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The unionist party and Ireland, 1906-10
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Extract
The years 1906 to 1910 which form the chronological limits of this study bear witness to a decline in the importance of the Irish question in English politics. The nature of the legislative proposals of the liberal government during the earlier part of this period and the consequent vigorous reaction of the unionist opposition, culminating in the rejection of the budget of 1909 by the house of lords, ensured the temporary eclipse of home rule. The constitutional crisis arising out of the deadlock between the two houses of parliament continued throughout 1910 and 1911, and it is only in 1912, with the introduction of the third home rule bill, that Ireland once more assumes a pre-eminent place in English politics. The really decisive year, however, for the interpreter of the Irish policy of the unionist party is 1910.
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References
1 This departure from the pattern of previous elections caused one conservative to write of the ‘hideous abnormality of a liberal government independent of the Irish’. de Broke, Willoughby, The passing years (1924), p. 249.Google Scholar
2 On 25 Nov. 1905; cf. James, R.R., Rosebery (1963), p. 454.Google Scholar
3 Asquith to Herbert Gladstone, 22 Oct. 1905 (Viscount Gladstone Papers, B.M.Add.MS. 45, 989, ff. 131–2).
4 Crewe to Campbell-Bannerman, 19 Nov. 1905 (Campbell-Bannerman Papers, B.M.Add.MS 52, 521, ff. 428–31).
5 Austen Chamberlain, for example, said in his election manifesto that Ireland was the first great issue before the electors; cf. Petrie, C., The life and letters of Austen Chamberlain (1939), 1. 172–4.Google Scholar
6 This is the conclusion of A. K. Russell, ‘The general election of 1906’ (an unpublished doctoral thesis in the Bodleian Library; MS D.Phil.d. 2801, p. 528); cf. also pp. 207–22, 253, 255–6.
7 Gollin, A.M., Mr Balfour’s burden (1965)Google Scholar provides a comprehensive account of the early history of the split.
8 Londonderry to Balfour, 5 Nov. 1905 (Balfour Papers). Readers of the Balfour Papers, which are in the British Museum, are specifically instructed ‘to give full particulars of the nature, date, etc., of documents cited and not to rely on the present volume and folio number’, and this is the principle of reference here followed.
9 Unionism, which is the cement binding our party together, is not constructive whereas fiscal reform is’. Col. Edward Saunderson to Austen Chamberlain, 8 Feb. 1906 (Austen Chamberlain Papers AC 7/2/8). The Austen Chamberlain Papers are in the library of Birmingham University.
10 Cf. Chamberlain, Austen, Politics from inside (1936), pp. 140–1Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Politics.
11 Cf. Long, W., Memories (1923), p. 194.Google ScholarPubMed
12 Long to Balfour, 17 July 1908 (Balfour Papers).
13 Cf. Sandars to Balfour, 20 Sept. 1908 (Balfour Papers).
14 Long, Memories, p. 196.
15 Politics, p. 39.
16 Cf. Dugdale, Blanche, ‘The Wyndham-MacDonnell imbroglio, 1902–1906’ (Quarterly Review, Jan. 1932)Google Scholar; also, Lyons, F.S.L., ‘The Irish unionist party and the devolution crisis of 1904–1905’ (Irish Historical Studies, 6. 1–22 (Mar. 1948) )CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mackail, J.W. and Wyndham, Guy, Life and Letters of George Wyndham (1925), 1. 91–107,Google Scholar and ii, appendix A.
17 Long, Memories, pp. 143–4.
18 Cf. Dunraven, , The outlook in Ireland (1907),Google Scholar for the origins and programme of the association; see especially appendix I.
19 ‘Without resigning I cannot go on helping the Assoc. [sic]’. MacDonnell to his wife, 4 Oct. 1904 (MacDonnell Papers, Bodl.MS Eng. Hist.e. 216, f. 68).
