The Impact of Labour 1920-24

253 Pages·1971·20.686 MB·English

by  Maurice Cowling

T HE IMPACT OF LABOUR
/
1920-1924
THE BEGINNING OF
MODERN BRITISH
POLITICS
MAURICE COWLING
c.--
Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge
University Lecturer in History
Austen Chamberlain and Baldwin posing, at Baldwin's
instigation, after Chamberlain had been told that he would
not be in the go,·ernment Ill May 1923.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS·
1971 I
Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press
Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London N.W.1 CONTENTS
American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y.10022
© Cambridge University Press 1971 Introduction: The character of high politics page r
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 73-127236 PART I
The threat from Labour x 15 )
ISBN: 0 521 07969 l
Printed in Great Britain I I The importance of Horatio Bottomley 45
at the University Press, Aberdeen I I I The conspiracies of Lord Robert Cecil 60
IV Lord Salisbury's connections 70
7f, /
v The Liberal collapse
91_,)
v I The Coalition dilemma 108
PART II
VII The election kite of January 1922 131
VI I I The preservation of the Coalition 138
IX Withdrawal to Criccieth, March 1922 150
/ x Unemployment and the Labour party 174
XI The disappointment of Austen Chamberlain ~ 181
XII The shunning of Lloyd George " 213
XIII The inadequacy of Bonar Law 237
,,,.
XIV The arrival of Mr Baldwin
PART III
xv Baldwin's need for a platform ;<. 275
XVI Salisbury's revolt 308
1x v II The defeat of Birkenhead 331
j XVIII The Liberal miscalculation 341
XIX The politics of the first Labour government x 359
xx Baldwin's triumph x 382
CONTENTS
page
""'Conclusion: The significance of the political struggle ~P3
PREFACE
431
Appendix
The core of this book is based on the letters and diaries written by
446
Bibliography politicians and preserved in the collections listed in the bibliography.
No other material can bring us within comprehending distance
453
Notes of the working of the political system in the period under dis
555 cussion. Without the care taken by owners and others to preserve
Index
it and make it available, historians would be unable to move beyond
the desiccated contentions of political science or the formal pieties
of official history.
The author therefore owes a central debt to the owners,
custodians and archivists of these collections, and especially to Mr
John MacCallum Scott for the loan of his father's diary, to Lords
Ponsonby and Simon for lending their fathers' papers, to Lord
Bridgeman for a copy of his father's diary, to Lady Davidson for
access to her husband's papers, to Lord Salisbury, Mr Julian
Amery, M.P. and Mr John Grigg for access to their fathers'
papers and to Mrs Stephen Lloyd for kindness and hospitality in
allowing access to the papers of her father, Neville Chamberlain,
while they were in her possession. He is grateful also to owners
of copy-right material who have given permission for it to be used
and he apologises to any whom he has failed to approach. For
their exertions in seeking, or facilitating, access to collections, he
is indebted to Professor Douglas Johnson, Mr Michael Bates,
Dr Anil Seal, Mr William Rees-Mogg, Mr Robert Rhodes James,
Mr Robert Blake, Mr G.D. M. Block, Mr David Marquand, M.P.,
Mr Russell Lewis, Dr R. M. Hartwell, Sir Michael Fraser,
Dom David Knowles, Mr Michael Wolff and Mr George
Hutchinson.
He is grateful to Mr A. J. P. Taylor for allowing him to see a
draft typescript of his Beaverbrook and to Lord Rothermere for
conversation which he hope will not seem ill-requited.
He is grateful to Mr Andrew Winckler of Christ's College for
checking references and reading proofs, and to Mr F. Lipsius of
Peterhouse, Cambridge for checking references. He is grateful to
Professor Vincent of Peterhouse and Bristol for commenting on
parts of the typescript, to Mr Alistair Cooke for supplying a
quotation from the Carson papers and to Mr C. P. Cook, Mr E.
vu
Vl
PREFACE
David and Professor J. Gallagher for advice about particular
points. He owes a particular debt to Professor ~· R. Jones. of 'If you are good enough to afford me the opportunity I shall in the
Norwich for reading the typescript and makmg searching future in a final article attempt to state in a series of generalities the points
which may serve as a rallying-ground for the national party of the future ...
criticisms at two stages. .
