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The Liberal Party and the Irish Question During the First World War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

John M. McEwen
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Abstract

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Type
Symposium: Ireland and British Politics, 1914-31
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , November 1972 , pp. 109 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1972

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Footnotes

1

The author is grateful for access to the Lloyd George Papers in the Beaverbrook Library and to the Edmund Haivey Papers at Friends House, London.

References

2. LordBeaverbrook, , Politicians and the War, 1914-1916 (2nd ed.; London, 1959), p. 44Google Scholar.

3. Ibid., p. 266.

4. Edward David comes closest in his excellent article “The Liberal Party Divided, 1916-1918,” The Historical Journal, XIII (1970), 509–33Google Scholar. There he states of the Irish conscription crisis in early 1918: “The significance of these bitter debates as far as the Liberal party is concerned lies in the demarcation again of government supporters and critics.”

5. Redmond's memorandum of this meeting. Gwyn, Denis, Life of John Redmond (London, 1932), p. 334Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., p. 335.

7. Quoted in Hazlehurst, Cameron, Politicians at War, July 1914 to May 1915 (London, 1971), p. 27Google Scholar.

8. See The Times, July 30, 1914, p. 10, where the report of this meeting ran to 1½ columns of fine print.

9. It is sometimes suggested, or implied, that Asquith and his colleagues in the Cabinet actually welcomed intervention as a means of saving their own political skins. (See, for example, Hazlehurst, , Politicians at War, pp. 31–33Google Scholar.) This charge seems to have no other foundation than speculation on their private thoughts, plus casual remarks Asquith made at different times to Lady Ottoline Morrell and Joseph Pease. The sport of denigrating Asquith on all counts, large and small, grows tedious.

10. Gwyn, , Redmond, p. 368Google Scholar.

11. Fyfe, H. Hamilton, T. P. O'Connor (London, 1934), p. 234Google Scholar.

12. Gwyn, , Redmond, p. 380Google Scholar.

13. Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections (London, 1928), II, 33Google Scholar. The italics are mine. The Irish Nationalist members traditionally sat on the opposition benches below the gangway, while all Liberals continued to sit on the ministerialist side of the House until the first coalition came into being in May 1915.

14. Ibid., p. 101. Redmond to Asquith, May 21, 1915.

15. Lyons, F. S. L., John Dillon (London, 1968), p. 364Google Scholar.

16. Egham, Surrey, Cecil Harmsworth Papers. In the possession of the present Lord Harmsworth, to whom I am grateful for permission to consult them.

17. Friends House, London, Edmund Harvey Papers.

18. As reported in The Times, May 6, 1916, p. 7.

19. Ibid., p. 7.

20. The Times, May 9, 1916, p. 8.

21. The Times, May 10, 1916, p. 10.

22. Friends House, London, Edmund Harvey Papers.

23. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, D/14/1.

24. Jenkins, Roy, Asquith (London, 1964), p. 399Google Scholar.

25. Lord Riddell's War Diary, 1914-1918 (London, 1933), p. 184Google Scholar.

26. Taylor, A. J. P., English History, 1914-1945 (London, 1965), p. 57Google Scholar.

27. Lyons, , Dillon, p. 388Google Scholar.

28. Beaverbrook Library, London. Lloyd George Papers, D/17/16. Montagu ended his letter with this sentence: “But all this must wait … because of Ireland, I suppose, but it would be clearly advantageous to have L.G. at the War Office during the announcement of heavy casualties and a possibly unfruitful offensive.” How did such a letter come to be in the possession of Lloyd George? The answer is to be found in Taylor, A. J. P. (ed.), Lloyd George, A Diary by Prances Stevenson (London, 1971), p. 110Google Scholar, where Miss Stevenson wrote: “He [Montagu] writes the soapiest and most grovelling letters to D. [Lloyd George], but all the time is doing his best to secure D's downfall. So we discovered from a Memorandum to the P.M. which he inadvertently gave Mr. Davies [Lloyd George's secretary] with some other papers.”

29. Taylor, , English History, 1914-1945, p. 57Google Scholar.

30. Bembridge School, Isle of Wight. J. H. Whitehouse Papers. I am grateful to R. G. Lloyd, Esq., executor of the late J. H. Whitehouse, for permission to consult this collection of papers in the Ruskin Galleries of Bembridge School.

31. See, for example, their conversation of July 16, when Lloyd George described some of the difficulties the required bill would meet in Parliament. (Lord Riddell's War Diary, p. 201).

32. Manchester Guardian, July 21, 1916, p. 4Google Scholar.

33. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, E/1/4.

34. Compare with Wilson, Trevor, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914-1935 (London, 1966), p. 70Google Scholar, where it is made out that it was Asquith, not Lloyd George, who surrendered to the “little aristocratic clique.” Wilson adds that this was “contrasted unfavourably in Liberal circles with the way in which, on other occasions, he [Asquith] had forced his will on a majority of the cabinet and his own party.”

35. 84 H.C. Deb. 2210.

36. Ibid., 2220-1.

37. The Times, October 18, 1916, p. 9.

38. 86 H.C. Deb. 622.

39. Ibid., 667.

40. Lloyd George's speech to Parliament on December 19, 1916, as reported in The Times of December 20, p. 9.

41. Fyfe, , T. P. O'Connor, p. 257Google Scholar.

42. BM, London, C. P. Scott Papers. Add. MSS, 50904.

43. Ibid.

44. Lord Riddell's War Diary, pp. 214-15. But in April 1917 he seemed convinced that Irish conscription would be disastrous (p. 239): “What would be the result? Scenes in the House of Commons, a possible rupture with America, which is hanging in the balance, and serious disaffection in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. They would say, “You are fighting for the freedom of nationalities. What right have you to take this little nation by the ears and drag it into the war against its will?” If you passed this Act you would only get 160,000 men. You could only get them at the point of a bayonet, and a conscientious objection clause would exempt by far the greater number. As it is, these men are producing food which we badly need.”

45. Jones, Thomas, Lloyd George (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 188CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. Hancock, W. K., Smuts; The Sanguine Years, 1870-1919 (Cambridge, 1962), p. 475Google Scholar.

47. Egham, Surrey, Cecil Harmsworth Papers.

48. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, F/87/1.

49. Ibid., F/45/2.

50. There is no more than a hint of this in Addison's published diaries, but the story was told in the Manchester Guardian of April 18 (p. 4). This is essentially the version that appears in Wilson, , Downfall of the Liberal Party, p. 108Google Scholar.

51. Addison, Christopher, Four and a Half Years (London, 1934), II, 508Google Scholar.

52. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, F/30/2. Also quoted in LordBeaverbrook, , Men and Power, 1917-1918 (London, 1956), p. 248Google Scholar.

53. McGill University, Montreal, Noel-Buxton Papers. I am grateful to Professor H. N. Fieldhouse for permission to consult this collection.

54. 104 H.C. Deb. 1960.

55. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, F/21/2.

56. Beaverbrook Library, London, George Barnes to Lloyd George, June 5, 1918. Lloyd George Papers, F/4/2.

57. McGill University, Montreal, Noel-Buxton Papers.

58. H.H.A. Letters of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith to a Friend, 1st Series (London, 1933), p. 75Google Scholar.

59. 110 H.C. Deb. 2047.

60. Beaverbrook Library, London, Lloyd George Papers, F/45/6.