, an old friend from Churchill’s Shadow by Detective Chief In- son John was Parliamentary candidate the days of the wartime party truce, who spector W. H. Thompson, who had for Labour against Mrs Thatcher in had come very close to winning guarded Churchill during the war. He Finchley in and councillor and Chippenham in as an Independent later moved to become Chairman and Group Leader in the London Borough Liberal but later became Conservative Managing Director of the book distribu- of Barnet. MP for Carlisle. It was reported that at tion company Trade Counter which ex- Both Ivor and his wife were oppo- one time Johnson and Davies had de- panded and prospered under his leader- nents of the party truce that prevailed vised a scheme whereby they would di- ship. He served for many years on the during the war. Jean acted as agent to vide the country in two and each fight Distribution and Methods Committee of the journalist Honor Balfour in the cel- all by-elections in their respective halves. the Publishers Association and was Secre- ebrated Darwen by-election of Ivor Davies never allowed politics to in- tary of the Independent Publishers when, standing as an Independent Lib- terfere with friendship and he retained Guild. Both his sons also worked in eral, she came within seventy votes of strong and lasting links with those like publishing. John was a Director of the defeating the National Government Johnson and Honor Balfour who left the Publishers Association for twenty-four candidate. Liberal Party. In fact, he supported years. His second son, Michael, worked At the end of the war, Ivor returned Johnson in the particular campaigns he initially with his father at Trade Counter, to fight Central Aberdeenshire. With pursued in Parliament on such issues as was a co-founder of Wordsworth Editions
24 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 and later established his own book busi- file, this action did not endear him to With his wife Jean, he also built ness in Ware, Hertfordshire. the party hierarchy. He was also scath- upon his interests in the Oxford com- Back in Oxford, Davies quickly ingly attacked in the press by Bernard munity, chairing the North Oxford threw himself into local Liberal politics Levin, who described him as ‘the star- Grove House Club and the Victim Sup- and was selected as parliamentary candi- ing-eyed idiot from Oxford’. None- port Group. Jean was a magistrate in date for the election. The Liberals theless, his contribution to the Party Oxford for fifteen years and a founder had not contested Oxford in , and Council and committees was suffi- of Norreys House, a residential home he lost his deposit, polling just above ciently valued for him to be seen as one for young women. Ivor adhered firmly votes. He fought the seat again in of the front figures in the general to the Christian faith of his father and and in and by then had raised election campaign. was a deacon and secretary of the Liberal vote to a creditable . He chaired the Oxford Campaign for Summertown United Reform Church. Ivor Davies first stood for Oxford Nuclear Disarmament. He developed In , the Liberal leader, David Steel, City Council in in the East Ward strong links with the University Liberal nominated Ivor for the award of the where he finished bottom of the poll. Club, particularly when his son John was CBE for political and public service. For many years thereafter there was no at Christ Church, and was appointed He died two years later and is buried in set of council elections at which he was honorary Vice-President. Good friends the family grave at Strata Florida, not a candidate. After several efforts in and supporters in Oxford included Lord Cardiganshire, with his wife Jean, who the North Ward, he concentrated on his and Lady Beveridge, Lord and Lady died eighteen months afterwards. home ward of Summertown & Franks and Bob Hawke, later Labour Ivor and Jean Davies gave a great Wolvercote. He was diligent and consci- Prime Minister of Australia. deal to the people of Oxford, who entious on local issues, from the build- The links with the University Lib- showed their recognition by packing ing of motorways to the removal of the eral Club proved his undoing. A group into the church in Summertown for infamous Cutteslowe Wall and built up a of dons, led by Max Beloff, pressed for their funerals. At Ivor’s, the Minister, considerable local following. At that one of their number to be the Parlia- Donald Norwood, told the congrega- time, the Labour Party rarely contested mentary candidate and Ivor was not re- tion ‘how proud we have all been of the seat. In , aided by a swing to the selected for the election. He was our Ivor’. Cwm Rhondda was sung and Liberals in the wake of the remarkable deeply disappointed by this decision. the parting blessing was given in Welsh. Orpington by-election victory, he Those who voted against him claimed At Jean’s funeral, Olive Gibbs read the gained the Summertown & Wolvercote he was ‘too old and past it’. The refer- lesson and Honor Balfour gave the val- seat on Oxford City Council, being ence to his age was unfair, for he was edictory address, in which she spoke among the first Liberals to serve on that still some months short of fifty, but movingly of the bright young woman council for many years. He became clearly, after four candidatures, there who had come with her to Darwen and Vice-Chairman of the Libraries Com- was pressure from some quarters for a served so valiantly in the momentous mittee. He lost the seat in . Here, as change. In essence, this was a contest by-election forty-five years before. ever, politics did not impede friendship. between Town and Gown of the type Tr ibutes flowed in the local press. He built strong and enduring relation- for which Oxford is renowned. Al- Ivor Davies was an able and eloquent ships with the Oxford builder and Con- though university-educated, Davies as- man, both on the political platform and servative councillor, Harry Bowdery, the sociated himself much more with the in the pulpit, where he was a tireless lay Chief Clerk of the Council, Gilbert people of the city than the dons in the preacher. His was a fine life, guided by Phipps, and the left-wing Labour coun- colleges. Beloff was right wing in his the deepest Liberal principles. He cillors Olive and Edmund Gibbs. In her views, hated CND and later became an would have loved to have been a Lib- autobiography, Olive Gibbs, twice ardent Thatcherite and Conservative eral Member of Parliament and often Lord Mayor of Oxford, Chair of Ox- life peer. Davies’ hero in an Oxford said with complete sincerity and hon- fordshire County Council and of the na- context was the populist former Liberal esty that he would literally have given tional CND, praised his ‘life-long politi- MP Frank Gray. The conflict may be his right arm for six months in the cal and personal integrity’ and described summed up in the response of the out- House of Commons in the Liberal Ivor and Jean as ‘close personal friends’. spoken Ted Rosser, former Morris car cause. He would have been delighted to Ivor Davies’s last redoubtable campaign worker and successful Oxford business- have lived to see the outcome of the for election to what was then Oxford- man, who stood in tandem with Ivor and general elections and to shire County Council was in the North Davies on many occasions, to Beloff af- see the results of all his hard work in his Ward in , at the age of sixty-six. ter the selection: ‘They may call you old stamping grounds come to fruition, He remained on the radical side of Beloff, but all I say is bugger off’. when the constituencies of Oxford Liberalism. At the Liberal Party Assem- Rosser and the other regulars of the West & Abingdon and Gordon in Ab- bly in Edinburgh in , he led a re- City Liberal Association showed their erdeenshire both returned Liberal volt against the platform on the recog- appreciation of Ivor Davies’ services by Democrat MPs. nition of East Berlin and was elected to making him their President, a post from the Liberal Party Council. Although he which he continued to enthuse the became a hero to many of the rank and Liberal cause for many years. concluded on page 47
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 25 Biography Dr J. Graham Jones looks at the life and political career of the contentious, individualistic, right-wing Liberal MP for Cardiganshire from 1945 until 1966, Captain E. Roderic Bowen MP (1913–2001) Grimond’sGrimond’s RivalRival
van Roderic Bowen was born at the small Cardiganshire since , and R. Hopkin Morris, market town of Cardigan on the coast of Independent Liberal MP for the county, –, E west Wales on August , the son of a re- who subsequently re-entered the Commons as Lib- tired businessman who had been much involved in eral MP for neighbouring Carmarthenshire in . local Liberal politics. He always proudly recalled his He was also approached in connection with the Lib- family’s active involvement in local Liberal politics eral vacancy at Brecon & Radnor. He played some even when he was a small boy when he had dyed his part in Liberal activities in south Wales and came pet terrier in the Liberal colours. Educated at Cardi- into contact with the leading Liberals in the area. gan Council School and Cardigan County School, In June , after the wholly unexpected death he graduated with first class honours in law at both of county MP D. O. Evans, Bowen was chosen, per- the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (forty haps surprisingly, as the Liberal candidate for his na- miles from his home), and St John’s College, Cam- tive Cardiganshire over the heads of a number of bridge. Periods at the Inns of Court and on the con- prominent local Liberals. In the ensuing general tinent led to the call to the bar by the Middle Tem- election campaign no Conservative contender ap- ple in . Bar practice commenced in , peared, and the Liberal platform focused primarily Bowen taking chambers at Cardiff and practising on on an attack on ‘the rigid and inflexible policy of the South Wales circuit. At the outbreak of hostilities, Socialism’. The Labour candidate in the county was he twice volunteered for military service, but was re- Iwan Morgan, an economist and Cardiff university jected on medical grounds before, in , at his lecturer with strong Cardiganshire connections. Al- third dogged attempt, securing acceptance as a pri- though the absence of a Tory candidate meant that vate, in which capacity he served for eighteen Bowen’s election to parliament was nigh on certain, months. Securing a commission in the autumn of D. O. Evans, in his last public appearance in the , he was an officer for six months before being county shortly before his death, had warned local appointed chief instructor in administration of pay Liberals that, ‘It would be very unwise to be over- duties at a school for officers under the Southern confident. That attitude of mind would only breed Command. Bowen was later seconded to the staff of complacency.’ In the event he was probably over- the Judge-Advocate General to the Forces, and to- cautious, for Bowen defeated Morgan by the wide wards the end of the war participated in duties asso- margin of votes, by far the highest majority of ciated with Courts Martial, Courts for Prisoners of the twelve Liberal MPs returned in , the new War and the preparation of cases against National MP immediately describing the outcome as ‘a vic- War Criminals. tory for personal and political freedom … a defeat As a barrister, his work often focused on work- for bureaucracy and state control’. ‘The young up- men’s compensation and he took a particular inter- start’, chosen against the odds only a few weeks ear- est in local government administration. His devotion lier, had, it seemed, already proved his worth. At the to Welsh culture was reflected in his involvement in same time veteran Liberal Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris the activities of the Honourable Society of narrowly captured highly marginal Carmarthen- Cymmrodorion and Urdd Gobaith Cymru (the Welsh shire, the only Labour loss in the whole of the League of Youth), while he also served as legal advi- United Kingdom, and an enormous personal tri- sor to the local Teifi Net Fishermen’s Association. umph for him. Bowen’s Liberal antecedents were notable. He ad- Short, stout, bespectacled and balding, Roderic dressed a number of political meetings in support of Bowen entered the House of Commons in as D. O. Evans, his predecessor as Liberal MP for one of a tiny fragment of twelve Liberal MPs, no
26 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 fewer than seven of whom represented Bowen was generally well-liked at Cardiganshire Tories and local social- Welsh divisions. Morale within their Westminster. His sole critics at the ists were ‘collaborating in their efforts ranks was inevitably at an all-time low, Commons, it seems, were verbatim re- to oust the Liberal member’. His for the party had been ravaged beyond porters; when he moved a motion in heartfelt pessimism was clearly shared belief at the recent poll in a socialist to appoint a royal commission on by party leader Clement Davies, who landslide which had engulfed even war pensions, it took him all of sixty- dejectedly wrote to his predecessor, Sir party leader Sir Archibald Sinclair (by eight minutes. Archibald Sinclair, in the early days of the agonisingly slim margin of votes) Generally Roderic Bowen tended to the new year, ‘I do not know whether at Caithness & Sutherland, and its chief be critical of the policies and conduct I shall be back here … Even if I do whip, Sir Percy Harris, at Bethnal of the Attlee administrations. As severe pull it off, it will be “a damned near Green South-West. Other casualties in- economic depression hit the country thing”. … Each of us in Wales will cluded Sir William Beveridge at Ber- during the winter of –, he told have a very tough fight.’ ‘No-one wick-upon-Tweed, James de his local Liberal Association that the knows who will be here’ was his pessi- Rothschild on the Isle of Ely and vet- onset of slump was ‘because the Gov- mistic conclusion only days later. eran Sir Goronwy Owen at ernment had concentrated on political Again Iwan Morgan, reluctantly re-se- Caernarfonshire. Even so, some long- dogma rather than on facing immediate lected by the Cardiganshire Labour serving Liberal MPs remained at West- economic difficulties’, warning that Party as its candidate, could point the minster, and initially Bowen was both Aneurin Bevan’s embryonic Na- finger at Roderic Bowen’s unimpres- dwarfed in stature by such figures as tional Health Service and the National sive and inconsistent voting record in Clement Davies (Montgomeryshire), Insurance Act were ‘being threatened the Commons lobbies. An intense soon to be elected ‘chairman’ (if not by the growing danger of inflation’. three-cornered fray threatened to un- leader) of the fragmented Parliamen- As the members of the fractious Parlia- dermine Bowen’s position; in his care- tary Liberal Party, Lady Megan Lloyd mentary Liberal Party displayed highly fully phrased election address he George (Anglesey), self-appointed inconsistent, even bizarre, voting pointedly noted ‘the intervention of a champion of the party’s left wing, her records in the Commons lobbies, Bo- third candidate’ which, he felt, had brother Major Gwilym Lloyd George wen’s personal performance at the ‘subsequently increased the danger of (Pembrokeshire), a notable political House came under scrutiny, provoking the socialist being returned’. In the maverick moving swiftly to the right, him to retort that ‘he had always voted event, his personal anxiety was mis- Tom Horabin (North Cornwall), an- as his judgement dictated’, and to point placed, for he was re-elected by a ma- other left-wing radical and the new to his support for the setting up of the jority of no fewer than , votes Liberal chief whip, and Edgar Granville National Health Service. He asserted over Morgan, again the highest margin (Eye). They were indeed ‘a motley that, by following their consciences on enjoyed by any of the nine Liberal group’, totally lacking in cohesion, each major issue, the small group of MPs returned. Bowen had captured with no common political philosophy Liberal MPs constituted ‘a far more per cent of the Cardiganshire vote, and or parliamentary strategy, ever ready to critical opposition to the Government his was the only division apart from dissent, even rebel, some of its members than the Official Opposition did’. Yet, Montgomeryshire where the Liberals perched on opposing poles of the po- although highly critical of doctrinaire had secured an absolute majority in a litical spectrum. socialism, Bowen doggedly renounced three-cornered contest. Thereafter he Bowen was soon to make his mark an overture from the local Conservative was not to face a Conservative oppo- in the Commons as a dextrous, amusing Party that a joint candidate might stand nent until October . debater, but clearly on the right wing of at the next general election, rejoicing in When the second Attlee administra- his tiny party, and generally reluctant to the decision of the Cardiganshire Lib- tion, with its much reduced overall ma- break ranks with the party leadership, eral Party to reject out-of-hand an ap- jority, was compelled to go to the coun- always adhering closely to the official proach from Sir Arthur Harford, chair- try again in the autumn of , party line – ‘the plump Welshman with man of the Cardiganshire Conserva- Roderic Bowen, now facing a sole La- the polished manner’. Lord Emlyn tives, that the two parties might field a bour opponent, Revd. Brynmor Hooson has written of both Roderic joint candidate at the forthcoming Williams, vicar of Llansamlet, was sure of Bowen and R. Hopkin Morris in the election. Ironically, in the neighbouring re-election, increasing his majority to – parliament as determined to Pembrokeshire constituency a formal ,, again the highest of the six Lib- ‘have nothing whatever to do with the ‘Lib–Con’ pact was formed to support eral MPs returned to Westminster, al- Labour Party and socialism and were the re-election of National Liberal (or though the turnout in Cardiganshire regarded as being of the right’. The Liberal and Conservative) MP Major plummeted sharply. In his election ad- novice MP for Cardiganshire partici- Gwilym Lloyd-George. dress the Liberal candidate urged his pated only occasionally in parliamen- Failure to conclude such an agree- constituents ‘to resist any attempts to im- tary debate, generally speaking on ment in Cardiganshire meant that a pose Nationalisation upon our Agricul- Welsh affairs, often on matters of direct keenly contested three-cornered fray tural Industry and to take land unreason- relevance to his constituency. From the was likely in , Bowen fearing for ably for non-agricultural purposes’. outset of his political career, however, his political future and sensing that But the total number of Liberal MPs
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 27 his active involvement, although he was a consistent vocal advocate of the na- tional rights of Wales. But there was some substance to Plaid Cymru gibes that Liberal support for the agitation was at best ‘anaemic’. By the mid s Roderic Bowen was firmly entrenched in his Cardiganshire citadel, the impressive victor of three parliamentary elections by a wide margin. At the end of a full-time secretary-organiser to the Cardiganshire Liberal Association, in the person of J. Parry Williams, a former employee of the Ministry of Labour, was appointed. The position had previ- ously been vacant for a full eighteen months. The nomination of David Jones Davies, a native of Tregaron within the county, who had served as further education officer for Caer- narfonshire, as the county’s next Labour candidate spurred county Liberals to overhaul their organisation. ‘We are in- clined to be slack in our efforts be- tween elections’, warned local organ- Roderic Bowen in 1950 iser Mrs Arthian Davies, ‘Why should we worry? Mr Bowen is sure to get in, now shrank to an all-time low of six, opponents. Rumours circulated dur- and it is in that attitude that the danger while the defeats of Lady Megan Lloyd ing the election campaign that lies.’ During a concerted effort George (Anglesey) and Emrys O. Davies might well be offered ministerial was made to streamline local organisa- Roberts (Merionethshire) meant that office in the event of a Tory victory at tion and increase support for Bowen. the three Liberal MPs who remained in the polls (as, in fact, he soon was). At the end of May there was wide- Wales – Bowen, Clement Davies and Sir The defeats of Lady Megan and spread rejoicing in Welsh Liberal circles Rhys Hopkin Morris – were all seen as Emrys Roberts also reduced sharply the as Clement Davies celebrated his silver right-wingers, having much in common involvement of Welsh Liberals in the te- jubilee as Liberal MP for Mont- with Churchill’s Conservatives. None nacious Parliament for Wales agitation gomeryshire. Major J. Parry Brown, had faced a Tory opponent in , sug- inaugurated in July . In reply to a chairman of the Liberal Party of Wales, gesting that their political philosophy newspaper questionnaire circulated dur- in a major speech assured his listeners was acceptable to Conservative Party ing October which included the that a ‘tremendous Liberal revival’ was headquarters. As Conservative local or- question, ‘Are you in favour of a Welsh about to happen, triggered by the re- ganisation remained relatively weak in Parliament and does your party officially cent re-establishment of local Liberal these three constituencies, Central Of- support that view?’, Bowen replied, ‘Yes, associations in many parts of Wales. As fice was generally happy to endorse the to deal with the domestic problems of yet another election campaigned re-election of sitting Liberal MPs Wales, but not in substitution for, but in dawned, intense rumours pervaded perched on the right of their tiny party addition to, Welsh representation at Cardiganshire that ill health might well rather than see the seats fall to the La- Westminster.’ Yet none of the three re- compel Bowen to retire from political bour Party in three-cornered contests. maining Welsh Liberal MPs actively en- life, conjecture which was emphatically All three MPs increased their majorities dorsed the campaign’s activities, Bowen repudiated by the Member. in , but none was the beneficiary of years later attributing his reluctance to In May Roderic Bowen faced a formal ‘Lib–Con’ electoral pact as was participate to his view that ‘there were the Cardiganshire electorate for the Donald Wade at Huddersfield West (a too many political viewpoints repre- fourth general election in succession, perpetuation of the ‘Huddersfield ar- sented’ within the movement. Gener- again opposed only by a Labour con- rangement’ instituted in ) and ally Bowen had tended to favour the tender, in the person of D. J. Davies. But Arthur Holt at Bolton West. It was gen- grant of Dominion status to Wales. Pre- the campaign was a more heated erally felt, however, that Clement Davies sumably Clem Davies’s taxing role as affair than the previous contests, char- and Roderic Bowen would have held party leader during the years of the acterised by notably venomous per- on even if they had faced Conservative Welsh Parliament movement prevented sonal attacks. Bowen had represented
28 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 the county in parliament for nigh on impressive personal victory. No Con- Grimond, who had come to promi- ten years. Almost immediately upon his servative contender appeared in the other nence at Westminster as his party’s chief first election in , however, he had five Liberal seats (the only divisions in the whip since , was considered gener- resumed his practice at the Bar and had whole of the United Kingdom which ally ‘craggier and capable of stirring the built up an extensive and lucrative legal they did not contest), again the result of a faithful with dramatic conference business in south Wales. In , at ‘Lib–Con’ electoral pact at Bolton West speeches’. Indeed, Davies may well barely thirty-nine years of age, he took and Huddersfield West. Once again have held on until the autumn of silk, an accolade all the more notable Bowen recorded the highest majority of against his better judgement to allow because he was the first Welshman to the six Liberals, just ahead of veteran party Grimond an opportunity to serve his become a QC for fully sixty years. He leader Clement Davies, who polled , apprenticeship and win his spurs as party had been appointed Recorder of Car- more votes than his sole Labour oppo- whip. At the party assembly Grimond diff in and Recorder of Merthyr nent. None of the six had experienced an first nominated Bowen for the party Tydfil in . His appearances in his especially close shave. leadership, but Bowen, sensing that his constituency declined, he became slack During the winter of – rival was the popular choice of the vast at attending to correspondence and Clement Davies had suffered a serious majority of delegates, promptly nomi- spoke in the Commons only sparingly, illness and had been forced to spend nated him for the top job. Predictably it generally on legal matters or Welsh af- much of the ensuing spring recuperat- was Grimond who won the day, but fairs, subjects of especial interest to him. ing. His involvement in the elec- Bowen still appears to have harboured a He was absent from many debates of tion campaign, both nationally and in grudge, pointedly boycotting the next importance to his constituents, and Montgomeryshire, was minimal. Liberal Party assembly by taking advan- generally seemed to support the Con- Thereafter he faced mounting pressure tage of a free trip to the United States. servative government in the division to retire from the party leadership, for Thereafter relations between the two lobbies. Although he had become it was widely felt throughout the Lib- men were distinctly frosty – Grimond President of the Liberal Party of Wales eral Party that more assertive, radical, did not once even refer to Bowen in his in , and was to be elected chairman dynamic helmsmanship was essential. extensive Memoirs published in – of the Welsh Parliamentary Party in Davies at first seemed reluctant to and, when he accepted the position of , there was a widespread feeling yield, but eventually announced his re- Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means that in his heart of hearts Bowen pre- tirement at the October party as- (ex officio the second Deputy Speaker of ferred his highly lucrative legal career sembly at Folkestone. The natural suc- the Commons) years later in , to his political and parliamentary work. cessor, by background, temperament Bowen may have been motivated to At D. J. Davies’s adoption meeting at and dedication, was Jo Grimond. Sir some extent by feelings of revenge the end of April , D. J. Jones, the Rhys Hopkin Morris, now fully sixty- against Grimond and the Liberal Party president of the Cardiganshire Labour eight years of age, totally lacking in hierarchy. Party, accused Bowen of being the latest political ambition, and hamstrung by Moreover, murmurs of discontent in- in a long line of ‘playboy’ MPs to repre- his official position as Deputy Chair- tensified within Cardiganshire. Early in sent Cardiganshire: ‘No man can pursue a man of Ways and Means, was immedi- some members of the Aberystwyth private career and do justice to his con- ately ruled out of the succession. Both Town Council expressed their concern stituents at the same time. No man can be Arthur Holt and Donald Wade owed that Bowen did not participate in the in Cardiff and Westminster at the same their continued re-election to local debate on the Rating and Valuation Bill, time.’ Bowen responded at his adoption Conservative support within their thus failing to advance the claims of the meeting by quoting from the Year- constituencies, and should this be county and borough, local councillor book of the Cardiganshire branch of the withdrawn, they faced electoral defeat, Elfed Williams protesting, ‘Unfortu- National Farmers’ Union: ‘Cardiganshire a situation clearly wholly unacceptable nately the Member for Cardiganshire is extremely fortunate in its MP, he was for the leader of a national party. That was not there, and Cardiganshire’s views first elected in , and the trust reposed left only Grimond and Bowen. were not pressed.’ Again rumours cir- in him by the electors has been amply re- Many Welsh Liberals began to press culated both in the constituency and at warded for he has always served the Roderic Bowen’s claims as the cham- Westminster that the Member would county well.’ In a straight fight with La- pion of the tiny party’s right wing, ever not seek the Liberal nomination at the bour, the outcome was never in any real extolling as he did the virtues of private next general election. The conjecture doubt, although Bowen’s majority was enterprise and the re-introduction of was sharply repudiated by Roderic reduced somewhat to ,. Somehow, in flogging, strikingly at odds with Bowen: ‘It’s all twaddle and nonsense. It’s spite of an appalling Gallup rating of only Grimond’s radical anti-Conservative a hardy annual put up by the Labour per cent at the beginning of the election leanings which had led to his frequently boys when things are quiet. Where did campaign, and a total of no more than advocating a ‘Lib–Lab’ pact. Most of the you hear about it?’ Soon he found candidates, all six Liberal MPs held party faithful, however, felt that a Bowen himself one of only five Liberal MPs at on, although only one of these – Jo leadership, like that of Clement Davies, the Commons as Carmarthenshire fell Grimond (Orkney & Shetland) – sur- would have been ‘soft and round, and to Labour after a hotly contested by- vived a three-cornered contest, an enveloped in a cloud of words’. election in February following the