The formation of such a party may easily be postponed. It may be post
He owes a large debt to the staff of the Beaverbrook Libra.ry,
poned too long. It may be called a National Party, a Constitutional Party
and in particular to Miss Rosemary Brooks, not l~ast for domg or a People's Party. But even if it be postponed: by whatever name it
the major part of the reading of the proofs. He is grateful to be called, all those who have criticized me, except those who belong to
Mr A. E. B. Owen and Miss J. B. Shiel, an~ to the staffs of. ~he the Socialist party, will within five years - in office or in opposition - find
Royal Archives, Cambridge University Library, the Bnt~sh themselves, as I shall, among the roll of its members.'
M seum the Public Record Office, The Spectator, the Scottish Birkenhead writing in Weeldy Dispatch, January 25 1920
Pu~lic Record Office, the House of Lo:ds Record .Office, the
National Library of Scotland, the India Office Li~rary: the 'The other man - "FE" - is disreputable and has been hitherto un
National Register of Archives, the. B.odleian and the L1?ranes of friendly to your government. I do not imagine he has got many political
principles and most of what he has got are wrong ... What ... we have
Churchill College, Cambridge, Tnmty College, Cam?nd~e: The
to consider is what effect the quasi-public reception of him may have
Times, the London School of Economics and the Umvers1ties of
amongst the leaders of thought in the democracy. They are panting after
Newcastle and Sheffield. . ideals which they are afraid may be slipping from them. They have no
He is indebted to Mrs E. D. Beebe, Mrs 0. G. Page, Miss sympathy whatever with the hard-shelled defence of the Haves against
·ss E D Box and others for typing various parts of the the Have-Nots. I think FE - without ideals and with his crude attach
An n P arr, M k' h
1 · · ment to the interests of wealth - would lose us more than Austen [Cham
drafts of the book, and to Mr E. E. Reynolds for ma mg t e
berlain] would gain us.'
index. d F 11 f Salisbury to Baldwin, January 26 1924, in protest against
He owes a continuing debt to the Master. an . e ows o
Birkenhead and Austen Chamberlain being asked to join the
Peterhouse for providing conditions in which historical work can
Conservative Shadow Cabinet
be done.
'"By the way", Mr Wickham Steed interjected, "how do you account for
Maurice Cowling
November I970 the curious circumstance that the word 'Socialism' has now become a
scarecrow in British politics. Thirty years ago people in England talked
of 'Socialism' without half the horror shown or affected now." "There
are several reasons but the main, the real reason", said the Premier, "is
because the older parties and some of the sections of the community
which support them fear the moral fervour of the Labour party. They
cannot match it, and they feel in their bones that when a party has an
ideal and is devoted to it, it gathers a momentum that makes it dangerous
to older and less vital organizations.'' '
MacDonald in interview with Wickham Steed, Manchester
Guardian, October 7 1924
Vlll IX
INTRODUCTION: THE CHARACTER OF
HIGH POLITICS
Between 1920 and 1924 the Conservative party made three long-
1
term decisions. The first was to remove Lloyd George from office.
The second was to take up the role of 'defender of the social order'.
The third was to make Labour the chief party of opposition.
These decisions were attempts to contain the upheaval caused by
the Labour party's arrival as a major force and to gain whatever
advantage could be gained from it. They were deliberately made
and strongly contested and were the cause of continuous dispute
between the leaders. Their outcome, and the consequence of the
general election of 1924, was that for the next phase of political
activity Baldwin wore the mantle Lloyd George had worn in his
last two years of office as leader of resistance to 'Socialism'. I
'Resistance to Socialism' first became a possible programme
when Labour won the Spen Valley by-election in January 1920.
