EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH
A' GREAT STATESMAN’S CAREER
.(By
E.C.W.)
Herbert Henry Asquith, first Earl of Oxford and Asquith, was born at Croft House, Morley, in Yorkshire, on September 12, 1852, the second son of Joseph Dixon Asquith, of that place, and of Emily, daughter of William Willans, a rich manufacturers of Huddersfield. Both his father and his paternal grandfather had been in the woollen trade, and were prominent Nonconformists, while the Willans family were Congiecationalists and strong Radicals. The Asquiths themselves camo of an old Puritan stock, and all their leanings lay towards the Liberal side of politics. The father of Herbert Asquith died in 1860, and the Asquith boys (there is still living an elder brother, Mr. W. W. Asquith) were largely left to the B uar " dianship of the Willans grandrather and uncles. When the future Earl was twelve the boys were sent to London to others of the Willans family, and attended the City of London School and at fifteen (still attending this school), were living, practically uncontrolled, in lodgings in the heart of London. Herbert Asquith practised oratory from the age of thirteen, and was even then noted for a gift of speech in which conciseness, clearness, thoroughnass, and forcefulness were the outstanding characteristics. “He was one of the very few/’ said Dr. Edwin Abbott, the famous headmaster of the City of Londo School, “who could plunge into an intricate and involved sentence with such an artistic prescience of what he had to say, that all the members of the period fell, as it were into harmonious co-operation, sc that in the end he brought his hearers to a full and satisfactory, a logically and rhetorically complete and weighty conclusion, without any sacrifice of point force, and. above all, of clearness. It he specialised in any one subject more than another it was history, and it was recognised by the other boys as useless to contest the prize if Asquith was an entrant. “From his boyhood upwards, continues Dr. Abbott, “he knew what he meant, and knew how to say what he meant. He had a right to speak his mind, because he took so much pains to make it up. He was thorough and sure. I never had a pupil that owed less fo me and more to his natural _ ability. The distinguished statesman himself declared at the height of his career tnat he owed more to the sights of London than to the schoolroom. He early, too, made a practice of attending the theatres. "Scotland Has Done a Lot for Me. 1 ” When only seventeen he won a Baliliol College scholarship (the first won ifey a City of London school scholar), and he went up to Oxford in 1870. His university career was crowned with honours. “He became Craven scholar, he took his degree with first class honours, he was president •of the Oxford Union, and he was elected a Fellow of his college. He left Oxford in 1875, was called to the Bar in 1876, married his first wife. The children of this marriage were Baymond, Herbert, Arthur. Cyril, and Violet Asquith. Raymond was killed in the Great War, and Arthur and Herbert were wounded. Miss Asquith is now Lady Bonham Carter. In 1886 he entered Parliament as M.P. for Hast Fife. In this latter connection it is interesting to recall his speech at Greenock on October 15, 1926, when he announced his retirement from the leadership of the Liberal Party, which he had assumed on the death of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman in April, 1908. “The whole of my House of Commons career,” he said, “was passed as a Scottish member. I never stood or sat for any constituency in my native country,' but I was for over thirty years the representative of an eastern county, or rather kingdom, for such we call it in Fife. When the men of the East thought fit to sever our long connection, I turned to the West, and found a welcome refuge among your neighbours at Paisley. I represented Paisley for the best part of five years, during which I had what is, I suppqse, a unique experience, for I fought no fewer than four contested elections. It is a melancholy fact, melancholy to mo at least, that the Scottish electorate, East and West, has twice shown that they had enough of me, but I cherish no resentment. '. . • Scotland has done a lot for me. It was the avenue which led to the leadership, and it is only fitting it should be in, Scotland that I bid the leadership farewell.” Two years before that (October 8, 1924) he had already made what was his last Speech in the House, of Commons on an amendment calling for a Select Committee to inquire into the reasons why the Labour Government had drooped the prosecution of the editor of the workers’ weekly for seditious libel. This amendment the Primo Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, speaking the night before at the Queen's Hall, had called a “vote, of censure conceived in a spirit of medieval crookedness and torture.” The amendment was carried by 364 votes to 198. Mr. Asquith thus helped to upset the Government, which he had helped to put in, and kept in power, since January 17. 