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 29 death of Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris. The It is my belief that the time has come in previous elections.’ A novel dimen- pain for the Liberals was all the greater as when we should ask the Member of sion was provided by the first-ever the Labour victor was Lady Megan Parliament to give all his time to Par- Plaid Cymru candidature in Lloyd George, Liberal MP for Anglesey liament for the benefit of the people Cardiganshire’s history, in the person of until October and a convert to so- of Cardiganshire. In these days when Dr Gareth Evans, a native of the county cialism only since April . Within the tempo of all things has increased and a Swansea lecturer. But the Labour Liberal ranks she was widely viewed as a so much, the value of a Member of campaign did not receive the recogni- ‘defector’; during the intense by-elec- Parliament to his constituents lies in tion at the polls so widely anticipated, tion campaign respected party elder his being part of a pressure group, and and Roderic Bowen was again re- statesman Lord Samuel had felt impelled his influence in that group depends in elected by a majority of , votes to warn Carmarthenshire Liberals not to no small measure on the amount of over Labour. Like other Liberal MPs support Lady Megan. hard work he puts in on behalf of his such as Arthur Holt and Donald Wade, The all-time low point of five Liberal constituents. he had been returned, for the third time MPs remained for more than a year. In in succession, with the tacit support of In order that MPs can do this, their many constituencies the party’s organi- local Conservative sympathisers. This salaries have been raised to £, sation was stagnant, financial resources was, however, to be the last occasion on per year and expenses. Parliament is were hopelessly inadequate, there were which this happened. Local socialists, the only place where a person can get only thirty salaried party agents although grievously disappointed at the £, and expenses, and turn up for throughout Britain, and there remained outcome of the election, realisti- work when he likes or not at all. If a desperate need for the strengthening cally saw the presence of at least ‘a hard any other worker did that he would and overhaul of the party’s research de- core of , Labour voters’ in get the sack. partment to devise radical and progres- Cardiganshire and were spurred to re- sive new policies. At the end of April The time has come when MPs should double their efforts. Jo Grimond spoke at Aberystwyth, be asked to give their whole time to As a new decade – the s – be- a rousing speech which underlined the Parliament or not at all. No man can gan, the political life of remote, largely need for a measure of electoral reform to serve two masters; he will neglect one rural Cardiganshire inevitably became enable support for the Liberal Party to master, and love the other. much less insular. The influence of be reflected in the composition of the nonconformity and temperance de- One of the questions the Labour Commons, but, revealing his left-wing mands seemed much less relevant to the Party asked our Prospective Candi- leanings, he went on, ‘It would be disas- new generation. Distinctive local and date was: ‘Are you prepared to devote trous for this country if all non-Socialists regional problems came to the fore, the whole of your time to Parliament simply made a “cynical pact” to keep the crystallised in proposals for the reor- if you are elected?’ Mrs Loti Rees Labour Party out of office.’ ganisation of Welsh local government Hughes has given a firm promise that As yet another general election and calls for a development corporation she would do so. loomed, the secretary of the South Wales for mid-Wales. In the wake of the infa- Liberal Federation wrote to the party’s So I say to you in Cardiganshire, mous ‘Beeching axe’, the key Aberyst- county organiser in Cardiganshire, ‘I am when the General Election comes, wyth–Carmarthen railway line, a vital very glad to know … that there is so vote for Loti Hughes and get a full- life-line in mid-Wales, ceased to carry much activity in your Constituency time MP for Cardiganshire. passengers. Nationalist impulses crystal- which might well be described as the lised locally in the earliest protests dur- Again Bowen’s disappointing and in- safest seat held by a Liberal member.’ ing of the fledgling Cymdeithas yr consistent voting record in the Com- Again, for the third general election in Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language So- mons lobbies was carefully scrutinised; succession, local Conservatives resolved ciety), blocking the traffic over the during the – parliamentary ses- to stand aside, almost assuring Roderic bridge near Aberystwyth and plastering sion he had voted in only out of a Bowen of re-election. But local Social- the town’s main post office with notices total possible divisions, he had sup- ists had secured a formidable and viva- demanding official status for the Welsh ported the government on occasions cious candidate in Mrs Loti Rees language. A contrary view soon sur- and the Labour opposition on . It Hughes, a long-serving member of the faced in protests from non-Welsh would appear that the Labour Party or- Carmarthenshire County Council, speakers at the increasing preponder- ganisation in Cardiganshire and nation- whose husband, Alderman W. Douglas ance of Welsh language television ally entertained genuine aspirations of Hughes, was the local political agent to broadcasts which they could not avoid. victory; in the words of local party Jim Griffiths MP for Llanelli. Once Roderic Bowen did not change his agent Ron Bundock, ‘We are going to again there was criticism of Roderic style of representation one iota. His ap- shock Cardiganshire, the country and Bowen for taking a ‘part-time’ attitude pearances in the constituency were few Transport House. I am extremely confi- to his political work, county Labour and fleeting, his participation in Com- dent and the reports coming in each day Party president D. J. Davies asserting to mons debates a rarity, his political life are encouraging. The feeling in the his party’s annual general meeting at the clearly taking at best second place to his county is different to any I have known end of February that: ever-increasing legal activities. During the
30 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 – parliamentary session he took part in only out of a total of divi- sions. In the latter year he took up the po- sition of Recorder of Swansea, and in was appointed Recorder of Cardiff. From , following in the footsteps of Clement Davies QC, he also became chairman of the Montgomeryshire Quarter Sessions, a position he held until . When he was present in the Com- mons, his attention was absorbed prima- rily by his strong anti-nuclear views and his opposition to the British invasion of Egypt in . Described by the Manchester Guard- ian in as ‘one of the most success- ful advocates at the Welsh bar’, his po- litical impact was much less. Indeed by the early s Bowen seemed to many to be the last in a long line of suc- cessful Welsh barristers who simply doubled up as a Liberal MP. In August and again in June he spoke briefly in the Commons on the need to introduce industrial initiatives into mid-Wales, strengthen the authority of the Development Commissioners and tackle the vexed problem of rural de- population. But such interventions were rare, brief and made little lasting impression. In August the secre- tary of the North Wales Liberal Federa- tion wrote critically of Emlyn Hooson, who in May had succeeded Clement Davies as MP for Montgomeryshire, ‘I am inclined to think he ought to spend more time on his job as Member of Parliament or else March ) and Jeremy Thorpe – the that the Deputy Speaker, Dr Horace we shall have another Roderic Bowen MP for Cardiganshire now enjoyed by King (Labour, Itchen), would succeed, … one who does not spend much time far the smallest majority. In the same and that the Deputy Chairman of Ways in his constituency.’ contest, Tory intervention simultane- and Means, Sir Samuel Storey (Con- As disenchantment with Bowen ously unseated Arthur Holt at Bolton servative, Stretford), would in turn be- grew, Labour were spurred to redouble West and Donald Wade at Huddersfield come Deputy Speaker. This would then their local efforts, opening a new West. Bowen’s total poll had fallen by leave vacant the position of Deputy county headquarters at Aberystwyth more than , votes and Labour Chairman of Ways and Means (who was and chosing long-serving local presi- could scent the prospect of victory. The ex officio the second Deputy Speaker). dent David John Davies as their pro- MP for Cardiganshire was unlikely, it The ideal solution for the beleaguered spective parliamentary candidate. In was felt, to mend his ways. Labour administration was to persuade a October Cardiganshire became a Events soon took a bizarre turn with Liberal MP to accept the position. Most marginal constituency. The decision of the sudden death of the Speaker of the of these lacked the long experience nec- the Conservatives to put up their own House of Commons, Sir Harry Hylton- essary of Commons procedures, but two candidate for the first time since , Foster, as he walked along Duke Street, did not – the party leader, Jo Grimond, coupled with the national swing to La- St James’s, London SW, on September and Roderic Bowen, veteran MP of bour, cut Bowen’s majority sharply to . The question of his successor nigh on twenty years. . Of the five Liberal MPs who had caused a crisis for Harold Wilson’s La- It was considered unthinkable for stood successfully for re-election – bour government, which had a tiny Grimond even to countenance the va- Bowen, Jo Grimond, Emlyn Hooson, overall majority of only three seats in the cancy; he had no successor as Liberal Eric Lubbock (the Orpington victor of Commons. It was widely anticipated Party leader. But Bowen demurred.
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 31 He had much to lose – he still enjoyed a After all, what had Bowen to gain selection as the Labour candidate for flourishing, highly lucrative practice at personally? He had made enormous Cardiganshire. He enjoyed a network the Bar as a QC and Leader of the material sacrifices in return for a mod- of family contacts throughout the Wales and Chester Circuit and the sta- est parliamentary salary of £,, plus north of the county, and appeared to tus and salary of Recorder of Swansea. the standard parliamentary allowance of enjoy extensive Plaid Cymru support Discussions followed between Ted £, which was available to all MPs. in spite of his change of allegiance. Short and Eric Lubbock, the govern- To add insult to injury, he had accepted Bowen seemed to make even less effort ment and Liberal chief whips. Bowen’s Wilson’s offer without even consulting than in previous election campaigns, name was mooted, but most prominent Jo Grimond, and had angered most of undertook but little canvassing, and was Liberals did not disguise their annoy- his fellow Liberal MPs whose voting content to rely on the county’s Liberal ance, reluctant ‘to run the risk of losing strength was consequently reduced tradition and his bedrock of loyal sup- their electoral identity by consenting to from ten to nine. Of the Parliamentary porters. Ominously, Jo Grimond re- an expedient arrangement in which Liberal Party, only fellow Welshman fused to send his colleague a personal they would take the responsibility of Emlyn Hooson and David Steel, the letter of support during the crucial prolonging the Government’s life with- newest Liberal MP, came out in support election campaign although asked to do out having any say in what the Govern- of his decision to accept the office. so by the president of the Cardiganshire ment does’. It was well known that Bowen may have been looking to get Liberal Association, and this became there was little love lost between the his own back on Grimond for taking well known in the constituency during two senior Liberal MPs, Grimond the party leadership nine years earlier. the campaign. On this occasion La- commenting pointedly that the deci- He may have been eyeing the Speaker’s bour swept to victory by votes, sion was purely a personal one for chair, for which he was reasonably well capturing no fewer than of the Bowen. Desperately anxious to avoid suited, or he may have hoped that Welsh constituencies, a record high an early general election at an unfa- Harold Wilson would one day reward never repeated before or since, its dra- vourable time for his government, him with a judgeship, perhaps even a matic breakthrough in Cardiganshire Harold Wilson (who had just told peerage on his eventual retirement extending its hegemony over all the George Brown, his secretary of state for from the House of Commons. If so, he constituencies of the western seaboard economic affairs, that their govern- miscalculated badly; only very minor of Wales. Cardiganshire was one of ment’s economic policies amounted to rewards, in the form of service on pub- eleven constituencies captured by La- ‘a pretty dismal and gloomy set of lic bodies in his later career, lay ahead. bour in which it had never previ- squeezes’, necessitating the introduc- The peerage which many expected ously held. To some extent the loss of tion of measures ‘of a popular and him to receive never materialised. Cardiganshire, held continuously by the heart-warming character’) probably Roderic Bowen’s decision came at a Liberals ever since , was offset by cajoled Bowen into accepting the va- particularly vexed time for his party, es- four Liberal gains, among them Colne cant position. pecially in its relationship with the La- Valley (Richard Wainwright), North The decision horrified most of Bo- bour government, a theme which had Cornwall (John Pardoe) and Cheadle wen’s Liberal colleagues at Westminster, dominated the Liberal assembly only the (Dr Michael Winstanley). and many staunch Liberals in previous month. Jo Grimond, ever ready Although the writing had been on Cardiganshire, where his motives were to consider any amicable working ar- the wall since at least October , keenly debated during the ensuing rangement with Labour, anticipated Roderic Bowen was, it seems, still disap- general election campaign. Here possible ‘real enthusiasm’ for ‘common pointed by his defeat. At only fifty-two was a firmly right-wing MP, his policies aims behind which a majority could years of age, at the height of his powers close to the Tories in many respects, unite’, but, he went on, ‘The throwing of and political maturity, with more than propping up an ailing Labour govern- life-belts to a sinking Government is not thirty-five years of life still ahead of him, ment clearly up against the ropes, ever a job I would welcome.’ Bowen, it ap- he shunned party politics thereafter, liable to collapse. ‘The Prime Minister peared, had indeed thrown a life-belt to rarely venturing to the county. has brought off his coup’, rejoiced La- Wilson’s government. In the wake of his defeat, he was sent bour Minister of Housing and diarist In any case, his parliamentary career by Foreign Secretary George Brown to Richard Crossman, ‘Our majority of was drawing to a close. Ever since Oc- Aden to investigate interrogation pro- three has not been cut to one!’ Bo- tober the Labour Party hierarchy cedures in the British colony, which wen’s decision immediately nourished had considered Cardiganshire a crucial had been subject to international criti- speculation about a possible ‘Lib–Lab’ marginal which lay within their grasp. cism, notably by Amnesty International. pact at Westminster and confirmed the Their new parliamentary candidate was His report found, by implication, that Prime Minister’s well established repu- Elystan Morgan, an articulate young the claims were exaggerated, though tation as a dextrous political manipula- lawyer who had actually stood as the not baseless, and proposed a number of tor, capable of out-manoeuvring the Plaid Cymru candidate at Wrexham in changes to ensure that they did not re- newly elected Conservative leader Ted and and Merionethshire in cur. Bowen’s report was admirable as far Heath and the opposition, a master par , and who had changed parties as it went. Its terms of reference, how- excellence of the ‘politics of survival’. only in August , shortly before his ever, were perhaps too limited. He was