In this story Spen Valley was crucial. From S en Valley o~ds,
the L!_bour arty wauhe major_ lem. W ether by outbidding
it, by detaching some Labour leaders from it or by rallying all
forces against it, the attemptJo_deal with_it_~a.s. ..t he__c_entI:aLfact in'
political calculation in the years that followed. This was true of
the Conservatives who admired Lloyd George. It was true of those
who disliked him. It was true of the Conservatives who destroyed
his Coalition. It was true of the Asquithean Liberals whom his
Coalition had destroyed. Salisbury wanted to make the Conserva- '
tive party the centre of resistance by detaching it from Lloyd
George. Birkenhead, Austen Chamberlain and at times Churchill
wanted to submerge it in a Centre party of resistance under his
leadership. Lord Robert Cecil wanted a Centre party to ignore
the Conservative Right, embrace the Asquitheans and the 'respec
table' Labour leaders and avoid Lloyd George. Mond, Fisher and
Hilton Young wanted resistance to be led by a progressive Liberal
party with Lloyd George at its head. Gladstone, Cowdray and
Maclean wanted much the same under Viscount Grey. At some
points Rothermere wanted a Liberal-based Centre party under
Lloyd George, Grey, Maclean or McKenna. At others he wanted
it to be led by Derby, Birkenhead or Austen Chamberlain.
THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION
Just as these Liberals and Conservatives sought roles as 'Socialism'. Baldwin was opposed to 'Socialism'. So was Salisbury.
So were all the Conservative enemies of Lloyd George, all his
defenders against Socialism, so in the Liberal and Labour parties
others sought scope for futures as leaders of progress against Conservative supporters and all the advocates of a Centre party.
Conservative reaction. Despite instincts which were conservative About the damage it would do and the danger it would bring, if not
in the post-war context, this is what Asquith wanted to do with resisted, there was agreement. But differences about method were
the Liberal party. In Thomas's, Clynes's and Snowden's calcula inseparable from disputes about persons which centred around
tions, Lloyd George figured as a possible bridge between con Birkenhead and Lloyd George on the one hand and first Salisbury
ventional Radicalism and a Centre party alliance to which Liberals and then Baldwin on the other. In this respect Baldwin was the
and radical Conservatives could adhere. Haldane hoped for some beneficiary of the position established by Salisbury between 1920
thing of the kind with prominence for himself. So in some moods and 1922 when Lloyd George's willingness to resist Labour did
did Grey provided Lloyd George was not involved. In this they not stop criticisms of the justification he offered for resistance.
were distinguished from MacDonald whose object, from his Before the fall of the Coalition these involved rejection of Birken
election as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1922, head's idea that 'resistance to Labour' was its raison d'etre. When
was to make Labour the only party of progress. MacDonald's it fell, one thing that was thought to have fallen with it was the
willingness to take office in 1924 once the Liberal party had decided idea that 'Labour' was 'the common foe'. Between 1922 and 1924
that he should do so did not reduce his desire to supersede it. the chief concern of the Conservative leaders was to find something
The election of 1924 demolished the Liberal party and destroyed to say which was not as bare. Until the election of 1924 it was not
all hope of a Centre party. It established that there would be one certain that 'resistance' would be successful electorally, that
' party of change and one of resistance and that the Conservative success was possible under Conservative leadership or that the
party would for the moment be the party of resistance. Baldwin, accommodating style of resistance established on the fall of the
Bridgeman, Salisbury, Amery, Wood, Hoare, Joynson-Hicks Coalition could survive. The central theme of this book will be
and Neville Chamberlain succeeded where nearly all other leading the process by which it was established that it could.
politicians failed. These failures should not conceal the fact that
from the Spen Valley by-election to the day on which the election In following this process we shall concentrate on the high politics
of the politicians who mattered. Back-benchers and party opinion
results were declared in October 1924, there was something
will appear off-stage as malignant or beneficent forces with un
resembling equality of opportunity for all the groups concerned.
