Mr Balfour's Poodle(66)

‘Arthur Balfour followed,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘and when Grey rose to speak the silence was formidable. Always the most distinguished figure in the House, he stood for a moment white and silent, and looked at the enemy: “If arguments are not to be listened to from the Prime Minister there is not one of us who will attempt to take his place,” he said, and sat down in an echo of cheers. … I met Edward Grey for a moment afterwards alone, and, when I pressed my lips to his hands, his eyes filled with tears.’s

In Hansard,t however, the firm and clear-cut statement which Mr. Asquith recorded was lost in a column of repetitive, diffuse and inconclusive sentences. The speaker appeared to know neither what to say nor when to sit down. Perhaps in the actual performance Grey’s widely acclaimed gifts of character shone through and gave dignity to his intervention.

When Grey had finished F. E. Smith rose and attempted to carry on the debate. Not unreasonably, the Government back-benchers who had listened in silence to Balfour decided that this was too much. Uproar again developed, and after five minutes the Speaker suspended the sitting on the ground that a state of ‘grave disorder’ had arisen. Standing Order 21, under which he did this, had not previously been invoked since 1893, and a precedent for the refusal of a hearing to a Prime Minister could not be found without a much longer research.

The incident aroused great resentment, and not only amongst normal supporters of the Government. Even Lord Halsbury, we are informed by his biographer, took exception to the scene, ‘for it was as alien from his principles as it was temporarily damaging to his cause’.u The Times, Daily Telegraph, and some leading union  ist papers in the provinces delivered stern rebukes to the ringleaders,1 and a number of Opposition members of Parliament, led by Sir Alfred Cripps and Colonel Lockwood,2 sent a letter of apology to the Prime Minister. But the bitterness could not easily be undone, especially as those who had provoked the incident were in no way repentant. ‘The ugliest feature,’ Mr. Churchill had accurately reported to the King, ‘was the absence of any real passion or spontaneous feeling. It was a squalid, frigid, organised attempt to insult the Prime Minister.’v

Nevertheless, the die-hard movement as a whole was animated by a good deal of passion and some hysteria. The following extract from the diary of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt1 for July 25 gives a fascinating picture of the atmosphere of Boy Scout enthusiasm and breathless extremism in which much of the planning of the ‘ditchers’ was carried on:

‘In the evening just before dinner, I looked in at 44 Belgrave Square and found George Wyndham there with F. E. Smith and Bendor;2 all three much excited. “Here you see the conspirators,” said George. For some time past George has been organising a revolt against Lansdowne and Arthur Balfour’s management of the Tory Party in the matter of the Veto Bill, and yesterday they brought matters to a head by making a violent scene in the House of Commons and refusing to let Asquith speak. Hugh Cecil and F. E. Smith are the leaders of the revolt with George, Bendor has turned Grosvenor House into an office, where they hold their meetings, and they are to give a banquet to old Halsbury tomorrow as the saviour of the Constitution. They are all in the highest possible spirits at the commotion they have caused and consider they have forced Balfour’s hand.… The two others did not stay many minutes, and when they were gone George talked it over with me, promising an absolutely full account of it when the crisis should be over, but he had given his word of honour not to reveal certain things at present. Nevertheless, I gather from him that they suspect Arthur Balfour of having been all through in secret collusion with Asquith, and that perhaps now Arthur is in secret collusion against Asquith with them. It appears that just before the last election in January (sic) Asquith got the King to promise to create a sufficient number of peers to pass the Veto Bill, which the King promised, thinking the electors would go more against Asquith than they did. The King does not at all want to create the peers, neither does Asquith, though the King is in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. They hope the peers will give in without that necessity, and have been looking all along for a compromise, but the extremists on both sides will have none of it, and now George says the country is in revolt, meaning the Tories in the constituencies. “If we had given in without a fight there would have been an end of the Tory Party.” George thinks they have saved that at least. They are ready for actual armed resistance, or rather, they would like that. They have chosen old Halsbury for their nominal leader because of his great age (eighty-eight),1 otherwise there would have been jealousies. All the best men of their party are with them, including Austen Chamberlain, whom they did not expect. The only one who has disappointed them has been George Curzon.… George (Wyndham) thinks war with Germany quite possible,’ the entry rather inconsequently concluded, ‘and he wants it.’w