32 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 asked to decide whether particular best irregularly, participating in debate 1950. cases of alleged ill-treatment were true but rarely. 9 Lord Hooson, Rebirth or Death? Liberalism in Wales in the Second Half of the Twentieth Cen- or not, and he did hear the point of A warm admirer of Sir Rhys Hopkin tury, the 1993 Welsh Political Archive Lecture view of the former investigators. Morris, Bowen’s Liberal credentials (Aberystwyth: the National Library of Wales, In Bowen became National In- were impeccable, reflected in his unwa- 1994), p. 2. 10 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, surance Commissioner for Wales, re- vering belief in the responsibility of the no. 1, minute book, 1923–50, AGM minutes, 8 signing his position as Recorder of individual and the duty of each one to November 1947. Cardiff, and he remained in the post contribute to the betterment of society. 11 Ibid., executive committee minutes, 19 February 1949. until . In the spring of he was Although veering generally to the right 12 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, appointed chairman of a governmental in the political spectrum, sharply op- no. 1, minute book, 1923–50, executive commit- committee charged to examine road posed to socialism and communism, he tee minutes, 28 May 1949, AGM minutes, 29 Oc- signs policy in Wales set up by Peter was just as dismissive of the claims of tober 1949. 13 NLW, Clement Davies Papers J3/10 and J3/12, Thomas, Secretary of State for Wales in those vested interests championed by Davies to Sinclair, 6 and 17 January 1950 (copies). the Heath Government, in response to the Conservative Party. Bowen’s Welsh 14 Cambrian News, 17 February 1950. a campaign for bilingualism spear- patriotism was beyond question, re- 15 Election address of E. R. Bowen, February 1950. 16 Election address of E. R. Bowen, October 1951. headed by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg flected in his stalwart support for equal- 17 The Times, 31 March 1951, p. 4. On election (the Welsh Language Society). The ity for Wales with Scotland and for ‘pacts’ in 1951 and reactions to them, see also committee took its work seriously, even Welsh representation in the Cabinet, a Roy Douglas, The History of the Liberal Party, 1895–1970 (London, 1971), p. 262. travelling to Finland and other coun- commitment recognised by both the 18 Cambrian News, 19 October 1951. tries to contrast the situation there, and National Eisteddfod, which he at- 19 Alan Butt Philip, The Welsh Question: National- its majority report, which appeared in tended regularly, and the University of ism in Welsh Politics, 1945–1970 (Cardiff, 1975), the autumn of , was generally in Wales. An individual of deep religious p. 259. 20 Welsh Nation, May 1956. favour of bilingual signs: ‘The chief ar- convictions, he became a deacon of the 21 Western Mail, 1 December 1952. guments hinge on the place of Welsh in Presbyterian church. A life-long bach- 22 Welsh Gazette, 5 November 1953. Wales, on the principle of “natural jus- elor, tending in his last years to be a rec- 23 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, file 56, memorandum entitled ‘The Importance of tice” for the Welsh language.’ From luse living frugally in a small flat in the the Next Six Months’, dated 1954. to Bowen also served as a Welsh capital and suffering from dete- 24 Welsh Gazette, 29 July 1954. conscientious president of St David’s riorating health, Roderic Bowen died 25 Western Mail, 19 April 1955. 26 Cambrian News, 29 April 1955. University College, Lampeter. at Cardiff on July . 27 Welsh Gazette, 13 May 1955. Apart from his brief brushes with Dr J. Graham Jones is an assistant archivist 28 For a somewhat negative view of Liberal Party at- fame in and , Roderic Bo- titudes to Clement Davies at this time, see of the Welsh Political Archive at the Depart- wen’s impact at Westminster was mini- Geoffrey Sell, ‘”A sad business”: The resignation ment of Manuscripts and records, the Na- of Clement Davies’, Journal of Liberal Democrat mal, yet he was generally popular with tional Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. History 24 (Autumn 1999), 14–17. politicians of all parties and his relaxed 29 The phrases are taken from Bowen’s obituary by bonhomie and quick repartee in the The author is grateful to Robert Ingham for Andrew Roth in The Guardian, 25 July 2001, p. 20. Douglas, op. cit., p. 268, dismisses Bowen as smoking rooms of the Commons stood reading an earlier draft of this article with ‘too busy with his legal practice’ even to consider in striking contrast to his serious, tight- meticulous care and for making a number of the vacant party leadership. lipped professional demeanour when most helpful suggestions for its revision; and 30 Cambrian News, 15 February 1957. 31 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, acting in the courts. A potentially is indebted to him for sending me a detailed file 135, unlabelled press cutting. amusing and clever debater, capable of summary of his interview with Roderic 32 See NLW, Clement Davies Papers C1/107, W. H. gracing Liberal platforms with wit and Bowen on July . Grey to Lord Byers, 10 March 1958 (copy). Jo distinction, he was much sought after as Grimond’s decisive contribution was to set up a 1 National Library of Wales (hereafter NLW), number of new policy committees, each with an after-dinner speaker. He remained a Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, no. 1, specific areas of responsibility, to devise radical Liberal MP throughout the long, ardu- minute book, 1923–50, minutes of special meet- novel policies. ous years of Clement Davies’s leader- ing, 16 June 1945. 33 Cambrian News, 2 May 1958. 2 Cambrian News, 29 June 1945. 34 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal Association Records, ship of the party from , but had lit- 3 Cambrian News, 29 June 1945. file 56, J. Ellis Williams, honorary secretary of the tle rapport with Davies’s successor Jo 4 Cambrian News, 3 August 1945. South Wales Liberal Federation, to E. Jones, 11 Grimond who, in Bowen’s view, 5The phrase is that used in NLW, Clement Davies February 1959. Papers Q4/126, ‘Ifor’, Cambridge, to Stanley 35 J. Graham Jones, ‘The Cardiganshire election of seemed intent on seeking ‘a realign- Clement-Davies, 20 June 1945. I am most grate- 1959’, Ceredigion, Vol. 12, no. 2 (1994), 84–105. ment of the Left’ in British politics. A ful to Mr Stanley Clement-Davies, London, for There is much valuable material on this intriguing lack of mutual understanding and ad- permission to make use of his father’s papers. contest in the Deian R. Hopkin Papers at the Na- miration between these two senior Lib- 6 See David M. Roberts, ‘Clement Davies and the tional Library of Wales. Liberal Party, 1929–56’, unpublished University 36 Welsh Gazette, 5 March 1959. eral MPs resulted. Hence Bowen be- of Wales MA thesis, 1975, pp. 87–92; J. Graham 37 NLW, Deian R. Hopkin Papers, file 135, John came increasingly aloof and detached Jones, ‘The Liberal Party and Wales, 1945–79’, Milwood, Labour Party research department, to from the vortex of political life at West- Welsh History Review, Vol. 16, no. 3 (June 1993), James Griffiths, 20 October 1959. 329–33. 38 Ibid., R. J. Bundock to W. Douglas Hughes, 26 minster, rather on a limb from the 7The phrase is that used in Roberts, ‘Clement September 1959. mainstream of the Parliamentary Lib- Davies’, p. 87. 39 Ibid., file 136, Cardiganshire Labour Party minute eral Party, attending the Commons at 8Victor Thompson in the Daily Herald, 18 March book, 1958–65, entry for 31 October 1959. Cf.
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 33 the Welsh Gazette, 14 November 1959, for a de- 23 July 2001. and Anthony King, The British General Election tailed account of the 1959 AGM of the 47 Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Min- of 1966 (London, 1966), pp. 74–84. Cardiganshire Liberal Association and its reaction ister, Vol. 1: Minister of Housing, 1964–66 (Lon- 50 Howard C. Jones, ‘The Labour Party in to the outcome of the recent general election. don, 1975), p. 362, diary entry for 26 October Cardiganshire’, Ceredigion, Vol. 9, no. 2 (1981), 40 Cited in Bowen’s obituary in The Guardian, 25 1965. 160. July 2001, p. 20. 48 The phrase is that used in Kenneth O. Morgan, 51 See the reflections on the 1966 contest of Dr. E. 41 See the reports in The Times, 3 August 1962, p. The People’s Peace: British History, 1945–1989 G. Millward, the Plaid Cymru candidate, in 6, col. g, and ibid., 26 June 1964, p. 15, col. e. (London, 1990), p. 250. Golwg, vol. 13, no. 46 (26 July 2001), 6. See also 42 NLW, Lord Ogmore Papers, file 3, Margaret J. 49 Jo Grimond, ‘The Liberals and the Government’, the text of the Robert Ingham interview with Lawson, secretary of the North Wales Liberal Guardian, 20 September 1965. See also Alan Roderic Bowen, 26 July 1995. Federation, to Lord Ogmore, 3 August 1964. Watkins, ‘Mr Grimond spells it out’, The Specta- 52 See Liberal News, 7 April 1966, and The Times, 1 43 See The Times, 3 September 1965, p. 10, cols. tor, 24 September 1965, for an astute commen- April 1966, p. 12, col. a. a–b. tary on the Liberal leader’s views and policies. 53 The Times, 30 November 1972, p. 4, col. f. 44 Liberal News, 17 September 1965, p. 1. There is a perspicacious analysis of the problems 54 There is a thoughtful and warm tribute penned 45 The Times, 14 September 1965, p. 10, cols. c–e. facing the Liberal Party during these years in ‘The by Lord (Emlyn) Hooson in Liberal Democrat 46 Cited in Bowen’s obituary in the Daily Telegraph, Liberal predicament’, chapter IV of D. E. Butler News, no. 675 (7 September 2001), 4.
Research in Progress If you can help any of the individuals listed below with sources, contacts, or any other information — or if you know anyone who can — please pass on details to them. Details of other research projects in progress should be sent to the Editor (see page 2) for inclusion here.
The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The Crouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in the development of political agency as a profession, the role of the 1920s and 1930s; especially any details of James Gleeson or Patrick election agent in managing election campaigns during this period, Moir, who are believed to have been Chairmen. Tony Marriott, Flat and the changing nature of elections, as increased use was made of A, 13 Coleridge Road, Crouch End, London N8 8EH. the press and the platform. Kathryn Rix, Christ's College, Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Focussing particularly on Liberal Cambridge, CB2 2BU; [email protected]. anti-appeasers. Michael Kelly, 12 Collinbridge Road, Whitewell, Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Andrew Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT36 7SN Gardner, 22 Birdbrook House, Popham Road, Islington, London N1 The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. Sources, 8TA; [email protected]. particularly on Sinclair as Air Minister, and on Harcourt Johnstone, The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). Any Dingle Foot, Lord Sherwood and Sir Geoffrey Maunder (Sinclair's information welcome, particularly on his political views (he stood as PPS) particularly welcome. Ian Hunter, 9 Defoe Avenue, Kew, a Radical). Tim Beaumont, 40 Elms Road, London SW4 9EX. Richmond TW9 4DL; [email protected].
Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Any Clement Davies – research for the first full biography. Of particular information on his election and period as MP; wanted for biography interest are the activities of government departments where of his daughter, Winfred Lamb. Dr David Gill, Clement Davies worked in the First World War, including Enemy [email protected]. Activities in Neutral Countries, Economic Warfare and Trading with the Enemy; also the period 1939–42, after Davies left the Liberal Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War). Nationals but before he rejoined the independent Liberals, and his Any information welcome, particularly on his links with the Union relationships with MacDonald, Boothby, Attlee and Churchill. Alun of Democratic Control and other opponents of the war (including Wyburn-Powell; [email protected]. his friend George Raffalovich). Colin Houlding; [email protected] The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. Dr Peter Barberis, 24 Lime Avenue, Flixton, Manchester M41 5DE. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. Study of the political life of this radical MP, hoping to shed light on the question The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; including in particular of why the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the primary relations with the leadership, and between NLYL and ULS. Carrie popular representatives of radicalism in the 1920s. Park, 89 Coombe Lane, Bristol BS9 2AR; Paul Mulvey, 112 Richmond Avenue, London N1 0LS; [email protected]. [email protected]. The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; including the Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935. relationships between local and parliamentary electoral Aims to suggest reasons for defections of individuals and develop performance. Access to party records (constituency- and ward- an understanding of changes in electoral alignment. Sources level) relating to local activity in London and Birmingham, and include personal papers and newspapers; suggestions about how interviews with key activists of particular interest. Paul Lambe, to get hold of the papers of more obscure Liberal defectors University of Plymouth; [email protected]. welcome. Cllr Nick Cott, 1a Henry Street, Gosforth, Newcastle- The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79. upon-Tyne, NE3 1DQ; [email protected]. Individual constituency papers, and contact with members of the Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Chris Fox, Party’s policy committees and/or the Party Council, particularly 173 Worplesdon Road, Guildford GU2 6XD; welcome. Ruth Fox, 7 Mulberry Court, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts [email protected]. CM23 3JW.