One mythology, invented by Lloyd George and Birkenhead, known natures and unpredictable wills. Civil servants will hardly
imp1ied that the overthrow of the Coalition in October 1922 and appear at all except Thomas Jones as speech-writer, Hankey and
Warren Fisher as wheel-oilers and others as possible Labour
resistance to its revival involved replacing the modern government
of an industrial nation by a recalcitrant group of reactionary Die ministers in 1924. Issues of substance, except about the party
Hards.-Another, invented by Baldwin and his followers, was that system, will be considered so far as solutions, or failure to provide
their task was to prevent the escalation of class conflict promised solutions, affected the standing of the governments or politicians
by the personal immorality, opportunist cynicism and aggressive concerned. Europe, Russia, Ireland, India and the Empire will be
determination to do down the poor which were alleged to be the treated in the way politicians treated them - as incidents in the
salient features of Coalition politics. Both were half-truths. The history of what was taken to be the central domestic problem.
This procedure will be followed because the first context in
struggle which occurred in the Conservative party between 1920
and 1924 was a struggle about method rather than about policy. which high politics was played was the context in which politicians
It was a struggle to decide what to say, and what tone to say it in, reacted to one another. The political system consisted of fifty or
in attempting to construct a broad-based body of resistance to sixty politicians in conscious tension with one another whose
2 3
- -- -- ~ ~-----
THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION
accepted authority constituted political leadership. In this context predominating preoccupation of politicians at the top was the
significance arose from mutual recognition; not from office, but moral and mental vacuum they believed had been established by
from a distinction between politicians, inside parliament and the destruction of the pre-war landmarks, by the arrival of the -l
outside, whose actions were thought reciprocally important and Labour party. ~nd by th~ newness and ignorance of the new I
those whose actions were not. It was from these politicians that electorate. Political rhetoric was an attempt to provide new land
almost all initiative came. The language they used, the images they marks for the electorate. Political manoeuvre was designed to
formed, the myths they left had a profound effect on the objectives ensure that the right people provided them. The essence of the
other politicians assumed could be achieved through the political politics of these years was a struggle to decide which rhetoric to
use and which group was to use it in establishing the Labour party
system.
This procedure has been adopted, secondly, because it is on the one hand or a body of resistance to it on the other. There
necessary to understand what the ruling groups were doing before were as many nostrums as there were political groups. It was the
more general questions can be answered. A study of the impact of resolution of the conflicts between them which accounts for the
politicians on British public opinion would be an important time that elapsed between the first unfolding of the Labour
extension of this book, but it is not what it is about. However problem in 1920 and the establishment of the Labour/Con
desirable it may be to understand the Labour and Conservative servative polarisation in 1924.
movements as aspects of total social history, an essential pre The fourth reason for adopting this procedure is that the
liminary is to understand the ignorance and eccentricity from 'vacuum' of which politicians were conscious gave them a freedom
which they were led. It was not because they were typical of the they had not felt before. In this sense their actions were construc
English people that the leaders were in a position to lead, though tive: they were trying not merely to say what electors wanted to
most of them, once in power, thought or pretended that they were. hear but to make electors want them to say what they wanted to
They were there because they had made their way to the top and say in the first place. Rhetoric was a form of exemplary utterance,
used the opportunities this gave to say whatever they thought it an attempt at constructive teaching, an effort to persuade the new
suitable to say. They talked, both publicly and one to another, electorate to enter the thought-world inhabited by existing
about public opinion as a factor by which they should be guided: politicians. It was an attempt to secure acquiescence through words,
in some respects their words and actions were affected by what a claim on the part of politicians who demanded it to speak for the
they took it to be. But in these years there was more difficulty than people and persuade them that they had the keys of whatever
usual in knowing what it was and almost insuperable difficulty in kingdom they thought it desirable to enter. Which kingdom they
knowing what the electoral effects would be when a predominantly claimed to be entering varied with the tactical occasion. Which
new electorate was faced with a choice between two Liberal intention they announced depended on calculation of the con
parties, Labour in a strength which was in itself new and a sequences. Out of all the moods the electorate could be persuaded
Conservative party which constantly promised to be as divided to feel, the choice made by each politician on each occasion was
as the Liberal party. In these circumstances, since they were affected by the choice made by his rivals as all fought for footholds
playing in the dark, politicians either made up their tunes as they in the patriotic, war-weary, peace-loving, moral, decent, idealistic,
went along or replayed the tunes they had learnt before the lights class-conscious, resentful public of their imaginations.
