Liberals, International Relations and Appeasement: The Liberal Party, 1919-1939 by Dr Richard S Grayson & Richard S. Grayson

Author:Dr Richard S Grayson & Richard S. Grayson [Grayson, Richard S & Grayson, Richard S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781135270971
Google: EZP7AQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 20846666
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2001-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

The most prominent Liberal during the inter-war years was David Lloyd George. Certainly, no other Liberal wielded more power than Lloyd George in this period, even if his term of office as prime minister in 1916–22 was as the head of a Tory-dominated coalition. He was also leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons in 1926–31; and in 1924–25, with Asquith out of parliament, Lloyd George effectively led the party in those years too. In the 1930s, though, he drifted away from the Liberal Party, standing as an Independent Liberal in 1935 and supporting Labour candidates in many constituencies when no Liberal stood. However, with his undoubted experience in foreign affairs as prime minister, the voice of Lloyd George was still one to be listened to by Liberals and non-Liberals alike. As we shall see, however, Lloyd George did not manage (or even particularly try) to develop a Liberal Party alternative to government policies in the 1930s.

Liberals, justifiably, might have had high hopes of Lloyd George in 1918, as he prepared to attend the Paris Peace Conference. At first, it seemed as if he might be a Liberal voice at the conference. Lloyd George put his views forward at a meeting of Liberals MPs in 10 Downing Street on 12 November 1918. He pledged that there would be no revenge peace, using the harsh settlement that Germany had imposed on France in 1871 as a warning.34 However, only a few weeks later, such sentiments were swept aside in the fervour of the 1918 general election campaign. Lloyd George’s coalition allies, the Conservatives, had sensed what people wanted, calling for a settlement which would punish Germany in general, and the kaiser personally. Lloyd George’s slogans soon included ‘Punish the Kaiser’, and ‘Make Germany Pay’.35 He later complained that he had never used the popular slogan ‘Hang the Kaiser’,36 but he had come very close. At the Paris Peace Conference (the results of which were embodied in the Treaty of Versailles), Britain and France enforced harsh penalties on Germany – penalties which many, most notably Keynes in his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, had warned could not be afforded by Germany, and would eventually lead to another conflict. To be fair to Lloyd George, he had supported plans to postpone the fixing of Germany’s exact reparations liabilities, in the belief that in more settled times more generous terms could be given to the Germans. He was also less harsh on territorial issues, in particular, opposing permanent detachment of the Rhineland from Germany.37 However, when he returned to Britain to justify Versailles, he was still using the language of punishment. Despite telling the House of Commons in April 1919: ‘We want a peace which will be just, but not vindictive’, he added, ‘We want a stern peace, because the occasion demands it. The crime demands it.’ Later, in July, he commented, ‘The terms are in many respects terrible terms to impose upon a country. Terrible were the deeds which it requites.

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