20 Long to Balfour, 2 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
21 Ibid.
22 Balfour commented that ‘we are all being very ill-used at having to deal with this silly and sordid controversy when we are not being paid £5,000 a year for our labours!’ Balfour to Wyndham, 5 Sept. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
23 This passage, from The Times report of Long’s Dublin speech (30 Aug.. 1906), is quoted in a copy of a letter from Wyndham to Long of the same date which the former sent to Balfour (Balfour Papers).
24 Lucy, H.W., The Balfourian parliament, 1900–05 (1906), p. 362.Google Scholar
25 Wyndham to Balfour, i6 Sept. 1906 (Balfour Papers). Both Gerald Balfour as chief secretary for Ireland from 1895 to 1900; and Plunkett as president of the I.A.O.S. and vice-president of the department of agriculture and technical instruction for Ireland (1899–1907), had incurred Irish unionist displeasure.
‘What seems to be forgotten in all this controversy is that devolution is merely an episode. The revolt of neo-unionism manifested itself long ago — at any rate from the time of Gerald Balfour. Objections to you were entertained before devolution was heard of. The question is whether the new unionism — the unionism of mere negation — will absorb all unionist sentiment’. Dunraven to MacDonnell, 12 Sept. 1906 (MacDonnell Papers, Bodl. MS Eng. Hist. c. 350, if. 136–7).
26 ‘A Gecilian government has never been quite popular at Printing House Square … on Irish politics The Times is Orange and since A.J.B.’s (sic) departure from the chief secretaryship it has never approved the Irish policy of the government except for the brief period of Walter Long’s reign’; from a memorandum of E. B. Iwan-Muller, a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph and a personal acquaintance of Balfour’s, 13 Feb. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
Lansdowne, commenting on the hostility of The Times towards MacDonnell, suggested that ‘on their staff must be an ex-Indian official who suffered under MacDonnelPs rule in Bengal or the N.W. Province. M. (sic) was a hard master and would not tolerate shirkers’. Lansdowne to Austen Chamberlain, 15 Oct. 1906 (Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 7/4/24).
27 The first baron : Sir Arthur Edward Guinness.
28 Sandars to Balfour, 7 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
29 Ibid.; also Wyndham to Balfour, 16 Sept. 1906 (Balfour Papers). 80 Long to Balfour, 2 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
30 Long was always highly sensitive about any matter which he felt impugned his personal honour. Balfour, he wrote, ‘cannot defend George without by inference condemning me’. Long to Austen Chamberlain, 7 Oct. 1906 (Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 7/4/14).
31 Long to Balfour, 2 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
32 Hamilton was secretary of state for India at the time of the appointment, and was asked by Wyndham whether he would agree to second MacDonnell from the Indian civil service.
83 Balfour to Wilfrid Ward, 2 Oct. 1913 (Balfour Papers).
34 Gf. Mackail and Wyndham, op. cit., ii, appendix A; see in particular Balfour to Wyndham, 26 Aug. 1902 : ‘I have heard nothing but good of Sir A. MacDonnell as a man and as an administrator : but is he not a home ruler’? (p. 752).
35 Ibid.
36 Lansdowne believed, and stated publically in a speech at Nottingham on 12 Oct. 1906, that if Balfour were to blame in any way for what later happened it was ‘only for having accepted our recommendn [sic] of MacDonnell for the under secretaryship’. Lansdowne to Balfour, 13 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
37 The distinction between the Indian and Irish environments is vital : MacDonnell ‘had all the faults of a strong self-made man who had spent all his official life administering a country not under direct parliamentary control, it was his frequent failure to realise the finesse that is necessary to get anything done by parliamentary methods that so constantly irritated him, he never felt the pulse of the political world. … He had no experience of the English code which prevents civil servants from meddling even indirectly with politics’. Murray Hornibrook to Blanche Dugdale, 16 Jan. 1932 (Balfour Papers). Hornibrook was Wyndham’s principal private secretary from 1903 to 1905.
