Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/1070

1014

Mr. Lloyd George, Prime Minister.

Labour's Place la the Coall tlon.

cooperation, and also considered that Mr. Lloyd George had shown the qualities which the nation wanted at this critical period. So the commission passed to Mr. Lloyd George, the statesman whose reputation had steadily grown throughout the world conflict, who had already played such a decisive part, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minister of Munitions, and Secretary of State for War, and who more than any of his colleagues em- bodied the will to victory of his countrymen.

Mr. Lloyd George was assured of the close cooperation of Mr. Bonar Law, and of the united support of the Unionist party. He set great store upon the help of the Labour party, one of whose members, in his view, ought to sit on the small Committee or Council directing the conduct of the war. Meetings of the Parliamentary Labour party and the National Executive were held, at which, on the advice of all the labour members who had been ministers in the First Coalition and of the chairman of the party, it was decided by a majority to take part in the new Government a decision which was ratified by the annual Labour Party Conference in the following month. The action of the Liberal party was thought at first to be doubtful, because Mr. Asquith, and all his principal Liberal Cabinet colleagues, such as Lord Grey of Fallodon, Lord Crewe and Mr. McKenna, refused to serve under Mr. Lloyd George. But the Liberal War Committee pledged itself at once to active support ; the Welsh Liberal members rallied in a body to the side of the Welsh Prime Minister; and a party meet- ing at the Reform Club, following the advice of Mr. Asquith, recorded its determination to give support to the King's Govern- ment engaged in the effective prosecution of the war. Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law, therefore, had a wide field of selection, only Mr. Asquith and his immediate friends, and Lord Lansdowne, who took the occasion to retire, being ruled out. Having a free hand Mr. Lloyd George carried through an even more revolutionary change than that which he had submitted to Mr. Asquith. He constituted a small Cabinet of four members, who were relieved entirely of serious departmental duties, who were to sit daily, and to concentrate themselves upon the war, of the conduct of which they were to have absolute control. He himself, as Prime Minister, was the chairman of this War Cabinet; and, in order to perform this his main duty satisfactorily, he devolved the leadership of the House of Commons upon Mr. Bonar Law, who was indeed already the leader of the largest numerical section of its members. Mr. Law also became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was an additional member of the War Cabinet, but was not expected to attend regularly. The Prime Minister's three regular Cabinet colleagues were Lord Curzon, who became Lord President of the Council and leader of the House of Lords, and two ministers without portfolio, Mr. Henderson, the Labour leader who had held high office in the first Coalition, and Lord Milner, the only statesman of marked administrative ability and experience who had not joined that Coalition. It was right to turn, at this critical moment, to the man who had borne the civil responsibility in the last British war, that with the Boers; and from this time onward Lord Milner's share in the conduct of the war from the British side was second -only, to Mr.- Lloyd George's. The War Cabinet sat daily in ' Whitehall Gardens, having Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, as its secretary, with a competent staff under him. Other ministers were summoned to its deliberations, whenever these concerned the departments for which they were responsible. The one serious loss which Great Britain suffered through Mr. Asquith's resignation was that of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey of Fallodon, who had conducted the external affairs of the country, with increasing reputation ,. and success, for 1 1 years. It was vitally important for Mr. Lloyd George to secure, as Lord Grey's succes- sor, a statesman in whose character and record the Allies could have full confidence. He was fortunate in obtain- ing Mr. Balfour's consent to accept an office with whose work he had become familiar when acting Secretary of State in Lord

War

Cabinet.

Ministers Outside War Cabinet.

Salisbury's absence. For the other important posts in his Minis- try Mr. Lloyd George relied very largely upon the services of business men and experts, hitherto in many cases outside politics and the Houses of Parliament, of whose aid he had made such excellent use in developing munitions. The country saw with satisfaction the Board of Trade entrusted to Sir Albert Stanley, who had previously directed the Underground railway and the motor-omnibus system; the Board of Education to Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, the Oxford scholar and historian, vice-chancellor of the university of Sheffield; the Local Government Board to Lord Rhondda, the South Wales colliery magnate; and the Board of Agriculture to Mr. R. E. Prothero (afterwards Lord Ernie), M.P. for Oxford University, who had managed for many years the vast agricultural estates of the Duke of Bedford. For the more efficient conduct of the war, five new ministries were created Air, Labour, Pensions, Food Control, and Shipping Control for two of which, Pensions and Food Control, some inchoate provision had been made in the last weeks of the first Coalition Ministry. Lord Devonport, who had large experience in the grocery business, became Food Controller; Sir Joseph Maclay, a Glasgow ship-owner, was appointed Shipping Con- troller; the new Air Board was constituted with Lord Cowdray, the head of a great firm of contractors, as president; while Labour and Pensions were fittingly assigned to two outstanding Labour members, Mr. Hodge and Mr. George Barnes. Seats were found in the House of Commons for Sir Albert Stanley and Mr. Fisher; but Sir Joseph Maclay preferred to work outside Parliament, and his office was represented in the House by Sir Leo Chiozza Money, the parliamentary secretary. Where Mr. Lloyd George appointed experienced parliamentarians to office, he chose those who had shown special keenness in the prosecution of the war. Then Sir Edward Carson went to the Admiralty; Lord Derby to the War Office; Mr. Walter Long to the Colonial Office; Dr. Addison to the Ministry of Munitions; and Sir Frederick Cawley, chairman of the Liberal War Committee, to the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. Chamberlain remained Indian Secretary, Lord Robert Cecil Minister of Blockade, Mr. Duke Irish Secretary and Sir F. E. Smith Attorney-General, Sir Gordon Hewart becoming Solicitor- General in the place of Sir George Cave, who went to the Home Office. Sir Robert Finlay, who had been Attorney- General in 1900-6, was made Lord Chancellor as Lord Finlay. There were joint parliamentary secretaries to the Treasury, Lord Edmund Talbot (afterwards Lord Fitzalan), and Hon. Neil Primrose, Lord Rosebery's son.

In addition to these appointments, Mr. Lloyd George an- nounced, in his statement on Dec. 19 of the policy of the new . Goyernment, that the time had come for complete mobilization of the labour reserves, and therefore the J^*" / Cabinet had adopted the principle of universal national Policy. service, and had appointed Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Director-General of National Serv- ice. He would schedule all industries, and set labour free from non-essential industries, so as to be available for war and for essential industrie's. The new Prime Minister also announced that the Government would take complete control of all ships and of the whole mining industry. There must also, he said, be real sacrifices made in the matter of food. Every available square yard must be made to produce; and as to luxuries and indulgences there must be a national Lent. These exhortations were supplemented by Mr. Prothero, the Minister for Agriculture, who said that the War Office and the country must realize that Britain was as a beleaguered city, and that victory might well be lost or won on her corn fields and potato lands; and by Lord Devonport, the Food Controller, who pushed further the restric- tions which Mr. Runciman had already enforced, limited dinners to three courses and luncheons to two courses in all public eating places, and hinted at rationing as the only way of ensuring that unpatriotic people did not get supplies in excess of their wants. In another direction the Government developed boldly a policy tentatively adopted by their predecessors. The Colonial Secre- tary summoned immediately by cable the Prime Ministers of the self-governing dominions to a special war conference of the