Past Caring (8 page)

But I must not do an injustice to the many able men whom I encountered at Westminster. Campbell-Bannerman , the leader, was a
tough old Scottish Liberal who at once surprised me by his radicalism. He seemed determined to soldier on despite the mutterings of
those who thought him mediocre. I was often told how we should revert to Rosebery or plump for Asquith as leader but, as a young and

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impressionable man imbued by my father with a respect for older
generations, I unhesitatingly aligned myself behind C-B.

The only issue on which we might have differed was the war.

But my experiences in South Africa had not endeared me to our
cause in that conflict. My latter days there, spent as they were more
amongst the local populace than the military, had filled me with
great respect for their robust desire for independence and I felt sure,
as did C-B, that the correct Liberal line was to deplore a piece of
heavy-handed colonialism. In taking this view, I found an enthusiastic welcome in that most fiery spirit of the party—Lloyd George,
whose accounts of speaking against the war in public almost persuaded me that I had had a softer time of it at Colenso.

Lloyd George was an inspiration. Not that much older than me,
he embodied what seemed the youthful promise of the party.

Instead of the non-committal crustiness I found in older members,
Lloyd George could exuberantly and persuasively propound so
many reforms that one was left only wondering in which order they
should be introduced. Whilst laying great stress upon his
Welshness, he did not trouble himself to disguise his own ambition ,
the very English one of being Prime Minister. I could see no reason
why he should not be, indeed contemplated the prospect with some
relish for my own position should he one day have charge of things.

For I was not slow in developing my own ambitions and a desire to
advance them.

It was certain , however, that neither the Liberal Party nor its
rising young men could hope for much whilst the war lasted and the
public suspected our patriotism. And the war lasted much longer
than I had supposed it would. So far from being virtually over when
I left Capetown at the end of August 1900, it had nearly two years to
run. The Boers resorted to highly effective harrying tactics and
Kitchener, now the C-in-C, responded with a scorched earth policy,
destroying homesteads and rounding up the Boer population in
camps. In my maiden speech in Parliament, in March 1901, I deplored the breakdown of negotiations between Kitchener and Botha
and questioned what purpose would be served by the gradual subor-dination of a people to the extent that, finally, they felt only mute
hostility towards the mother country. Lloyd George congratulated
me afterwards and C-B winked a sagacious eye. There was even
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a quiet word in the lobby from Winston Churchill, now a
Conservative M.P. but eager to befriend any fellow-newcomer to
the House.

But the war did eventually end in May 1902. When news came
that a peace treaty had at last been signed, I remember thinking of
Gerald Couchman , whom I had not seen since leaving South Africa.

I wondered how he had fared there in the long extension of hostilities which neither he nor I had anticipated. As it happened, I went
up to Lord’s one afternoon in June to catch some play in the Test
Match. Seeing Fry and Ranjitsinhji, the most stylish of England’s
batsmen , both out for ducks, I beat a hasty retreat and, reflecting
that Couch’s aunt lived nearby, called round to seek news of him
from my one-time hostess. Sadly, I learnt only that she had died the
year before and that the house was now owned by strangers, who
knew nothing of her nephew.

Peace in South Africa brought peace too in the Liberal Party.

Old feuds were forgotten and, now that the government could no
longer rely on patriotism to bolster it up, thoughts turned to the next
election and how the party might fare at it. The Prime Minister,
Lord Salisbury, retired and his successor, Balfour, developed a
knack helpful to us Liberals of offending members of his own party.

One such was Winston Churchill, who crossed the floor of the House
and became a Liberal in May 1904.

That spring had seen some family concerns draw my attention
back to Devon. My brother had announced the previous autumn his
engagement to Miss Florence Hardisty, the daughter of Admiral
Hardisty of Dartmouth. Arrangements were going forward for an
Easter wedding when my father died, quite suddenly, at Barrowteign. His last wish, expressed to my mother, was that the wedding
should go ahead as planned. Some delay was inevitable, but I supported the idea that it should be as brief as possible. Accordingly, on
a sunny St. George’s Day, I officiated as best man when the elder
Strafford went down the aisle.

I confess that I found my new sister-in-law a rather dull embodiment of provincial worthiness, a sure sign that London was
turning my head, and cared not for the insipid watercolour painting
that constituted her principal recreation. Through no fault of her
own , Florence made Barrowteign seem less like home than once it

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did, but mine was a lone and perchance over-sensitive reaction.

Florence prudently deferred to my mother in matters of household
management and made a good, commonsense wife for Robert.

It was with some relish that I now devoted myself to events at
Westminster. An early election seemed in prospect and we were all
busy with an unofficial campaign. On 13 October 1905, I appeared
in a supporting role with Sir Edward Grey, everybody’s tip for the
Foreign Office should we win , at a meeting to support Winston
Churchill’s candidature in north-west Manchester (his first in
Liberal colours). An otherwise unremarkable occasion was rendered memorable by constant interruptions from an unlikely
source: two young ladies. They stridently demanded of us a promise
of votes for women , which they did not extract. I learned that one of
them was Christabel Pankhurst, a name that later came to mean a
lot more to me than it did at the time. There was great publicity surrounding the incident and the two were briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay a fine for disorderly conduct, arising from a
commotion they caused in the street after being expelled from the
meeting.