38 ‘I look back wistfully to my five years in India, and there is no chapter of my Indian experience to which my thoughts turn with more satisfaction than that which brought me into close relations with your husband. There was no one with whom I liked better to work.’ Lansdowne to Lady MacDonnell, 14 June 1925 (MacDonald Papers, Bodl. MS. Eng. Hist. d. 238, f. 36).
39 From an undated and unsigned letter or memorandum in Balfour’s hand, which is minuted by Lansdowne; possibly written in mid-March 1905 (Balfour Papers).
40 Cf. Dugdale, op. cit., pp. 32–33.
41 Ibid.
42 The draft was seen by Lansdowne, Salisbury, Wyndham, Long, Gerald Balfour, Austen Chamberlain and Sandars, Balfour’s private secretary; and possibly by other of his colleagues.
43 Dugdale, op. cit., p. 34.
44 Ibid.
45 Wyndham to Balfour, 4 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
46 Lansdowne to Balfour, 4 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
47 An interesting illustration of Sandar’s importance : Austen Chamberlain wrote that he ‘was glad to hear that Jack Sandars … agreed that it would not do. So there is some hope of altering it.’ Chamberlain to Long, 5 Oct. 1906; cited in Petrie, , Austen Chamberlain, 1. 188–90.Google Scholar
48 Long to Balfour, 7 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
49 ‘A most insolent and unworthy suspicion, but extremely demonstrative of the Irish mind. I remember it making me very angry at the time.’ Balfour to Cawdor, 7 Jan. 1909 (Balfour Papers).
50 Chamberlain to Balfour, 7 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
51 He urged Long not to ‘be too susceptible as to your own position. You are and must remain our spokesman on Irish affairs.’ Chamberlain to Long, 5 Oct. 1906; cited in Petrie, , Austen Chamberlain, 1. 188–90.Google Scholar
52 Arnold Foster to Bonar Law, 24 Apr. 1906; cited in Blake, R., The unknown prime minister (1955), p. 54.Google Scholar
53 Petrie, op. cit. Cf. also a letter in similar terms from Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 26 Sept. 1906 (Austen Chamberlain Papers. AC 7/4/4).
54 Chamberlain and Lansdowne, when the affair was in the open once more, favoured Long’s demand for publication; nor was Wyndham wholly hostile to the idea. Balfour was supported by Salisbury, his first cousin, and Sandars, his private secretary.
55 Gerald Balfour to Austen Chamberlain, 2 Oct. 1906 (Austen Chamberlain Papers AC 7/4/10). Ironically Balfour’s reluctance to publish the letters in question has been misinterpreted, both by contemporaries and by students of the period, as illustrating his willingness to sacrifice Wyndham in order to conceal his own complicity in the affair; cf., e.g., Ensor, R.C.K., England 1870–1914 (1936), pp. 359–60.Google Scholar
56 Balfour to Austen Chamberlain, 8 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers). Sandars reflected his chief’s attitude when he wrote that, if it were not for Long’s agitation, ‘I don’t believe that beyond the members of the Kildare Street Club there was any body of respectable unionists who were troubling their heads over the MacDonnell mystery’. Sandars to Balfour, 7 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
57 Balfour to Lansdowne, 16 Oct. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
58 Cawdor to Balfour, 8 Feb. 1906 (Balfour Papers).
59 Austen Chamberlain to Balfour, 24 Oct. 1907 (Balfour Papers).
60 Lawrence to Balfour, 6 Feb. 1907 (Balfour Papers). Such indifferences was not confined to the tariff reformers : Lord Robert Cecil, one of the most prominent of the unionist free traders, writing of the wide range of beliefs which he felt could be accommodated within the ranks of one party, said that although ‘home rule is no doubt in a rather special position because it is the question on which the unionist party was founded … even there I would vote for a good tory who favoured, let us say, devolution’. Cecil to Northcliffe, 3 Aug. 1909 (Cecil of Chelwood Papers, B.M.Add. MS 51, 159).