34 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 down the ages. Apart from anything else, it was so long that it was always said to have begun when the light was ReportReport slowly fading, on a summer evening in June, and when he sat down, dawn was distinctly visible through the windows on the other side of the chamber. Speeches and speech-makers But broadly, Gladstone was the first great mass orator. Gladstone made an Fringe meeting, September 2001, with Roy Jenkins, art out of mass oratory; to some extent, Max Atkinson and Paddy Ashdown Disraeli came along behind him. And when I was in the latter stage of my life Report by Duncan Brack of Gladstone, one of the things that most intrigued me was what was the secret of Gladstone’s mass oratory. His he Liberal Democrat History other kind. Rhetoric and oratory may parliamentary oratory I can under- Group’s latest publication, well have had a bad press in recent stand; he rarely gave the House of T Great Liberal Speeches (re- years, but readers of this book will Commons less than two and half viewed in this issue of the Journal of surely be thankful that it consists of hours. In the country he was more Liberal Democrat History by Conrad speeches rather than transcripts of restrained; an hour and forty minutes Russell), was launched at the Liberal interviews. They can therefore look was about his average. But what was Democrat autumn conference in forward to reading carefully devel- the quality that made him hold his Bournemouth. oped arguments in language robust audience? – say, in the Waverley Market Ably chaired and introduced by enough to have survived the immedi- at Edinburgh, where , people Paddy Ashdown, a capacity audience ate moment of delivery to become a were present, and several of them was addressed first by Max Atkinson, a form of historical literature. fainted and had to be carried out over freelance communications consultant the heads of the others, for an hour and Roy Jenkins’ speech, fulsomely ad- and Visiting Professor at Henley forty minutes, for a detailed analysis of mired in The Times by Matthew Parris, Management College, and author of Disraeli’s budgetary policy. is reproduced here verbatim: the excellent book on political rheto- He didn’t make many jokes. He had ric, Our Masters’ Voices. His talk was a quite a good, if rather boisterous, sense I’m going to talk about Liberal oratory, concise version of his introduction to of fun in private, but he was not a great in a reflective historical context. I begin Great Liberal Speeches, ‘Mere rhetoric?’, wit in public. He never remotely with , when the Liberal Party was so we do not summarise it here – buy played down to his audience. What was effectively founded, in Willis’ Rooms in the book and read it! the secret that enabled him to hold London. The great scene there was that Essentially he argued that political these great audiences, largely of Lord Palmerston shook hands with rhetoric was an important communica- working people, as they were then Lord John Russell – he hadn’t done for tions skill; furthermore, although some called, and make them come back for a long time past. John Bright was also politicians have an innate talent for it, there. The great beneficiary of that everyone can study and learn it, and Paddy Ashdown and Roy Jenkins (photo: coming together was Gladstone, though improve their ability to put over their Peter Dollimore) Gladstone, ironically, was not present – message. He lamented the propensity of he was still detached, in his Peelite modern broadcasters to downplay the mode, at that stage. importance of speeches and to transmit He was the first great orator of the only soundbites and their own interpre- Liberal Party – although Palmerston tations of the speakers’ words – and also should by no means be entirely to play up the importance of interviews, dismissed. The thing was that ‘however sterile and tedious they may Palmerston hardly ever spoke outside be’. As he argued: the House of Commons, or, say, a Lord One piece of evidence to which their Mayor’s banquet in the City of Lon- attention should be drawn is the fact don. He did make one great speech, in that editors and publishers of books the market place at Tiverton, for which do not seem to find televised he was Member of Parliament (and interviews interesting, inspiring or about five other constituencies, not all provocative enough to merit the at the same time), but broadly he was a publication of collections of Great parliamentary orator, and certainly his Interviews, whether Liberal or of any Civis Romanus Sum speech echoes
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 35 more on future occasions? I decided, and by that he meant Asquith, who them with him. The example I give of after a good deal of reflection, that it would come and destroy the arguments that is a passage, not the best known of was essentially that although he spoke a of the opposition with a relentless logic. the passages from his Limehouse bit above their heads, he elevated their And although I would put Asquith very oration in July , dealing with the appreciation of themselves. He made high amongst Prime Ministers of this fairly narrow subject, you might have them feel that they were more impor- century – certainly third, maybe for real thought, of the mineral rights duty in tant in the world than they thought political genius Churchill and Lloyd his Budget of that year, directed to when they came in. A very good George exceeded him, maybe Attlee ran setting up a miners’ welfare fund. example of that, I think, was given in him close, as someone who could hold ‘Have you ever been down a coal his speech at the end of the first a reforming government together, but I mine?’ he said. ‘I went down one the Midlothian Campaign of , when would certainly put Asquith third other day. We sank into a pit half a mile in West Lothian, he started: ‘It is the amongst the Prime Ministers , as the deep. We then walked underneath the honour of England which is at stake’ – Peel of the twentieth century, and that is mountain, and we did about three- couldn’t get away with that in West no mean tribute to anybody – in the quarters of a mile with rock and shale Lothian today – ‘ a great trial is now days of his premiership, he probably above us. The earth seemed to be proceeding before the nation. We have depended less upon oratory than any straining – around us and above us – to none of the forum of a judicial trial. other major Prime Minister except for crush us in. You could see the pit-props There are no peers in Westminster Attlee – who certainly didn’t depend bent and twisted and sundered until Hall. There are no judges on the upon oratory. you saw their fibres split in resisting the Woolsack. But if we concentrate our Greater oratory was in a way sup- pressure. Sometimes they give way, and mind upon the truth of the case, apart plied by his daughter Violet – Violet then there is mutilation and death. from its mere exterior, it is a grander Bonham-Carter as she became – and Often a spark ignites, the whole pit is and more august spectacle than was my only criticism of this admirable deluged in fire, and the breath of life is ever exhibited either in Westminster book of speeches is that, while it scorched out of hundreds of breasts by Hall or in the House of Lords – a includes one from her, it does not the consuming flame … And yet nation called to undertake a great and include her truly great speech at the when the Prime Minister and I knock responsible duty, a duty on which luncheon in the National Liberal Club at the door of these great landlords, and depends the peace of Europe and the after Asquith had been humiliatingly say to them: “Here, you know these destinies of England.’ defeated in East Fife in – we had poor fellows who have been digging That was an example of his style, to wait a long time for Menzies up royalties at the risk of their lives, which, may, as I say, enormously Campbell to avenge that defeat – and some of them are old, they have increased the self-esteem of his audi- was re-elected for Paisley in . In survived the perils of their trade, they ence. And as people like their self- that speech in the National Liberal are broken, they can earn no more. esteem being increased – we all of us Club – and unfortunately her oratory Won’t you give them something do – that, I think, if one gets to the wasn’t entirely immediately fulfilled – towards keeping them out of the core of it, was the secret of his remark- she contrasted the thin range of chairs workhouse?” they scowl at us, and we able oratorical power. inside the House of Commons with the say: “Only a ha’penny, just a copper.” Going on to former Liberal leaders, great crowd which welcomed him back They say: “You thieves!” … If this is an Gladstone was followed briefly by outside. ‘Hold on’, she said, ‘hold on, we indication of the view taken by these Rosebery. Rosebery I regard as one of are coming’. Well, we are coming now, great landlords of their responsibility to the most inflated reputations of who- but it’s some time after that. Violet was a the people who at the risk of life create ever got to the top of politics. He was a remarkable female orator. their wealth, then I say their day of florid orator, with a certain flamboy- And then we come to Lloyd reckoning is at hand.’ ance; he once hit a lectern with such George, and his contrast both with Now, Churchill – a strong supporter, force that the typically very large ruby Gladstone before him, and Churchill junior partner with Lloyd George as a in his ring sprang out of it and ran after him – because Churchill qualifies constructive radical in those days – down the centre aisle of the hall. But I as a Liberal orator, at any rate in the could never have done that. This have not a great respect for Rosebery. early days, up to . Compared with passage in which Lloyd George made Campbell-Bannerman was a cosy Gladstone, Lloyd George had far less his East End audience feel the tensions leader; a very good healing leader for range of knowledge, classical and other, and terrors of life underground, the party when it needed one. Then and far less intellectual range – but he though very few of them had ever there was Asquith. Asquith made his was a far more seductive orator than been nearer a coal mind than Padding- reputation as a great logical debater. In either Gladstone before him or ton Station, could never have been the two and quarter years of Campbell- Churchill after him. Both of them done by Churchill. He might have Bannerman’s premiership, whenever spoke at their audiences, Churchill extolled the place of coal, and conse- there was a difficult issue in the House even more than Gladstone, but Lloyd quently of miners, in Britain’s island of Commons, Campbell-Bannerman George insinuated himself into the story, the rise of the national wealth of always said: ‘send for the sledgehammer’, mind of his audiences, and carried Great Britain. He would have done it
36 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 with phrases more elevated than Lloyd defended lease-lend, by saying that ‘if that good in the present House of George’s, but in the abstract. He would fire broke out in my neighbour’s house, Commons. But nonetheless I think one never have made his audience feel the and I had a garden hose, what would I does regret the almost complete decline menace of the great weight of earth do? I would lend it to him. I wouldn’t in politics, in the last twenty-five years above then, and the testing almost to sell it to him, I wouldn’t tell him to go or so, I think, of the sustained arguing of destruction of the pit props. And and buy a hose of his own, I would lend a case, with the careful use of language though of course Churchill, when his it to him. And he would say, what and phraseology which helps to ad- time came – that was after his Liberal should I do afterwards, well, give it me vance it. But there we are. time, I am afraid – was the greatest and back when the fire’s put out.’ That’s my review of Liberal oratory most important orator in the history of Not much chance, actually, of over the last years. And it gives me the twentieth century, on the whole, it getting the lend-lease supplies back, or confidence in the future of Liberal is remarkable the amount of time much use they would have been oratory. One never knows, there may which he devoted, during the war afterwards, but it was a brilliant homely be a great outbreak of Conservative years, under tremendous pressure, to metaphor, and I was struck by Church- oratory under Mr Iain Duncan Smith, speech preparation. ill, having apparently half learned from who may be an underestimated figure, He was never, unlike Lloyd George, FDR, half trying to learn, when he though I doubt it. I have more faith in a spontaneous orator. He always came back from the first Quebec the ability of Charles Kennedy. needed to have everything very conference – there were two, in carefully prepared. There is evidence and – on Sunday th September Paddy Ashdown wound up the meet- that in the summer of , at the . He went to the House of Com- ing by stressing his own belief in the worst and most pressured time, he mons on the Monday, and began by power of language. ‘I’ve always thought devoted ten hours to preparing one saying that when he’d arrived at that words are the battleground of House of Commons speech. He had Greenock from North America on the politics. If you can find the right words, the virtue of being an immensely Sunday morning, he’d immediately and you own them, you’ve owned the dedicated and fluent dictater, but it was read the Sunday newspapers, and they battle. And the one thing you can’t do ten hours of fluent dictation to get it were rather critical – interesting is let others borrow your words … right. On another occasion, in Wash- example of the enormous priority he However long you spend on that, in ington, when he was about to address always gave to newspaper reading. He the end it is worthwhile.’ Congress, his dictating secretary spoke was reminded, he said, of the tale about And, using an extract from a speech of the fourteen and half hours of the the sailor who jumped into a dock – at by Gladstone, itself included in Great dictation she had to take. Was this Plymouth, I think it was – to rescue a Liberal Speeches, quoted by Paddy in his misapplied time? I don’t really think so, small boy from drowning. About a last speech to the House of Commons, because those great speeches of the week later, the sailor was accosted by a and used once again by more than one summer of marked out the woman, who asked: ‘are you the man speaker in the conference debate on history of that remarkable period like who pulled my son out of the dock the Afghanistan the day before (less than choruses in a Greek play. They did help other night? The sailor replied, mod- two weeks after September th), he to sustain the nation; in most other estly, ‘that is indeed true, ma’am’. ‘Ah’, showed how Gladstone’s words could circumstances they would have been said the woman, ‘you’re the man I was speak to the present: somewhat over the top, but not then – looking for. Where’s his cap?’ That Do not forget that the sanctity of life and also I think that the catharsis, the seems to me a very clear example of in the hill villages of Afghanistan, satisfaction which he got from deliver- Churchill trying to reduce his gran- amongst the winter snows, is no less ing these great orations, and the diloquence, and learn from Roosevelt, inviolate in the eye of Almighty God increase in his energy for the future with whom he’d just spent some time. than can be your own. Do not forget which came as a result of them more Oratory – I agree strongly with Max that he who made you brothers in than compensated for the time which Atkinson – is on the whole at a the same flesh and blood, bound you he had devoted to their preparation. discount; just as debating, as opposed to by the laws of universal love and that Broadly, as I say, he was an abstract, the quick exchange at Prime Minister’s love is not limited to the shores of powerful, sometimes over-the-top question time, is at a discount in the this island, but passes across the orator, but I came across one example House of Commons. One shouldn’t be whole surface of the earth, encom- I’d like to quote to you of his trying to too dismayed – though I am a bit passing the greatest along with the learn from Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a dismayed by that – because it’s an art meanest in its unmeasured scope. very interesting transitional orator – he with certain advantages, and although it was sort of half-way between the seems to be almost dieing before our As Paddy concluded, ‘Those are words grandiloquence of Gladstone and eyes, it is bound to change. No-one from the last century, but sentiments Churchill and the chatty manner of would expect a Gladstone speech of that are truly Liberal, and we heard Reagan and Clinton – but he always two and half hours, redolent with many them expressed yesterday. We are, in a liked homely metaphors. His most Latin quotations, to be persuasive at the real sense, the children of our history.’ famous homely metaphor was when he fifth time – Burke wouldn’t sound all
