ANNUAL REGISTER

FOR THE YEAR

1924.

PART I.

ENGLISH HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT.

THE opening of 1924 found England still under the Conservative Government of Mr. Baldwin which had been defeated at the polls a few weeks earlier. As the Conservatives formed the largest party in the new House of Commons, Mr. Baldwin, acting strictly within his constitutional rights, decided not to resign office till the verdict of the election had been confirmed by a vote in Parliament. The situation was one for which English history afforded no precedent. Never before had a Prime Minister been called upon to resign in favour of the leader of a party smaller than his own. Yet this seemed to be the fate in store for Mr. Baldwin, unless some means could be devised of altering the balance of parties before Parliament met.

Speaking at the National Liberal Club on December 17, Mr. Asquith had announced his intention not to lift a finger to keep the Conservative Government in office. These words were universally taken to mean that the Liberals would support a Labour vote of censure or no-confidence to be moved as soon as possible after the opening of Parliament, and so bring about the fall of the Government. In that eventuality Labour, as the next largest party, would be called upon to take office. Both the Labour and Liberal parties had declared unequivocally that they would enter into no entangling alliances. A Labour Government, therefore, if formed, would be a minority Government a new departure in British politics. Such was the

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anomalous situation which had been created by the 1923 election.

The prospect of a Labour-or, as it was generally termed, Socialist Government was viewed with boundless alarm by large and influential, sections of the community, and frantic cries were raised that it must be prevented at all costs. Movements were accordingly set on foot to unite all the anti-Socialist forces in the country, either by creating a new party, or by engineering a, coalition between the Liberals and Unionists. The Daily Mail made itself the mouthpiece of this endeavour, and in spite of a stinging rebuff administered to it by Mr. Asquith in his speech at the National Liberal Club, continued to call on the Liberal leader to become the "saviour of society" by joining forces with the Conservatives. The London Conservative Association sought to attain the same end by the opposite means. Soon after the election its president had written to Mr. Baldwin begging him to come to some kind of agreement with Mr. Asquith, and on January 2 the Executive of the Association held a meeting at which it decided to make public statement of its view that the formation of a Labour Government would be directly contrary to the will of the people, and if the Liberals would not support a Conservative Government, then Conservatives should support a Liberal administration "in order that the government of the country might be carried on.”

Mr. Baldwin paid no more heed to the London Conservative Association than Mr. Asquith to the Daily Mail. His own view, and that of the bulk of his party, was more accurately reflected by The Times, which protested emphatically against any log-rolling between Unionists and Liberals for the purpose of depriving Labour of the prize to which it was properly entitled by constitutional usage, and insisted that that party should be given what it called a "fair chance." A number of intrigues were set on foot to oust Mr. Baldwin from the leadership of the Conservative party, but they came to nothing, and he remained the director of its policy. And if the Conservative rank and file was prepared to tolerate a Labour administration, a large number of Liberals looked forward to Mr. MacDonald's premiership with positive satisfaction, feeling no doubt that the causes which they had at heart would be safer in his keeping than in that of their own leaders, so few of whom could show clean records from the Liberal point of view.

That Labour would not budge from the position taken up by it in the Declaration of December 12 (vide ANNUAL REGISTER, 1923, p. 141), which announced its readiness to assume office, was made abundantly clear at a great demonstration held on January 8 at the Albert Hall to celebrate the Labour victory at the polls. Nearly all the Labour members of Parliament were on the platform, and it was taken for granted by every speaker that Mr. MacDonald would in a short time become

Premier. The Labour leader himself took the opportunity of laying down the principles by which he would be guided in the exercise of power. He described his following as a party of idealists who had built their final habitations far away on the horizon, but who were going to walk there, not jump there, taking only one step at a time. Their first great duty would be to establish peace, and he believed that a Labour Government occupying Downing Street was the one thing required to give strength to the morally courageous and power to the peace forces of all sections of Europe. In home affairs also he expressed his intention of relying chiefly on the moral appeal, and of seeking to mobilise all men and women of good will and sound judgment for a united effort. He believed that every decent-minded man and woman in the country was unhappy about the question of unemployment, and would welcome a Government which would find a solution for it. He thought it not impossible to make the wealthy residents in the neighbourhood of the Albert Hall feel as they of the Labour Party felt about the conditions under which masses of their countrymen were housed, so that they would join loyally in the effort to improve them. He used these concrete cases as illustrations of the spirit in which Labour would go to work, and he insisted that his object would be the well-being not of a party but of the nation.