61 The tariff reformers had long desired such an arrangement : Redmond told Wilfrid Blunt ‘as a great secret that when Dudley was lord lieutenant he had sent for him, Redmond, and had proposed that he should join the tories on tariff reform. Redmond said that he was quite willing but would want home rule in exchange. Whereon Dudley said it was no good going on with the argument.’ Blunt, W.S., My diaries (1932), p. 703,Google Scholar entry for 13 Feb. 1910. Dudley was lord lieutenant of Ireland from 1902 to 1905.
62 Long to Balfour, 11 Jan. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
63 Balfour to Lansdowne, 29 Jan. 191 o (Balfour Papers).
64 Cf. Garvin to Sandars, 27 Jan. 1910 (Balfour Papers); see also Gollin, A.M., The Observer and J. L. Garvin 1908–1914 (1960), pp. 171–3.Google Scholar
65 Balfour to Lansdowne, 29 Jan. 191 o (Balfour Papers).
66 Nicholson, H., King George V (1952), pp. 129–30.Google Scholar
67 Gf. Austen Chamberlain’s contemporary notes on the constitutional conference — hereafter cited as Chamberlain Notes (Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 10/2/35–85).
68 Cf. a memorandum written by Balfour for George V, 22 June 1910 (P.R.O. GAB 37/102/23).
69 From a similar memorandum from Asquith to George V, 28 May 191 o (P.R.O. CAB 37/102/20).
70 Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 190.Google Scholar
71 From a note handed by Chamberlain to Balfour during the conference sitting of 28 July 1910 (Chamberlain, Notes, AC 10/2/47).
72 Chamberlain thought that ‘the conference will conclude its labours within a week of the resumption of its sittings’. Chamberlain to Balfour, 23 Sept. 191 o (Balfour Papers).
73 Balfour to Lansdowne, 20 Sept. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
74 Lansdowne to Balfour, 24 Sept. 191 o (Balfour Papers). Lansdowne’s contributions to the proceedings of the conference were notable for the stress he laid on this question of lords’ reform. Gf. (Chamberlain Notes, AG 10/2/41–5).
75 Salisbury to Lansdowne, 6 Sept. 1910; taken from a copy of part of this letter made by Lansdowne and forwarded by him to Balfour, 16 Sept. 1910. The italics appear to be Salisbury’s (Balfour Papers).
76 Chamberlain to Balfour, 23 Sept. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
77 Sandars to Esher, 27 Sept. 191 o (Balfour Papers).
78 The 1900 Club was set up by a number of unionist M.P.s who were not standing for reelection in 1906, and who sought a forum for the continued discussion of political affairs. It was founded in the spring of 1906, and ‘conditions of membership were soon extended to include not only peers and prospective candidates, but “such other persons as the committee think suitable for membership by reason of their services to the conservative cause in the universities or constituencies”’. Petrie, C., Chapters of life (1950), pp. 304–5.Google Scholar
79 Chaplin to Balfour, 3 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
80 Such a solution involved the setting up of a series of regional parliaments which would deal with all matters of purely local import, but which would be otherwise subject to an imperial parliament at Westminster.
81 Lloyd George’s memorandum, dated 17 Aug. 1910, has been printed as appendix I in Petrie, , Chamberlain, 1. 381–8.Google Scholar
82 Ibid. i. 388.
83 ‘No word as to these secret and extraneous negotiations was ever spoken in the conference by any of the eight who sat there. All conversations in regard to them were held between Balfour and George alone, and in the conference we all acted by common accord as if nothing of the kind were in progress.’ Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 293.Google Scholar
84 Cf. Austen Chamberlain’s memorandum on the coalition proposals, 29 Jan. 1915 (Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 13/2/2). Balfour was probably shown the Lloyd George memorandum of 17 Aug. 191 o in the first or second week of the following October. Chamberlain and the other unionist delegates knew of it by October 20 (cf. Chamberlain, , Politics, pp. 286–7),Google Scholar and may have known of it as early as October 14 : cf. Chamberlain to his wife, where he writes mysteriously of 4 strange happenings of which I don’t think I can say a word to anyone’, 14 Oct. 191 o (Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 6/1/80). On the difficulty of establishing an exact chronology for these happenings see Gollin, , Garvin, p. 219 Google Scholar; and Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 294.Google Scholar
85 The existence of the memorandum had been revealed to Bonar Law by Smith with the permission of Lloyd George; cf. Birkenhead, , F.E. the life of F. E. Smith ist earl of Birkenhead (2nd edt. 1959), p. 155 Google Scholar; and Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 291.Google Scholar