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 37 typhoid. There were some fierce political battles for control of the city council. From the s, the Liberals ReportReport were usually dominant on the council – but they relied on the aldermanic system and the votes of the industrial artisan classes to keep their power. Public Services or State Services? – Enter Sir Jerom Murch, the ‘Joe Chamberlain of Bath’. Dr Davis the Liberal Legacy described his ‘mission … the civic gospel’, which was born out of Evening meeting, February 2002, with Professor Murch’s strong dissenting tradition, Peter Marsh and Dr Graham Davis and showed how it was married to his strong belief that the ruling elite – of Report by Neil Stockley which he was actually part – had a moral duty to work for the good of the people and across class barriers. In ith public services firmly the ratepayer. First, the local gasworks practical terms, this meant regenerating at the top of the political was placed under municipal control, the power of local government – using Wagenda and the Liberal which produced a profit for the City the revenue from rates to borrow the Democrats reviewing their approach Council. Second, this money was in funds to pay for civic amenities. from first principles, this meeting turn used to ‘municipalise’ the water Murch’s big scheme was to establish a provided the opportunity for a timely supply in order to reduce the cost of civic corporation to ensure that every discussion of the Liberal tradition. this service and to improve water house in Bath had an adequate supply The speakers took us back to the purity. Third, Chamberlain launched a of water. In an early experiment with nineteenth century, to the policies of slum clearance programme as a public ‘joined-up government’, he tried to Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham health measure and balanced the cost build support for the water scheme as and the all-but-forgotten Sir Jerom against that of the jails that would be foundation for economic prosperity as Murch in Bath. The meeting high- needed if people continued to live in well as a solution to Bath’s health and lighted the crucial role of local govern- squalor. Fourth, he was willing to use social problems. Yet it was thrown out ment in Liberal thought and action on public money for productive purposes. by a split party and divided council in public services. While today’s debate The slum clearance scheme may have . Murch pressed on with his civic focuses on the NHS, transport and dramatically increased the city’s public gospel, trying to increase the wealth of education, our nineteenth century debt, but the city gained a commercial Bath by promoting new hotels and counterparts were concerned with strip, Corporation Street, which other businesses, trying to put the city water and gas services – what we now boosted the council’s economic base. on the map with amenities and call utilities – and civic investments to Fifth, he devised ways to provide new building new parks. But he achieved address social problems. social services at lowest cost to the somewhat less that Chamberlain; The first speaker was Professor Peter taxpayer. For example, a workmen’s indeed, Dr Davis called his career ‘to Marsh, Honorary Professor of History compensation scheme was funded by some extent a heroic failure’. at Birmingham University. He de- placing a levy on employers, on the Why did ‘Uncle Joe’ succeed where scribed how, in three terms as Mayor of basis that they could pass that cost on Sir Jerom did not? Professor Marsh Birmingham, from to , to consumers. These moves were explained that Chamberlain was a great Joseph Chamberlain articulated the widely applauded; indeed, Birming- campaigner and a charismatic politician. creed of ‘gas and water socialism’ ham was lauded as the best governed Crucially, he was able to make the pursued through strong local govern- city in the industrial world. financial case for his policies, helped by ment and, more importantly, how he Graham Davis of Bath Spa Univer- the credibility provided by his account- made it happen. His municipal policies sity College outlined the very different ing experience and status as a local were a prototype for what became the experience of Sir Jerom Murch, manufacturer. Dr Davis agreed that ‘New Liberalism’ of the early twenti- Unitarian curate, early practitioner of Chamberlain had a far greater under- eth century, founded on the belief that community politics and Mayor of Bath standing of public finance than Murch. government should intervene in the twice during the s. Dr Davis And while Murch was a gifted public economy and the community to tackle showed that despite its public image as speaker who could make the moral case social problems. a genteel city, nineteenth century Bath for his policies with great passion, he Chamberlain, using his business had its share of deep poverty, poor had to rely on a council colleague, who experience, devised a form of public housing, crime and major public health was certainly no communicator, to finance that sought to provide the problems, in particular a high mortality make the financial case. maximum services at the lowest cost to rate and outbreaks of cholera and Second, Dr Davis argued that Murch’s
38 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 remarkable ability to build alliances possible, and a radical in that he was the nineteenth century, albeit with across the community, straddling the class always prepared to challenge existing Conservatives preferring country divide, finally foundered when the policies and accepted beliefs. magistrates and Liberals town councils. representatives of the labouring classes But Chamberlain and Gladstone may So, for today’s debate on public did not back his water scheme. Dr Davis not have quite represented the ‘yin’ and services, did Chamberlain and Murch suggested that this may have been ‘yang’ of nineteenth century Liberalism. and their colleagues leave today’s because Murch was too much part of the The chair, Dr Eugenio Biagini saw Liberal Democrats any kind of legacy? elite at the very time when universal them as compatible at a personal level, At first glance, the answer seems to be male suffrage was a major issue in Bath. in a religious way and in terms of their no. The municipal socialism and civic He represented a paternal, authoritarian social/moral influences. And Gladstone gospel were about reform of what we style of Liberalism and his own personal was prepared to use state intervention now call utilities. In the last years, style was somewhat patronising to the to advance his aims. He nationalised gas, water (and electricity) have been working classes. The nascent trade rail in the s and land in Ireland in municipalised, centralised, nationalised unionists eventually went off to follow and in the s, passed the and privatised. Liberal Democrats have their own political star. Education Act, and increased grants in firmly resisted calls to take them back The meeting spent some time aid to local government ten-fold. into public ownership and they are discussing the belief systems that drove While he maintained that there was a largely out of the political frame. But the policies of the two men. Dr Davis difference in emphasis over the role of certain aspects of what Chamberlain was clear that Murch was ‘an apostle of government spending, Professor Marsh and Murch attempted remain relevant Gladstonian Liberalism’ and that his agreed with Dr Biagini, to the extent today. They showed the potential for politics were primarily ‘morally that up until the home rule crisis, local government as a vehicle for driven’. He wanted to use the council Chamberlain and Gladstone were allies advancing the public good. Liberal rates to invest in his city’s prosperity more often than not. Democrats continue that commitment, and thereby raise the ‘moral condition’ Second, on financial matters, Dr even if today’s councils have less power of the people. For his part, Professor Biagini argued that there was a close than those led by Chamberlain and Marsh argued that Chamberlain had an interdependence between the Murch. Yes, Chamberlain’s authoritari- ‘environmentalist ethic’, based on an Gladstonian emphasis on reducing the anism and Murch’s paternalism may be essentially optimistic belief that the economic role of the state and Cham- unwelcome reminders that ‘Newer’ moral well-being of the poor could be berlain’s belief in increased local Liberalism can be a more ‘top-down’ improved by removing the physical government spending on services. brand of politics than some of us care manifestations of poverty. This was These were two sides of the same coin, to admit. But they used an arm of the very different, he suggested, from he argued, because retrenchment in state constructively, ignoring the false Gladstone’s ‘religious ethic’. He also London meant that local councils boundaries between ‘business’ and perceived a clear difference between could afford to spend more. ‘social’ concerns, developing innova- Chamberlain’s enthusiasm for investing Third, Professor Marsh acknowl- tive and practical ‘win-win’ solutions. public money in economic infrastruc- edged that Chamberlain’s belief in Their real legacy is that when old ture and social amenities and the strong local government did not approaches – be they from the market Gladstonian traditions of small govern- represent a distinctive strain of political or from government – fail people and ment, moral improvement and self- thought. Local government enjoyed erode their personal freedom, the help. Indeed, Professor Marsh believed widespread, bipartisan support during Liberal instinct is to act. that while Chamberlain was a Liberal in name, at least until , he is hard Liberal Democrat History Group website to place on the liberal ideological spectrum. This was particularly true in The new Liberal Democrat History Group website is now up and running, with a new, his later years, after he split the Liberal more professional look and expanded contents. When it is completed (it is currently still Party over home rule for Ireland, under construction), you will be able to find on the site: became ‘the embodiment of the new • Latest History Group news, including announcements of meetings, the latest Journal imperialism’, and then led the assault and new publications on free trade. Instead, Professor Marsh • A complete listing of all Journal contents, back to issue 1, and downloadable files (pdf painted Chamberlain as a committed format) of the oldest issues. democrat, who strongly supported the • Details of History Group publications and where to buy them. extension of voting rights to all men • A complete listing of all History Group meetings and speakers. and believed in ‘a dictatorship of the • A brief history of the party, together with a suggested reading list. • Research resources, including guides to archive sources, and a listing of research in democratic majority’. Indeed, he was progress. something of an authoritarian, who believed in strong leadership that What else would you like to see? We welcome your views and comments; email them to exercised governmental powers to the Mark Pack at [email protected] full and with as few constraints as See our website at: www.liberalhistory.org.uk
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 39 ReviewsReviews Keeping the faith Duncan Brack and Tony Little (eds): Great Liberal Speeches (Politico’s Publishing, 2001; pp492) Reviewed by Conrad Russell
his is a book to be proud of. Among the inspired selections is the This is not just praise of the speech by Earl Grey in against the T editorial team, who wear their blockade of Norway. This provides the scholarship with the deceptive light- answer to the question Nancy Seear Cobden, for it is so utterly different ness of a Grimond speech. It is a once shot into my ear in the middle of from the image Friedmanites have tribute to a party which, from century a boring committee meeting: ‘Why fastened on him. For Cobden, free to century, through good times and were we so much in favour of the competition was an assault on mo- bad, has kept a faith worth keeping. nation state in the nineteenth century, nopoly, and therefore an assault on In the first section of the book, the and so much against it now?’ It is the privilege. He casually dismissed his editors have had the good fortune simple application of the Lockeian opponents as ‘the Dukes and Earls’. It is which favours not only the brave, but doctrine of government by consent. In hard to believe that this man, alive those who understand the issues with terms of persuasive skills, rather than today, would be champion of the which they deal. This book was com- sheer rhetorical brilliance, this is one of Enrons and Monsantos of this world. plete in proof before September th. the best speeches in the collection. For He would surely regard them as the When it was written, the Anti-Terror- the twentieth century realisation that enemies, not the allies, of the free ism Bill was not yet even a bristle in government by consent is more market. For him, and for his allies, free David Blunkett’s beard. Yet the whole of complex than just a matter of national- competition was equal competition the first section, dealing with the ism, one may look at Sir Archibald within the law. Buying Senators, for reaction against civil liberties provoked Sinclair’s speech in the Munich debate example, was not free competition. If by the French Revolution, takes us of . That speech is conspicuous for the WTO is to continue its resistance straight into the territory we have been its combination of personal courtesy to protection, we must aim at getting it debating since September th. and devastating evidence. If I had been to do so in a more Cobdenite spirit. Charles James Fox on the suspension at the government dispatch box, I The task is difficult, but surely not of habeas corpus, George Tierney on the would rather have faced twenty of impossible. Six Acts, down to Macaulay on the Lloyd George than one of Sinclair: it Pride of place, hardly surprisingly, Great Reform Bill, state the traditions was so impossible to ascribe anything goes to Gladstone, for three speeches Liberal belief that we do not deal with he said to malice. so different in style that it is hard to the threat of terror by random repres- The collection is particularly valu- realise they were delivered by the same sion, which maximises the number of able for its refutation of the mythical man. His speech on Irish Home Rule, our enemies, but by more legal, and Friedmanite interpretation our Labour in content one which makes a modern more selective, methods which separate and Conservative opponents agree in Liberal feel inside his mind, is a style our natural enemies from our potential trying to fix on us. Macaulay, in one of which could have been delivered by allies. To those of us who have been many expressions of belief in state Robin Cook at his most pugnacious. It through recent debates, we might be support for education, warns against ‘a puts the reader in stitches, yet the inside Charles James Fox’s mind: we disposition to apply to political ques- treatment of Chamberlain, in particu- know where he will go next. Yet, tions and moral questions principles lar, confirms all Roy Jenkins’ doubts of contrary to the belief fostered by our which are sound only when applied to his political judgement. opponents that we are dwarfs standing commercial questions’. Opponents of Among the surprises, Palmerston’s on the shoulders of giants, Charles state education have applied the ‘Don Pacifico’ speech, which I had Kennedy, Shirley Williams and their principle of free competition to a case always thought of at second hand as Home Affairs team have done it better to which the principle is not applicable. rather illiberal, now makes me hope than Fox, who was no minnow in the Any critic of Liberalism should read that a copy is on its way to Harare at Liberal aquarium. and re-read the speech by Richard this moment. For criticism of Labour,
