The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest. Magnus Linklater

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СКАЧАТЬ and Sir Edward Grey, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr. Asquith, and Mr. Haldane as vice-presidents, all of them men destined within a few years to enter a Campbell-Bannerman Cabinet; but with their titular chief he himself had henceforth no political relations.

      Very little need be said of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s conduct of his party during the last four sessions of Unionist rule. It was sound and competent, and, as the subsequent general election showed, was efficient in keeping the party together and in educating the country, but it was not marked by any unexpected qualities.

      On December 4 Mr. Balfour resigned, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was sent for. For a moment it seemed uncertain whether Sir Edward Grey and the other vice-presidents of the Liberal League would accept office; but the difficulties were quickly removed; and by December 10 Sir Henry had completed a strong Cabinet, containing, on the one hand, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey, and on the other Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. John Burns.

      In January, 1906, came the general election. The rout of the late Government was complete. The Unionists, who had numbered 369, came back 157; while the Liberals, who, with a few Labour members, had been 218 all told, now comprised 379 faithful followers of the Government, and − the most astonishing feature of all − no fewer than 51 Labour members who, on most questions, could be depended on for votes. Such a majority had never been seen in any Parliament since that following the first Reform Bill; and, though both sides had expected that the new House of Commons would be strongly in favour of the new Government, none of the party prophets anticipated anything like what really happened.

      It may suffice to say that, as regards domestic legislation, a great deal was achieved; but the fate of several of the most important measures of the Government shows that even the strongest Minister, with a vast and obedient majority behind him, cannot in this country expect to have everything his own way. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not conspicuous either in the statement of policies or in the conduct of Ministerial measures in the House of Commons; but, on the whole, he proved himself an adroit tactician and especially skilful in holding together a party composed of incongruous and often unruly elements. The determination he displayed to push his measures through and to obtain the full advantage of his party’s numerical strength at whatever cost to the traditions of free debate and the rights of minorities produced continual friction.

      During the debate on the Address, a year later, he went out of his way to give an indirect answer to Lord Rosebery’s challenge on the Irish question. The Prime Minister asserted with deliberate emphasis, “The Irish people should have what every self-governing colony in the Empire has − the power of managing its own affairs. That is the larger policy I have spoken of.”

      The principal measure of 1906 was the Education Bill; it was so much amended in the Lords that the Government took offence and refused to proceed with it. Another important measure was Mr. Harcourt’s Plural Voting Bill; but this the Lords refused to pass until they had before them a complete scheme of electoral reform. In the following Session a Scotch Land Bill, the effect of which would have been to assimilate the Scotch land system, not to that of England, but to that of Ireland, was postponed by the Lords until they could compare it with the Government’s Small Holdings Bill for England − another cause of deep offence, for which the House of Lords was threatened with condign punishment.

      The House of Lords, however, have not been cowed upon this point by the menaces of the Prime Minister and his colleagues, and they have again refused to yield to the demand that the Scotch Lowlands should be turned into another Ireland. Gradually the threats against the Upper House have lost their shrill tones, and the Prime Minister’s effort to whip up the agitation once again last autumn was so conspicuous a failure that, at the beginning of 1908, he practically withdrew from it and exonerated the Peers from anything like deliberate obstruction. Nevertheless, he proposed, early in February, a verbose and lengthy resolution, to the effect that the Scotch Bills passed by the House of Commons and rejected by the House of Lords should be sent up again without delay and by the most stringent use of the closure. But after the repeated Liberal defeats since the close of the autumn there ceased to be any probability that a renewed effort would be made to precipitate an agitation originally intended to end in an early dissolution or a complete victory.

      His impaired health prevented Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman from taking any share in the recent discussions of Licensing and Education, and Mr. Asquith discharged the duties of leader of the House of Commons practically since the opening of the Session. Grave trouble of a personal nature fell upon him during the years of his Ministry. The health of his wife, with whom, as we have said, he had lived for six and forty years in the most perfect union, had been for some time seriously affected; and on August 30, 1906 she died at Marienbad. He himself was physically not so strong as he looked, and this heavy blow affected him deeply. In the autumn of 1907, after he had helped to entertain the German Emperor at the Guildhall, he had to attend the Colston banquet at Bristol where he made a speech. The effort was too much for him; he had a serious heart attack, and for some hours his life was in danger.

      He recovered, but not entirely; and was compelled to spend all December and the first three weeks of January at Biarritz. A few days after the opening of the Session he caught influenza, suffered from a recurrence of some of the former symptoms, and was soon found to be unfit either to attend Cabinet Councils or to be present in his place in Parliament, except for two or three days, when he unfortunately overtasked his powers in the delivery of an important and exhausting speech on February 13. Two days after he had again to withdraw from his place in the House of Commons and to leave his duties to Mr. Asquith, who it was well known was to succeed to the Premiership when a vacancy was created. His condition, grave from the outset, rapidly grew worse. For a time it was hoped that he might still continue to retain his office, at least temporarily, but increasing weakness compelled a prompt decision. On the 5th of April the King received at Biarritz a letter from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman tendering his resignation in compliance with the urgent recommendations of his medical advisers. This was graciously accepted, and Mr. Asquith was summoned.

      Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s loss to his party is almost irreparable at a crisis when electoral difficulties are multiplying when there are ominous signs of disintegration and division which he, more than any of his colleagues, had the gift of smoothing over, if not removing.

      Keir Hardie

      Founder of the Labour Party who led a stormy political career

      

      

      27 September 1915

      

      

      Mr. J. Keir Hardie, Labour M.P. for Merthyr Tydvil, died from pneumonia after a long period of ill-health in a Glasgow nursing home yesterday. Born in Scotland in 1856, he was engaged in mining work from the age of seven to that of 24. He was elected secretary of the Lanarkshire Miners Union in 1880, and at once threw himself with great zeal and little discretion into the work of a trade unionist and political agitator. He attempted to secure election to Parliament as a Labour candidate for Mid-Lanark in 1888, but was badly beaten. At the General Election four years later, however, he was elected for South-West Ham, and made his first appearance at St. Stephen’s in circumstances which necessitated the interference of the police. He was defeated in West Ham in 1895, but at the General Election of 1900 was elected for Merthyr Tydvil, which remained faithful to him until his death. He was for many years chairman, and throughout his political career the obvious leader, of the Socialist body known as the Independent Labour Party. When the Labour Party became a distinct group in the House of Commons in 1906 he was elected its first chairman, and held the position for two Sessions.

      For over 20 years Mr. Keir Hardie was regarded as the most extreme of British politicians. The hard and narrow environment of his youth predisposed СКАЧАТЬ