This method of proceeding has been adopted, finally, because
went out in 1914.
We shall proceed in this way, thirdly, because it is the only way it is necessary to understand the details of political manoeuvre in
to understand the exact nature of the responsibility of which order to highlight the relationship between situational necessity
politicians were conscious when they exercised power. High and the intentions of politicians. In this respect one has to convey
politics was primarily a matter of rhetoric and manoeuvre. The the involvement in the compulsions and uncertainties of the system
5
4
THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION
which was characteristic of the whole of a politician's public life. encouraging the electorate to enter into the high places of power. /
For this purpose biography is almost always misleading. Its What they wanted the electorate to want was not participation but
refraction is partial in relation to the system. It abstracts a man vicarious satisfaction at the leadership of the politicians who
whose public action should not be abstracted. It implies linear operated the system or claimed the right to operate it in the future.
connections between one situation and the next. In fact connections This meant that, as the franchise was extended, there was not
were not linear. The system was a circular relationship: a shift in only increasing need to catch hold of working-class opinion where
one element changed the position of all others in relation to the that differed, or could be made to differ, from the opinions of
rest. The reactions of politicians were developed in full awareness other classes, but also an increasing chance to do the same with all
of the relationship and in conscious knowledge of the need to other sorts of opinion, including agrarian, industrial, bourgeois, ,
move whenever it moved. Without understanding the perpetual anglican, nonconformist, celtic and anti-working-class opinion
nature of these motions, one can convey neither the powerlessness where these promised to be helpful. From 1832, and increasingly
nor the impact of individual politicians nor understand the extent after 1867 and 1884, all these factors operated, often in the mind
to which they were moved by antipathy towards their rivals. of the same politicians. In one respect, however, the polarisation
Antipathy, self-interest and mutual contempt were the strongest of rhetoric did not produce a polarisation of action: social in
levers of action, the most powerful motives in conflict, and they equality was preserved by collusive collaboration to make rhetoric
were so because no one knew what the outcome of conflict would not action the centre of dispute. This was why 'conflict' was
be. It was the fact that they knew that they were fighting for an 'synthetic'. This was why parliamentary politics were 'ambiguous'.
unknown future which explains the heat of the politics we are The most important political leaders did not occupy small
discussing and justifies the weight given to factors which politicians patches of rhetorical ground: they 'recognised the force' of all
in retrospect prefer to forget. This would be true of any historical effective opinions and batted on all sides of whatever wicket they
period. I twas particularly true when the future was as open, hope and chose to make their own. This was so in general. It was so where
fear as strong and the situation as new as the one we are discussing. relations between the classes were concerned. Even where the /
The question we have to ask is whether the procedures we have language was democratic, as with Bright, Joseph Chamberlain ,
adopted are helpful in understanding the history of the Labour and Lloyd George, there was no expectation that the masses
party which claimed to be more democratic than the parties it was could dominate the classes and no real commitment to make them ~
attempting to replace. To this our answer is that they are, that in do so. Parliament was an arena for conflict between politicians from
these years the Labour leaders committed themselves to the politics different classes. But politicians were leaders, not followers: they
they found established and that in all important respects the politics found in parliament a terminal beyond which conflict would not
of 1920/24 were continuous with the politics of the previous ninety ride. In practice conflict divided parliamentary politicians far less
years. than consciousness of the power of parliament united them. The
The salient feature of the political system since 1832 was not social ambiguity of parliamentary Radicalism, agreement about
the attempt of popular feeling to make itself felt in parliament but the desirability of parliamentary government and the openness of
the attempts of parliamentary politicians to find ways of securing the party situation in a parliament of patchwork groups and
support from extra-parliamentary opinion. In this respect the opinions put controlled, large-scale, predictable social change out
Reform Bill of 1832 introduced only a new factor into calculation. of the question.