40 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 Churchill and Asquith has pride of the growing bulk of business Parliament which became the key to Gladstonian place, and Asquith’s exposition of how cannot handle is one we are not yet on decision making: ‘first … to amass to run a Liberal Party in a three-party top of. His most serious warning is that information, then to weigh the system is impeccable. the economy is becoming so compli- probabilities, and finally, once a deci- Perhaps not surprisingly, the most cated that the laws of supply and demand sion was taken, to pursue the policy challenging speech is by Keynes to the no longer work effectively. When we with undeviating commitment’. Liberal Summer School in . His have come to terms with these funda- Gladstone prided himself in his forecast of the key questions is one we mental insights, casually tossed off, we ability to spot that the time was ripe to are only just catching up with seventy- may be ready to get started. tackle an issue but did not always seven years later. His prediction that prepare his colleagues for the conclu- questions of contraception, marriage law Conrad Russell is Professor of History at sions at which he had arrived or the and the relations of the sexes will King’s College, London, Liberal Democrat forceful purpose with which he then become politically central is only just spokesman on work and pensions in the pursued them. Although this laid beginning to come true, as is his similar House of Lords, and Honorary President of Gladstone open to charges of Jesuitical warning about drugs. His question about the Liberal Democrat History Group. casuistry and to inconsistency, it was the foundation of his moral strength of character which in turn was the basis of his popularity with the working and non-conformist classes, a popularity Restorative Conservativism reinforced by his politicisation of the Exchequer in the s, particularly Eugenio Biagini: Gladstone (Macmillan Press, 2000) when he accomplished the abolition of the paper tax – a ‘tax on knowledge’ – Reviewed by Tony Little despite the opposition of his prime minister and the House of Lords. Gladstone’s tax policy eased the creation ith a political career that necessary space for the incidental and of a mass media of popular newspapers. spanned more than sixty personal. This is not the book in which Gladstone quickly demonstrated Wyears, William Ewart to explore the complexity of his ministerial competence under Peel but Gladstone is the dominant figure in dealings with Peel or Palmerston or in his rise to pre-eminence in parliament Victorian politics, initially taking office which all the Home Rule intrigues of was more a tribute to his eloquence even before Victoria came to the are disentangled. than to his man-management skills. throne and only leaving the premier- The limitations of space also force Biagini argues that this same oratorical ship in . In many ways, he defined Biagini to focus closely on the forces skill saw him supremely well placed to the nature of Victorian Liberalism, which unified Gladstone’s approach take advantage of and to channel the based on free trade, fiscal rectitude and and on his major achievements, whose enthusiasm of the enlarged electorate the incorporation into active political scale few politicians can hope to which emerged from the and life of ever-wider groups of the approach – reform of taxation, tariffs, reform acts and which formed population, in a career which, despite army, church, education and the all his intentions, became progressively electoral system. One cannot hope to more radical as it unfolded. understand this statesman without It is no surprise that he has been the recognising the lifelong influence subject of a multitude of biographies. exercised over him by Burke and But following Colin Matthew, Richard Butler. From Burke he gained a Shannon and Roy Jenkins, who have ‘method of historic assessment and his all produced different modern biogra- sensitivity for tradition and the possi- phies, is there room for more? Biagini’s bility of change through organic volume looks very much as if it is growth’ – which reinforced aimed at the undergraduate market. Gladstone’s Platonic notions of the The great advantage it has over its perfectibility of society, producing a competitors is its length, pages form of ‘utopian conservatism’ which including the index, but this is a the Tories of the time were unwilling succinct rather than a skimpy tome. to acknowledge. It was to Edmund The other difference is Biagini’s Burke that he turned for the intellec- adoption of a thematic rather than tual and historic backing for his ideas purely chronological approach, which for Home Rule. From Bishop Butler engages with Gladstone on an intellec- he drew the means to reconcile tual level, sparing only the minimum uncertainty with moral obligation
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 41 the readership of the new mass circula- the space within which he has been of Liberal thought driven from the tion papers and periodicals. Radicals confined may even have been an principle of international interdepend- such as Bright had demonstrated that advantage in cutting to the essentials of ency – where institutions such as the the masses could be mobilised for each issue. Any diligent reader will be League of Nations were held up as the positive political purpose, as opposed well equipped to tackle one of the tools by which the greatest good for the to mob violence, but Gladstone was a more complex biographies such as greatest number could be achieved. pioneer among the ministerial elite in Matthew’s or to dip into any number Whether this was ultimately realisable is harnessing this force and in utilising it of the specialist topics derived from the obviously a moot point. As J. M. Keynes to overcome opposition from the multi-faceted life of the Liberal Party’s made clear, the concept of interdepend- establishment in both Houses of greatest leader. Only the price, at ency could only hold good if a sense of Parliament. Biagini concludes that his nearly p a page, is a deterrent. mutual benefit, equity and ease of true strength was not so much the redress existed. None of these factors To ny Little is the Chair of the Liberal individual reforms he accomplished were found in abundance following the Democrat History Group. but that ‘he found the people who live peace settlement of . One of the in cottages hostile to political parties, 1E Biagini, Gladstone (Macmillan, 2000), pp 11, most interesting sections of this book is and … succeeded in uniting them 13. its chapter on ‘Liberal Thinkers’. In 2 Joseph Butler (1692–1752) English moral with the rest of his countrymen’. philosopher and divine. Gladstone published a direct contrast to its electoral weakness Biagini has created a first-class two-volume edition of his works in 1896. during the inter-war years the broad introduction to one of the most 3 Biagini, Gladstone, p. 13, citing D. W. church of the Liberal Party attracted Bebbington, William Ewart Gladstone: Faith & successful and yet baffling of all Politics in Victorian Britain (1993). some of the biggest intellectual heavy- premiers, with a fine judgment on the 4 Biagini, Gladstone, p. 117, quoting Newcastle weights to its pews. Most notable were key controversies. The limitations of Weekly Chronicle 7 August 1880. figures such as J. M. Keynes, Walter Layton, William Beveridge, Gilbert Murray, Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) and Ramsay Muir. These individuals made significant contributions to the devel- Internationalism and opment to Liberal policy, in particular in challenging the concept of a belief in interdependency national sovereignty as the basis of long- term security, and in developing the Richard S. Grayson: Liberals, International Relations concept of interdependency. Keynes, and Appeasement (Frank Cass 2001; pp194) Layton, Murray and Muir were also very active in the influential Liberal Reviewed by Ian Hunter Summer Schools, often overlooked by historians, but which are covered in depth in this book and provide signifi- his book proves the proverb Simon. These divisions led to the cant insights into the development of that you shouldn’t judge a Liberal Party being reduced to a rump Liberal thinking up to . book by its cover. The cover is of only seventeen MPs by the late s. Grayson provides a particularly clear T terrible. The book is very good, if, at Even when the Liberals held the summary of the key role from that only pages, a little short for the balance of power (during the two the Liberal Party under Sir Archibald’s money. minority Labour Governments of Sinclair leadership played in leading the Richard Grayson’s latest publication and –) their ability to shape opposition to Chamberlain’s appease- makes a significant contribution to the policy was very limited. Liberalism ment policy. It is often forgotten that history of the British Liberal Party in during this period shifted from being a appeasement was a popular policy with the interwar period. It furthers our coherent, credible political competitor large sections of the British population. understanding of the role that the for government to being almost the Sinclair risked unpopularity and Liberal Parliamentary Party and its brand label for a fragmented pressure accusations of war-mongering with his associated interest groups had in group of non-socialist radicals. It is a sad attacks on Chamberlain’s foreign policy, developing a coherent opposition to the story of lost opportunities and over- but he built a national reputation for policy of appeasement. Its period of looked warnings. But the Liberal Party himself and he enabled the small study is from – and, as such, is, can draw comfort from being broadly parliamentary Liberal Party to punch ultimately, a study in failure. The right when the majority in both the considerably more than its parliamen- Liberals were increasingly marginalised Conservatives and Labour Parties, tary weight of seventeen MPs. after the fall of the Lloyd George certainly up until , were decidedly Grayson makes a critical assessment Coalition in , as a result of the wrong in their opposition to rearma- of the overall practicality of Liberal party’s internal splits between Asquith ment and support for appeasement. policies during the interwar period. He and Lloyd George and then Samuel and Grayson maps out the development questions the party’s approach to issues
42 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 43 such as the revision of the Versailles Hitler, Sinclair’s opposition to appease- between the Militants, relying on Treaty and dependency on the League ment was absolutely correct, and it is strong anti-Thatcher sentiments, and of Nations for resolution of interna- an appalling shame that the electoral the Liberals, who sought to highlight tional conflicts during the s. He is facts of life prevented the Liberal the corruption of the Militant regime sceptical about the Liberal belief and policy of opposing German aggression and the damage that they were doing advocacy of collective security as an from being put into practice prior to to the city’s reputation and finances. answer to the aggression of Hitler’s the invasion of Poland in . A number of people who watched Germany. However, as Grayson argues, Alan Bleasdale’s drama about these there was at least as much chance of Ian Hunter is completing a part-time times (GBH) have suggested to me that the Liberals’ policy of peace through doctorate on the Liberal Party and the things could not possibly have been as collective security working as there Churchill Coalition. bad as it portrayed. They were far worse. was of appeasement containing Hitler. The thuggery, intimidation and corrup- Ultimately, on the big issues concern- 1The book is 194 pages long including some tion were very real. It is hard to describe ing international relations during the very useful appendices on the Liberal Summer the damage done to the city when all Schools, Liberal conferences and extracts from s the Liberal Party was more right contemporary documents on Liberal policy. , city council employees were than wrong, which is more than can be 2 Richard Grayson has previously published declared redundant. My wife was a said for either the Tories or the Labour Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to teacher, whose redundancy notice was Europe: British Foreign Policy, 1924–29 (Frank Party. On the ultimately crucial issue of Cass, 1997). in a package for all the staff thrown through the school kitchen window by one of the many taxi drivers hired to deliver them. Any possible promotion within the city’s education system was clearly blocked as she was a known Labour and Liverpool opponent of the regime and, in com- mon with many professional people, she Peter Kilfoyle: Left Behind: Lessons from Labour’s was amongst those effectively forced to Heartland (Politico’s Publishing, 2000) leave the city. Chris Rennard I still feel resentment that Neil Reviewed by Chris Rennard Kinnock’s Labour Party only started to act against the Militants when their antics became too embarrassing and eter Kilfoyle’s fascinating the debilitating rows within my own electorally damaging to the Labour account of Liverpool Labour party, as its probably too rapid acces- Party elsewhere. Around the time I left Ppolitics has particular interest sion to power meant that the first Liverpool, Peter Kilfoyle returned and for me, as so much of his career Liberal administration included more was put in charge of the Labour Party’s parallels some of my own. His story is than a few members with dubious organisation. His book describes the one of internecine warfare within the backgrounds. Of course, the author tough approach required as he at- Liverpool Labour Party. His account is also recognises the sincerity and tended up to four branch meetings per that of a Labour Party activist, official decency of many of the leading evening, trying to ensure that rules and then MP whose major battles were Liberals of the early ’s, including the were upheld and not exploited by the never as clearly focused on winning late Cyril Carr (who recruited me to Militants and their allies. But it was a over the electorate as they were on the party) and Mike Storey, who battle that was won at least as much by winning internal party battles, most remains a very close friend and who is the courage of the Liberals (and then notably with the Militant Tendency. now proving to be the most formida- Liberal Democrats), who continued to I grew up in the part of Liverpool ble and effective leader that the city has present the only electoral opposition where Focus leaflets first began, in the ever seen. to the Militants, and by the courts, first ward in the city to elect a Liverpool council politics were at who eventually disqualified forty-six Liberal councillor and in the only their most notorious in the Militant members of the Labour group from city in modern times to be governed era, when Labour unexpectedly gained membership of the council when they by the Liberal Party. As a twelve- overall control of the council in , failed to set a legal rate. year-old activist I remember the in what was probably a reaction against Peter Kilfoyle considers his battle sense of excitement on the streets the Thatcher Government and the against the Militants was won when he during the city elections, when perceived closeness to it of the then was elected as Eric Heffer’s successor in we won of the seats on the Liberal Leader, Sir Trevor Jones. For the the Walton by-election. I think new council. first part of this period, Peter Kilfoyle that he was actually a lucky man, who Peter Kilfoyle describes the opposite had emigrated to Australia. He missed ironically owed his by-election win to emotions about this election, although some of the classic battles in the city’s the Militants. But for a totally false Left Behind also served to remind me of media and in the annual elections impression, in an ignorant media, that