86 Chamberlain to Cawdor, 21 Oct. 1910; Chamberlain, , Politics, pp. 286–7.Google Scholar
87 George, D. Lloyd, War memoirs (1936), 1. 36.Google Scholar
88 Cf. Gollin, Garvin, ch. vii.
89 Both series of letters were collected and published together in book-form : Pacificus, , Federalism and home rule (1910),Google Scholar hereafter cited as Pacificus.
90 The letters appeared on 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, and 31 Oct.; and 2 Nov 1910.
91 ‘The conference and its consequences’, 28 Sept. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
92 Cf. Gollin, , Garvin, p. 211.Google Scholar Oliver’s visit to Whittinghame to see Balfour caused something of a stir within the party; and Lord Cromer even suggested to Strachey, the editor of The Spectator, that it indicated ‘that the federation idea has been seriously discussed’ (Cromer Papers, P.R.O., F.O. 633/19/5.212–3).
93 Lyttleton to Balfour, 16 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
94 Gollin, , Garvin, p. 209 and p. 213.Google Scholar
95 Sandars to Balfour, 18 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
96 Balfour to Garvin, 22 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
97 So he told Chamberlain : cf. Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 26 Aug. 1912. Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 293.Google Scholar
98 Balfour to Garvin, 22 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers). This letter, parts of which are published in Gollin, , Garvin, pp. 215–18,Google Scholar is a comprehensive statement of unionist Irish policy as Balfour conceived it.
99 Garvin to Balfour, 25 Oct. 191 o (Balfour Papers). This is merely an elaboration of an earlier letter of 17 Oct.; it was equally ineffective. Balfour commented that he did i not know that his original sketch becomes more attractive as the details are filled in ’. Balfour to Chamberlain, 27 Oct. 1910 ( Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 289).Google Scholar
100 Whether or not the party would have actually split in the event of their leaders adopting the federal solution must remain hypothetical. Certainly Balfour believed it would have done so.
101 There is no evidence whatsoever in support of Lloyd George’s contention that Balfour came close to accepting his plan, or that he rejected it, again as Lloyd George contends, only on the advice of Akers-Douglas; cf. George, Lloyd, War memoirs, pp. 36–8.Google Scholar
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103 Chamberlain, , Politics, p. 289.Google Scholar Carson expressed his apprehensions to Balfour in a letter of 25 Oct. 1910 (Balfour Papers).
104 Milner himself wished ‘to help to shape opinion and not to do the hackwork of opposition or of office’. Gollin, A.M., Proconsul in politics (1964), p. 115.Google Scholar
105 The immediate cause of the breakdown of the conference was the inability of the delegates to agree upon the strength of the lords’ representation in a joint sitting committee of both houses of parliament which, it was proposed, would be the final court of appeal in the event of deadlock between the houses. But by this stage the attempt to agree upon a definition of ‘organic’ legislation, which the unionists insisted was a prerequisite of any legislation altering the powers of the lords, had already failed : 6 the organic change which provided the main text of these discussions was home rule ‘; Balfour’s memorandum for George V, ‘The constitutional conference’, 10 Nov. 1910 (P.R.O. CAB 37/104/60). Austen Chamberlain observed in a letter to his wife, 2 Nov. 1910, that ‘the wider issue is put on one side. The narrower issue will, I think, destroy the conference. Neither side can get over the “home rule fence”’. Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 6/1/82.
106 The view expressed in The Observer, 16 Oct. 1910; cf. Gollin, , Garvin, p. 209.Google Scholar
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109 Cf. George, Lloyd, War memoirs, 1. 40–1.Google Scholar