The need to manipulate the electorate instead of influencing it , From this point of view party must be seen as protecting the 1
was increased by subsequent extensions of the franchise. But the classes by persuading the masses to support the parliamentary
parliamentary politicians who managed the system after 1832, conflict through which inequality was sustained. As social institu-
1867, 1884 or 1918 had as little intention as their predecessors of . tions or cultural landmarks, parties embodied the will to preserve
6 7
THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION
the virtues and inequalities of the landed and industrial hierarchies as crusaders or philosophers. In a curious conjunction of myth
to which they were attached. In this respect they changed slowly. and fantasy it seemed almost to be suggested that they were the
In parliament, and among the political leaders, the reality was not unacknowledged poets of the time.
only continuity but also the possibility of disrupting it. In parlia This was true not just of democratic, liberal or progressive
mentary terms party was subject to continuous review and the politicians but of all. It was true of attempts to attract sympathy
continuous possibility of disruption. In 1846, 1886, 1918, 1922 not just from working-class interests but from all interests. It
and 1931 major reviews were carried through in conditions of applied to any use any politician made of whatever was available
heat and anger. At almost all other times the possibility of dis in the political spectrum, which was a rag-bag of opinions and
ruption on the scale which occurred on these occasions was a major feelings existing in the hearts of back-benchers or the minds of
stimulator of events and a major creator of expectations among electors and explored according to necessity or instinctive prefer
those who expected new roles for themselves in the process of ence.
disruption. The idea of a Centre party, of Tory Democracy, of Instinctive preference is a way of describing belief, but in asking
Liberal Unionism, of Liberal Imperialism, of a radicalism of the whether politicians believed the opinions they explored, one is
Left or a Die Hard party of the Right, of Lowe, Goschen, Harcourt, reaching for the limits of explanation. Opinions were believed
Northcote, Granville, Spencer, Carson, Birkenhead, both Chur without being thought suitable for expression: situations brought
chills, two Devonshires, two Derbys, two Greys, two Chamberlains, forth opinions which politicians did not previously know they
two Halifaxes and innumerable others as Prime Minister suggested had believed. Accumulation of material will not tell us whether
repetitions of what Disraeli had done in 1846 or the Peelites conservative leaders believed there was a threat to the social order
thereafter, even when they came to nothing. It was the tension in 1867, 1885, 1910 or 1921. It will not tell us in what sense Bright,
between existing and possible party alignments which gave Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain or Lloyd George believed in the
alternative leaders the chance to identify their futures with un attacks Conservatives may have believed they were making.
explored possibilities, gave every major politician the ?pportuni~y Belief in these, and in all other cases, must be imputed not to an
to exercise power without office and enabled figures like Baldwm affirmation of the heart, but to public conduct, the tip of an iceberg
and Campbell-Bannerman - both possible Speakers - to reach we assume emerged from real humanity by courses too random
positions neither could expect until the hierarchy of d~minant and obscure to yield to the historical conventions.
merit had been broken. It is this that makes context, tension and The study of politics at the top is, therefore, not a simple
total situation central if major decisions are to be understood. matter. One is dealing with a problematical, high-level activity
The centre of tension was continuous theorising about the next where the meaning of the material is not self-evident. At the core
thing politicians claimed to wish to do with party, government or of each politician there was temperament which impregnated
the constitution. Party politics issued in this sense in political everything he did. That, however, was the chief continuity: the
theory, a rhetorical persuasion to adopt the language and expecta manifestations of temperament cannot be deduced from it. Speech
tions of the politician who used it, a succession of affirmations was often designed to conceal: there was little correlation be
designed to sound resonantly in the ears of whatever audience was tween what politicians said and the objective world about which
being addressed. These resonances, whether imitations of great they said it. At every point a politician can be found 'not wanting'
social purposes or instruments of politicians on the make, bore office when it was clear to everyone else that he did. Almost every
little relation to politics as politicians experienced them or to life year produced a 'political crisis', a 'new situation' or a 'conflict of
as electors led it. Politics was conceived as touching the hem of the principle fundamental to the future of the country'. But not
garment of Truth. It was an area of Right and illuminated by every 'new situation' was new nor every 'crisis' critical. Nor were
Faith. Politicians, where not merely entertainers, were presented many 'conflicts of principle' fundamental to the future of the
8 9
THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION
country. The claim that they were shows not that nonsense was this is how the Labour leaders saw themselves. Since they had
being talked but that there was a well-understood public language no social distance to protect them, they had, more perhaps than
in which 'crisis', 'principle' and 'novelty' were conventional other political leaders, to reflect the wishes of their followers.