44 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 won. As it was, Paul Clark polled % of this book. Melbourne, we are told, the vote, the Militant candidate lost her could smile at anything; it seems his deposit (as did the Tory) and Peter biographer is inclined to do the same. Kilfoyle held the seat with Eric Heffer’s It is not all smiles, however, for majority cut from , to ,. Melbourne’s life was frequently I met Peter Kilfoyle recently, found touched by sadness. His marriage to him to be a charming man and told him Caroline Ponsonby was an unhappy how much I enjoyed his book. I chose one. A romantic dreamer, who saw the not to tell him, however, of my own role world as an epic poem with herself cast in running Paul Clark’s campaign, and as the heroine, Caroline was easily bored how I felt that with a bit of luck I and soon turned to men other than her would have kept him out of Parliament husband for romantic gratification. Had – and this very good book would she merely confined herself to discreet probably never have been written. affairs there would not have been a problem: the era of rigid Victorian Chris Rennard (Lord Rennard of Wavertree) morals (or hypocrisy depending on was Secretary of the Liverpool Wavertree your viewpoint) had not yet dawned, Constituency Liberal Association in , and it was still possible to retain your agent to David Alton (Lord Alton of place in polite society even when the by-election was a straight Labour Liverpool) when he first won his Liverpool someone other than your spouse was versus Militant fight, I am confident that Mossley Hill Constituency in , and has occupying their place in your bedcham- Liberal candidate Paul Clark (who had been the Liberal Democrats’ Director of ber. However, Caroline overstepped the succeeded Trevor Jones) would have Campaigns and Elections since . mark by the degree to which she publicised her liaisons, not least a stormy affair with the poet Byron, which culminated in her cutting her arms with broken glass in a fit of rage ‘When in doubt what should be over being spurned by him at a ball. Such tantrums were a serious embar- done, do nothing’ rassment to the future Lord M, and to the families on both sides. As a result, David Cecil: The Young Melbourne & Lord M repeated efforts were made to persuade William to separate from his wife, but (Phoenix Press, 2001) on more than one occasion he backed Reviewed by David Nolan down in the face of emotional demon- strations of regret from Caroline and, as a result, they were not to be finally separated until her death in . illiam Lamb, the nd ‘life’, not least because the first part is Further sadness was to follow with Viscount Melbourne as much about his wife Caroline the illness and premature death of his (–) was Home Ponsonby as it as about the future W son and only child, and with Mel- Secretary at the time of the Great Prime Minister. Both sections, even bourne being named in a divorce case Reform Act in and went on to that dealing with the late blossoming as a result of an apparently innocent lead the Whig government that held of Melbourne’s career, are more relationship with Caroline Norton – office from to . In the first of personal than political biography. Yet all of which gives Cecil plenty of these roles he was tasked with sup- this is almost inevitable given that material with which to spin a good old pressing the violent disturbances that Melbourne always gave a higher historical yarn. accompanied the passage of the reform priority to personal rather than The dramatic episodes of Mel- legislation through Parliament; in the political considerations. bourne’s marriage are not the only latter, more famously, he guided the Reading Cecil’s book, it is almost aspects of this book that keep it from young Queen Victoria through her possible to forget that England in the being a dry-as-dust political biography. early years as head of state. years following Waterloo was a Wit is also present. In a phrase charac- David Cecil’s The Young Melbourne country beset by fear of revolution, teristic of this biographer’s engaging appeared in ; Lord M, his study of nonetheless going through a period of style, Cecil points out that: ‘Like the Lamb’s ministerial career, followed significant change and reform. Riot other young men of his circle, he fifteen years later. The two are now and disorder are mentioned, but they thought chastity a dangerous state: and reissued in a single volume, although somehow lose their sting amid the he seems early to have taken practical they amount to more than a single mood of calm that prevails through steps to avoid incurring the risks
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 45 attendant on it.’ This remark is typical hagiographical by modern standards, it David Nolan is Secretary of Crosby & of a book that is as easy going as the is nonetheless welcome as one of the Bootle Liberal Democrats, and an amateur character it depicts. surprisingly few biographies of the historian with an interest in th century At the same time as telling his tale, man currently in print. British political history. Cecil does find time to explore Melbourne’s deeply cautious political outlook. He took a sceptical view of grand reform schemes put forward by various interests, once remarking, The most complex character ‘When in doubt what should be done, do nothing.’ He may have mistrusted reform, but he was ready to accept it Antony Lentin: Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: when he judged it necessary in order From Versailles to Hitler, 1914–1940 (Palgrave, to achieve his most abiding aim, the 2001) preservation of order and tranquillity. On occasion his concern for order led Reviewed by David Dutton to mistakes, such as his heavy-handed treatment of the Tolpuddle Martyrs – one of the few features of his career to he main problem with this negotiations than has been reached by come in for criticism by Cecil – but it book is its title. It is not, as the any other author. The British Prime also led him to change his mind in T reader might have suspected, a Minister rejoiced in what he had done favour of an extension of the franchise, systematic survey of Lloyd George’s in the Versailles settlement, but was and it motivated his constant efforts to attitude towards the problems of the fully aware of the work which re- chart a middle course between the peace settlement between the signing of mained to be tackled. He would radical and conservative pressures on the Treaty of Versailles and the fall of probably have endorsed General his government from . Like France two decades later. It consists in Smuts’ conclusion that ‘the real work Gladstone later, though less frequently fact of a collection of six essays, four of of peace will only begin after this and far more reluctantly, his conserva- which deal with various aspects of the treaty has been signed’. tive ends sometimes led him to employ settlement itself. Furthermore, A continuous narrative, covering reforming means. earlier drafts of all but one of the essays the whole period from to , Unlike Gladstone he got on ex- have already been published, and the might have made it easier to make tremely well with Queen Victoria. author himself wrote a monograph on sense of the two final and still some- Ascending the throne at just eighteen, Lloyd George, the peace settlement and what bizarre episodes examined in the she looked to her Prime Minister as her the seeds of the next war almost twenty last two chapters of this book – Lloyd principal source of advice and guidance years ago. Is there, then, much to be said George’s visit to Hitler in , and his on the execution of her duties. Nor was to justify the present volume? response to the fall of Poland in , it all strictly business; they became very The answer is an emphatic ‘yes’. It is and the possibility of a compromise close friends who met several times a precisely because Antony Lentin has day as much as a means of mutual devoted the majority of his academic support than because of any need to career to trying to get to grips with attend to matters of state. Indeed, this most slippery of biographical Victoria became so reliant upon him, subjects that his latest book may be and as a result so prejudiced against his read with such profit. What we have is political opponents, that Melbourne a perceptive and insightful study of the had to work hard to educate her out of complex Welshman, which at times her antipathy to Peel and the Tories. In borders on the psychoanalytical but the end though, it was Melbourne which rarely fails to convince, such is rather than the Queen who had the the author’s rapport with the subject of harder time adapting to the drastic his enquiries. The analysis of the change in their acquaintance that relationship between Lloyd George inevitably followed the collapse of his and Lord Cunliffe over the negotiation government in . of the reparations settlement is particu- With narrative history now very larly persuasive, and represents a much back in fashion it is hardly significant modification of accepted surprising that David Cecil’s historical wisdom. Lentin probably novelesque and sympathetic study of takes us nearer to a genuine under- Melbourne should now be repub- standing of what Lloyd George was lished. Whilst it may be rather too seeking to achieve during the peace
46 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 peace when the war turned against But to suggest that, had Lloyd George Britain in the spring of . It must, rather than Neville Chamberlain been ‘Let us open to them the of course, be admitted that such a in power in the late s, some sort of door of the House of narrative would be difficult to con- Anglo-German understanding would Commons’ struct, for in the years after the end of have been arrived at, presupposes that continued from page 21 his premiership in Lloyd George’s Britain could, in anything other than attention was understandably directed the very short term, have lived in be displayed. Till we have done this, let away from international affairs and harmony with a Nazi Germany us not presume to say that there is no towards the domestic problems of the rampant and unrestrained in continen- genius among the countrymen of British economy and the Liberal Party. tal Europe. Isaiah, no heroism among the de- That said, Lentin shows that Lloyd There is plenty here to stimulate the scendants of the Maccabees. George was in no sense Hitler’s dupe. reader, though at the end of the day he Sir, in supporting the motion of my All the same, it is difficult to avoid the may still decide that Lloyd George will honourable friend, I am, I firmly be- conclusion that he misjudged his man. forever escape the conclusive grasp of lieve, supporting the honour and the There were aspects of Hitler to which historical comprehension. As his long- interests of the Christian religion. I Lloyd George was instinctively drawn, term secretary, A. J. Sylvester, once put should think that I insulted that reli- not least because Hitler was enacting it, ‘his character is the most complex I gion if I said that it cannot stand un- in Germany some of the social and have ever known’. aided by intolerant laws. Without such economic policies which the Welsh- laws it was established, and without man had unsuccessfully urged upon David Dutton is Reader in History at the such laws it may be maintained. It tri- the National Government in Britain. University of Liverpool. umphed over the superstitions of the most refined and of the most savage nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and the bloody idolatry of Keeper of the Liberal Flame the northern forests. It prevailed over conctinued from page 25 the power and policy of the Roman Empire. It tamed the barbarians by John Davies is the eldest son of Ivor Davies, Economist 19 August 1950, The Press and Jour- whom that empire was overthrown. born in and educated at the universities nal 13 May 1950, and elsewhere. 13 Ivor Davies: obituary in The Bookseller by John But all these victories were gained not of Oxford and Sheffield, recently retired from Davies, 5 December 1986, p. 2240. by the help of intolerance, but in spite the Publishers Association where he was Di- 14 ‘Mr Davies adopted for Oxford’, Oxford Mail, 7 of the opposition of intolerance. The rector of the Educational Publishers Council, June 1952. 15 ‘City Tory majority slashed’, Oxford Times, 16 whole history of Christianity proves the Council of Academic and Professional October 1964 p. 28. that she has little indeed to fear from Publishers, the Serial Publishers Executive, 16 ‘Mr Ivor Davies to stand for Oxford City Coun- persecution as a foe, but much to fear the Copyright Licensing Agency and the cil’, Oxford Mail 28 February 1953. from persecution as an ally. May she Publishers Licensing Society 17 Oxford City Council Liberal election address, Wolvercote Ward 1970. long continue to bless our country 18 Our Olive (Oxford 1989) p. 95. with her benignant influence, strong 1 Edinburgh University Personality Series No. 11 19 Bernard Levin, writing as Taper in The Spectator, in her sublime philosophy, strong in – Ivor R.M. Davies in The Student, 1 February September 1961. 1938, p 161. 20 ‘Ivor Davies – the Man for Oxford’, Liberal her spotless morality, strong in those 2 Reported in The Bulletin (Aberdeen) July 1937. News General Election Campaign edition 1964, internal and external evidences to 3 Election addresses: Oxford 1938, Central Aber- p. 1. which the most powerful and compre- deenshire 1945, West Aberdeenshire 1950, 21 ‘A royal reward’, Oxford Mail, 1 November Oxford 1955, 1959, 1964. 1984 p. 7. hensive of human intellects have 4Profile of the Rev. Roderick G Davies in The 22 ‘Man of influence for four decades’, Oxford yielded assent, the last solace of those Christian World, 16 May 1940, p. 3. Mail, 3 December 1986 p. 2. There was no who have outlived every earthly hope, 5 e.g. lead feature in Glasgow Weekly Herald, 5 obituary in Liberal News. December 1936: ‘The Milk Muddle’ by Ivor the last restraint of those who are R.M. Davies, p. 8. raised above every earthly fear! But let Bibliographical Note: At their deaths in 6 Ian Bradley – ‘Oxford 1938 – the first ‘War’ not us, mistaking her character and her the late s, Ivor and Jean Davies left be- vote’ – The Times, 27 October 1978, p. 16. interests, fight the battle of truth with 7 Ivor R M Davies, Trial By Ballot (London, 1950), hind them a significant collection of press the weapons of error, and endeavour pp. 143–44. cuttings, election literature and other docu- 8 Quoted by Tom Harrisson, co-founder of Mass to support by oppression that religion ments related to their political activities. Observation, in Picture Post, 5 November 1938. which first taught the human race the 9 ‘Recount Drama ends Darwen Contest’ in These have been drawn upon for this article great lesson of universal charity. Northern Daily Telegraph, 1943. and, where attributed and relevant, some of 10 ‘Central Aberdeenshire – Result of Poll’ in Huntly Express 27 July 1945 p. 3. them are cited in the footnotes. The content of 11 See article by Robert Ingham, ‘Donald Johnson the article, however, also owes much to eye- – the last Liberal Imperialist’, Journal of Liberal witness observation and conversations within Democrat History 25, Winter 1999–2000, p. 31. 12 Reviewed in Times Literary Supplement 23 June the family and with friends of the subject 1950 p. 383, Truth 18 August 1950 p. 167, The over many years.
Journal of Liberal Democrat History 34/35 Spring/Summer 2002 47 A Liberal Democrat History Group Evening Meeting Old Liberals, New Liberals and Social Democrats: The Liberal Democrats’ Political Heritage At this year’s autumn conference, the Liberal Democrats will debate the party’s core values and principles in detail for only the second time since the party was formed in 1988. Some will see the party as a largely a continuation of the Liberal tradition; others will argue that the influence of Social Democratic thinking is too often overlooked. In reality, is the party the political heirs of the socially reforming New Liberals of the early twentieth century? This meeting will try to shed light on the party’s philosophical antecedents. Speakers: Baroness Shirley Williams (Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords and co-founder of the SDP), Earl (Conrad) Russell (Professor of History, King’s College London and author of An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism) and Professor Michael Freeden (Mansfield College, Oxford and author of The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform). 6.30 pm, Monday 1 July Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, London SW1
Now available from the Liberal Democrat History Group: Great Liberal Speeches
Bringing together in one volume more than forty-five of the greatest Liberal speeches by the greatest Liberal speech- makers, from Charles James Fox to Charles Kennedy.
Great Liberal Speeches includes: • Jo Grimond, ‘The sound of gunfire’ • Roy Jenkins’ Dimbleby Lecture • David Lloyd George, ‘We can conquer unemployment’ • David Steel, ‘Go back to your constituencies’ • W. E. Gladstone, ‘Ireland stands at your bar’ • Paddy Ashdown, Chard speech on realignment • Henry Campbell-Bannerman, ‘Methods of barbarism’ and speeches by Macaulay, Palmerston, J. S. Mill, Bright, Keynes, Beveridge, Asquith, Conrad Russell, and many more. Each speech is given a concise introduction setting it in context and explaining its impact. The book opens with general introductions on the evolution of Liberal thinking and themes (by Tony Little and Duncan BrackBrack) and on the art of political rhetoric (by Max Atkinson, author of Our Masters’ Voices). Great Liberal Speeches will be a unique source of reference for anyone interested in the contribution of Liberals and Liberalism to British politics, and in the importance and impact of political speech-making.
Great Liberal Speeches is available from:
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