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It was remarked by critics of the Labour movement that the proceedings at this meeting commenced with the singing of the "Marseillaise" and ended with that of the "Red Flag." The tone of the meeting was, however, set by Mr. MacDonald, and there was scarcely a remark made during the evening which could be construed even by a hostile observer as an appeal to class prejudice and antipathies. Mr. MacDonald's own speech was hailed a few days later as pure Liberalism" by Mr. E. D. Simon, one of the new Liberal members for Manchester, who at the same time declared himself ready to support the Labour leader so long as he kept clear of Socialism. Similar sentiments were expressed about the same time by other representative Liberals, and Mr. Asquith, on being asked by certain business men of Paisley, his constituency, to concert with the Unionists measures for combating the Socialistic menace, replied with an unqualified negative. Thus Mr. MacDonald's path to office was kept clear of all the obstacles with which the anti-Socialists sought to encumber it.

Before Parliament met, the British and French Foreign Offices had a passage at arms in which the former again more than held its own. With the support of the French Governor, General de Metz, a band of adventurers had set up a "Separatist Government in the Palatinate, and the decrees of this egregious body had, at French instigation, been registered by the Rhineland High Commission. Before, however, they could come into operation, the British Government, on January 8, sent a strongly-worded remonstrance to the French Government,

insisting that they should first be submitted for consideration to the Legal Advisory Committee of the Commission. M. Poincaré at first demurred, but eventually gave way. At the same time the British Government directed Mr. Clive, its representative in Munich, to visit the Palatinate and report on the Separatist movement. The French again made objections, but were unable to prevent the visit. Mr. Clive found that the allegations of Separatist terrorism exercised with French support were fully justified, but his report did not produce any change in the conduct of General de Metz.

Parliament met on January 8, and after electing Mr. Whitley Speaker, spent a week in the swearing-in of members, so that it did not get to business till January 15. Its immediate task, as every one knew, was to turn the Government out, but owing to the intricacies of its procedure and the peculiar balance of parties this operation required another full week for its performance. Mr. MacDonald at the outset took a step which might have led to still further delay. On Mr. Baldwin proposing, on January 15, that Mr. James Hope should be reelected Chairman of Ways and Means, and Captain Fitzroy Deputy Chairman, the Labour leader warned him that these appointments being partisan would not be allowed to pass without a division, and he advised him to leave the matter over, Mr. Baldwin complied, with the consequence that the House reverted for a time to the practice of thirty years previously, when it had been customary to allow a break in the proceedings -familiarly known as the "Speaker's chop hour"-to give the presiding officer of the House an opportunity for rest and refreshment. Fortunately, the daily loss of an hour to an hour and a half for a few days produced no untoward effect.

The King's Speech, which was read on January 15, bore no sign of being the work of an expiring Cabinet. On the contrary, it was longer than the average, and outlined a legislative programme of unusual fullness. In the field of foreign policy it was able to record "definite progress" in the solution of a number of important questions during the interval which had elapsed since the dissolution. The Reparations Commission had set up its two Committees, England and France had reached an agreement on the status of the Tangier zone, an agreement had virtually been concluded by Great Britain with the United States on the right of search for illicit liquor, and the Ameer of Afghanistan had taken steps to bring to justice the murderers of British subjects who had taken refuge in his territory. In the field of home policy the speech foreshawdowed the introduction of no fewer than seventeen bills dealing with various social needs, such as unemployment, housing, pensions, and agricultural improvement. It made no mention of Protection, but expressed the hope that the promises of Preference to the Colonies given at the Imperial Conferences would be honoured by Parliament.