instruments for establishing positions in the monastic, or rotarian, Since, like Joseph Chamberlain, their power rested on the elector
world we are discussing. ate far more than on parliamentary performance, they had to
The world of high politics was not, of course, entirely monastic represent its discontents. But even when they said the opposite,
or rotarian. But there were two reasons why it was untypical. In they assumed that the political and social system could not be
the first place, it was self-perpetuating. Secondly, changes in the overturned and that it was impossible to establish a hegemony of
social structure were not readily reflected in the character of the the poor over the rich. Not only Fabianism but the whole thought
political power. Until 1916 the original 'workshop of the world' world of the Labour party, including the Labour Left, testified, \
was governed by country gentlemen, dukes' relatives, rentiers, however wrongly, to the solidity of the structure and the pervasive
literary Radicals, educated intellectuals and professional politicians ness of the conceptions that were the objects of attack. The !
with occasional, and on the whole unwelcome, irruptions from Labour party might, as a consequence, have remained a party of
Rochdale or Birmingham armed with monocle, orchid or stuffed propaganda or become a party of revolution. The leaders chose
shirt to preserve the necessary distance. The poor had no place in instead to aim at parliamentary success when it became possible
government. With rare exceptions whelk-stalls figured little in the after 1919, to convince themselves that the Labour party consisted
experience of leading politicians whose function in relation to the of 'sober and moderate'1 people, and to use the tactical situation
public is best understood as something between corporate of I924 to show that they understood more than the distress of
monarch, witch-doctor and bard. Incantations varied according coal, steel and cotton and the unappeasable resentments which
to fashion and taste: they were made cynically or seriously the poor could be made to feel against the rich.
according to temperament and education. They were made in the
shadow of the fact that the involvement they encouraged electors This book, then, has been written in self-imposed limitation. It
to feel was negligible and that the reality they protected was a assumes that the crude picture politicians had of the electorate
method of proceeding with the nation's business. was a significant factor in determining their reaction to the prob
This is to say not that government by businessmen, trades lems it presented. It displays the connection between the guesses
unionists or anyone else would have been better than government they made about its nature and the approaches they made to it.
by professional politicians, but that businessmen, trades unionists But it discusses neither the validity of the views they took of it
and anyone else who exercised power adopted the conventions of nor the impact it felt as they faced up to the problems presented
the system, that these conventions are intelligible only from by its overwhelmingly working-class composition. Back-bench
within and that the contradiction between words and deeds, with opinion, party feeling, the decisions of civil servants, the prefer
which much innocent amusement can be had, will only be resolved ences of electors, the opinions of newspapers and the objective
by realising that the central political achievement was not represent movements of social power all contribute to understanding. But
ation but rhetoric - the continuous process by which politicians the key lies in the minds of the politicians who exercised ostensible
created personalities for themselves in order to claim the right to power and in the relationship they envisaged with the society they
play a part in reducing political problems to a form suitable for wished to rule. In this book we posit the existence of a network of
governmental decision. plebiscitary demagogues whose chief way of understanding their
Now the point in interpreting the political system in this way impact was by understanding the reaction of other members of it
is to show how parliamentary politicians conceived their function, and whose chief purpose was to jostle each other as they picked
and the reason for putting the Labour party in this context is that their way through the limitations imposed by all these forces to a
IO II