I was bemused and set thinking by this event, to the extent of
canvassing the opinion of others. I could not, for my part, see how a
Liberal government could oppose female suffrage, but we were not
committed to it, quite the reverse. Lloyd George agreed with me on
the principle of the case but pointed out that other, more important,
reforms would have to come first. My mother pronounced herself a
suffragist, but deplored militant tactics, whilst my sister-in-law had
no opinion to express. I tended to take the Lloyd George view: first
things first. Yet I can now see how a newspaper report of that disrupted meeting in Manchester would have read to a precocious
sixteen-year-old girl, quite as intelligent as the average voting
male, as the advent of a crusade. Little did she or one of the affronted speakers in Manchester know that they were one day to care
a great deal more about each other than about the issue of female
suffrage.

In December 1905, Balfour finally threw in his hand and resigned. C-B received the premiership that was a just reward for
many years’ toil, presiding over an exceptionally talented administration , with Asquith at the Exchequer and Lloyd George at the
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Board of Trade. My highest hopes were fulfilled when I was myself
given a junior appointment. In eagerly accepting, I hardly paused
to consider the nature of that appointment and thus found myself
a junior lord of the Admiralty with a negligible knowledge of
the sea.

I had, however, no time to brood on the point. C-B had no intention of seeking to govern with a minority (a rather obvious trap laid
by Balfour) and called an election for January 1906. Matters were
rather better prepared in my constituency this time and, done no
harm by my new appointment, I was returned with an increased
majority. Nationally, the party fared even better than we had
hoped, securing an historic victory.

There was, however, no opportunity for me to bask in an after-glow of success. Back in London, there was work to be done. The
First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth, was a staunch old
Scot who had served his time under C-B and now received his reward. His seat in the Lords made me answerable for naval policy in
the Commons: an onerous responsibility but one which gave me an
opportunity to shine. Winston Churchill benefited from a similar
arrangement at the Colonial Office, where his Secretary of State
was likewise a peer. We came to know each other well at this stage,
both feeling that we could make our names in the service of super-annuated seniors.

In February 1907, I became an uncle when Robert’s son ,
Ambrose, was born. A happy child, his company made Barrowteign
a more congenial place for me to spend the summer recess and it
was clear that the birth of a son and heir meant not a little to my
brother, now well set in the life of a country gentleman , who bore
with good humour my chiding of him for becoming set in his ways.

Early in 1908, the Prime Minister’s health began to break
down. In April, he was obliged to resign and, before the month was
out, he was dead. I was sorry to lose his steady hand upon the tiller,
but was not blind to the possibility for promotion opened up by the
consequent rearrangements. Rather earlier than I had expected, I
was summoned to see our new leader. Asquith was a man of whom I
had once been suspicious, finding him, when I was new to
Westminster, aloof and often absent. But now he was all beaming
beneficence in offering me a post in the Cabinet. Herbert Gladstone,

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he said, had been induced to accept the Governor-Generalship of
Canada. Asquith deemed that a younger, more vigorous approach
at the Home Office was required than Gladstone had brought to
bear. In consideration of my work at the Admiralty, he offered me
the post. This was more than I had dared hope for. I accepted with
alacrity. Asquith remarked that I was to form part of what he considered to be a brilliant team. For the moment, though, I was concerned only with the honour and achievement of becoming Home
Secretary at the age of 32. There seemed no limit to my future aspirations.

It seems generally to be agreed that Asquith’s 1908 Cabinet was
a quite remarkable assemblage of political talent: a team for all occasions. With this I would not differ. Indeed, I was proud to join it
and my arrival coincided with that of several other rising stars—

Lloyd George promoted to the Exchequer, Churchill and McKenna
admitted to the Cabinet for the first time.

Proud I was, but not blind to our shortcomings. Asquith had an
incisive lawyer’s mind but seemed devoid of originality. The older
members of the Cabinet resented us newcomers and, in the conflicts
which arose from that, Asquith aligned himself behind those he
thought would win the day, a tendency which positively encouraged
collusion and intrigue behind the scenes. At this, Lloyd George, for
all his apparent openness, excelled and found in Churchill an enthusiastic recruit to his radical cause. Sympathetic though I was to
their reforming zeal, I distanced myself somewhat from them, being determined to find my feet before committing myself to any
particular stance.

There was, besides, plenty of work to occupy me at the Home
Office, where my predecessor had let matters slide.

The women’s suffrage movement, by its implications both for
the constitution and for civil order, now fell within my purview. I
found myself torn between a wholehearted support for their cause
in theory and a thorough disapproval of their methods in practice.