The National Government, 1931–40

287 Pages·1999·27.419 MB·English

by  Nick Smart (auth.)

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The National
GovernlDent, 1931-40
Nick Smart
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LID
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-69131-1 ISBN 978-1-349-27582-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-27582-3
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22329-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smart, Nick, 1952-
The national government, 1931-40 I Nick Smart.
p. cm. - (British studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-22329-8 (cloth)
1. Great Britain-Politics and government-191 0-1936. 2. Great
Britain-Politics and government-1936--1945. I. Title.
11. Series.
DA578.S63 1999
94J.082-dc21 99-12190
CIP
© Nick Smart 1999
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
Contents
Acknowledgements VB
Introduction
1. The 1931 SettIeDlent 9
The Government of Individuals 11
The 'National Appeal' 17
These Tiresome Liberals 23
The Greatest Landslide in British Democratic History 29
2. Coalition-Making 37
Agreeing to Differ 41
National Government? 55
3. The India Bill 63
Irwinism and the Simon Report 67
Revolt: Phase One 72
Revolt: Phase Two 79
The Passage of the Government of India Bill 88
4. The Middle Period: NoveDlber 1933 -
DecelDber 1935 90
The Status of the Opposition: Labour 92
The Status of the Opposition: Fascism 98
The Status of the Opposition: Lloyd George lO4
Mussolini to the Rescue 113
The 1935 General Election 119
5. The PriIDacy of Foreign Policy 122
A Pattern Established 129
A Good Year for Dictators 133
Three Kings in a Year 140
v
VI Contents
6. Neville ChaDlberlain's National GoverJunent 148
Eden's Resignation: the First of the Few 154
Chamberlain Tightens his Grip 163
Out of this Nettle Danger. . . 176
7. High Tide and Mter 184
Towards War 193
Dead in the Water? September 1939 - May 1940 205
The Norway Debate and the Downfall of Neville
Chamberlain 216
Notes 224
Select Bibliograpf?y 263
Index 270
Acknowledgements
Numerous people have helped in the preparation of this book. I am
grateful to Professor Jeremy Black for admitting me to his British
Studies Series stable, and to his colleague Dr Bruce Coleman for
reading and commenting on a draft chapter.
Nearer to home many colleagues have helped. I thank my Faculty
research committee for granting me a budget, and the library staff
on the Exmouth campus for all their work on my behalf. The aid of
Alex Palmer of Computer Services has been invaluable. I thank
Sally Holmes, Robert Hole and Neil Riddell for their suggestions
after reading draft material, and I remain particularly grateful to my
friend Paul Lawley for his thoughtful comment and encouragement.
I received nothing but cheerful and efficient service from librari-
ans and archivists up and down the land, and the gracious way Mrs
Elizabeth Crookshank, William Beck and Viscount Boyd gave their
permission for me to quote from the Crookshank, Dawson and
Lennox-Boyd papers is much appreciated.
Finally I must thank Sara, Katie and Jacob for allowing me to
write the kind of book I wanted to write in ideal domestic condi-
tions. To have worked at home in their company and as a part of
the family routine has been the greatest pleasure.
Vll
Introduction
Between 1931 and 1940 Britain was administered by a National
government. This was an unusual arrangement that had never been
attempted before and nothing similar has been tried since. Begun in
August 1931 as a temporary measure to flil the political vacuum cre-
ated by the disintegration of the second Labour government,
National government was consolidated into a regime by the general
election which took place barely ten weeks later. The same regime,
with some changes in its party composition and with the normal
rate of attrition among its personnel, endured until May 1940.
In this way National government adds to the period quality of the
1930s. It is there as a kind of background feature or general context
for inquiry into all things connected with W H. Auden's 'low dis-
honest decade'. But in registering that interest in Britain during the
1930s remains high, there is sense in saying that the politics tend to
get left out. Because some of the rules of normally recognizable
party competition were suspended, the consequence is that the polit-
ical history of National government is strangely neglected. Unusual
arrangement though it was, there seems surprisingly little interest in
National government as political hybrid or constitutional oddity. It
had its coalitionist aspects, but just as few at the time were prepared
to call it a coalition, nobody, it seems, save Maurice Cowling, has
been brave enough to call it this since. 1 With comparativism thus
denied, little scholarly attention has been paid to the peculiar inter-
nal dynamics of the National government, or on how its supporters
justified its continuation.2 It had, by any standard of measurement,
quite a long innings, but not even that is sufficient to provoke much
curiosity. No systematic examination of the requirements of systems
maintenance has been made, and long-standing assumptions about
the power of the whips' office in making the machine function on a
day-to-day basis go unchallenged. The apparently seamless way in
which Stanley Baldwin replaced Ramsay MacDonald as prime min-
ister in 1935 and, in turn, the naturalness with which Neville
2 The National Government, 1931 ~40
Chamberlain replaced him in 1937, means that questions relating to
promotion or succession seem too trivial to be raised. It is a paradox
that for all the buoyancy of interest in matters British during the
1930s, opinion on a central feature of the period ~ National govern-
ment itself ~ has been allowed to ossify.
The reasons for this are various but interesting. Fact and reputa-
tion become intertwined in odd ways. It is a fact that except for the
first few weeks of its existence National government was, in strict
arithmetic terms, unnecessary. The government which called itself
National did not stem from a series of hung Parliaments or a frag-
mented party system. There were by-election jitters but no general
election batterings. Instead, with the National appeal proving over-
whelmingly, almost indecently, popular at the polls, what counted
was the enormous Conservative preponderance in Parliament. It
was a regime that endured courtesy of Conservative support, yet
which at any time was subject to a Conservative veto. In short, the
Conservatives had the means to govern on their own and under
their own banner. That they did not do so is a matter of record.
Why they should have chosen not to is a major theme of this book.
The other side of this factual coin, though here value creeps in, is
that National government was a device to keep disreputable charac-
ters and especially the Labour party out of office. It was formed
with these intentions and was kept alive over the years for the same
purposes. In its day plenty of people defended National government
as necessary for national survival, and it was only in the wartime
conditions of 1940 that a different set of truths about the unity of
the nation became evident. Once it was decided that Labour's
exclusion was no longer necessary, even that Labour's incorporation
had become vital, the regime was laid to rest.
It is not difficult to imagine the emotive impact such stark facts
had on contemporaries. The relish with which the excluded rushed
not merely to bury the thing but to dance joyously on the grave was
palpable. The consensus is still massive that National government
was a sham. Historians of all creeds and persuasions can combine to
agree that its credentials were fraudulent, its rationale deceitful and
its electoral popularity bogus. What is more, nothing and nobody
stands in the way of this tidal wave of obloquy. No one expressed
regret when the National government regime had gone and by the
end of the Second World War those tainted by association with it
were, with the possible exception of Rab Butler, either literally or