1924. His Liberal Faith. Then, too, in his “resignation" speech at Greenock ho gave expression to that faith in Liberalism which, during his long years of leadership, ho kept always before himself and his party and endeavoured to put into practice. “Both on its constructive and its defensive side, Liberalism means two things—-the preservation and extension of liberty in every sphere of our national life, and the subordination of class interests to the interests of tho community. These two ideals were, and are, the life blood of the Liberal faith. And Liberty (as I have often preached), in our understanding of it, means liberty in its positive as well as its negative sense. A man is not free unless he has had the means and opportunities for education. A man is not free unless he is at liberty to combine with his fellows for any lawful purpose in which they have a common interest. Nor is there real freedom in industry f it is carried on under conditions which are inj'urious to those whom a man employs, or with whom he works, or to the health and well-being of his neighbours. The liberty of each is circumscribed by dho liberty of all. A great political party which is not for the time being in a majority should never allow itself to succumb, to tho temptation to degenerate into a bargaining counter. Independence is . essential to self-respect, and, whatever it may cost you for the moment, it is the only way in the long run of securing the respect of the country. Those are the conceptions of -the principles of Liberalism and the functions of tho Liberal Party in which T was brought up, and which before and during my leadership I have sought to put into practice.” At the Bar. But to return. Between his marriage in 1877 and the year 188-1, when his practice began to prosper, he supplemented his very moderate means by writing for the “Economist” and for the "Spectator,” and in lecturing for the University Extension Movement. It was by the processes of study and thought necessary for these lectures that he acquired that rare and striking mastery of the. Free Trade argument -which, some thirty years later, was to prove so. disconcerting to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at the time of the famous Tariff Reform campaign. “He speaks like an advocate from a brief.” said Mr. Chamberlain. From 1884 briefs became more frequent, and in 1889 he was engaged as junior counsel with Sir Charles Russell (afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen. and Chief Justice) in the famous case of “The Times” versus Charles Stewart Parnell, the great Irish leader. It fell fo his lot to cross-examine MacDonald, the manager of “The Times,” and his performance has been described as “the finest piece of word-baiting ever seen in a court of law,” and went far to drive
’home .the fact (generally believed but difficult till then of proof) that the letters published in “The Times” incriminating Parnell in the Phoenix Park (Dublin) murders, were the forgeries of n man named Piggott, who, during the trial, fled from London and committed suicide in a hotel in Madrid. A year later Mr. Asquith took silk. In August 1592, Mr. Gladstone, who early recognised his abilities, selected Mr. Asquith to move a motion of no confidence in Lord Salisbury’s Government (which was carried), and afterwards, he had no hesitation in appointing Mr. Asquith Home Secretary with a seat in the Cabinet. While Home Secretary he relinquished a fine practice at the Bar. As Home Secretary. Mr. Asquith was a great Home Secretary. He brought industrial reforms to a head with his Factory Act, which was finally passed by common consent in 1895 after the fall of the Liberal Government. “He was the first Home Secretary to feel the full vigour of those new forces which have since taken more definite and orderly shape in the Labour Party, and he permitted Labour meetings to be held (after notifications to the police) in Trafalgar Square on Saturdays and Sundays. Following on the Featherstone (a place in the West Riding of Yorkshire) riots in September, 1893.
resulting in soldiers firing into the crowd and killing two men, Mr. Asquith was pursued by an organised campaign of obloquy and insult. ‘Murderer!” "Featherstone!” “Who killed the miners?” These were some of the mildest terms hurled against him at meetings. But he stood his ground like a rock, and it was “not until some years later that he allowed it to be known that he had not been consulted at all when the troops were sent to Featherstone. He thought it his duty to stand by his local authorities ; and he placed his public reputation in the utmost peril by doing it. There are few braver acts recorded in public life. He showed the same dogged courage in resisting all appeals for the release of Mrs. Maybrick, sentenced to a life imprisonment for poisoning her husband, despite the insistence of his old patron, Sir Charles Russell, that she was innocent. At this time, too, he refused to contemplate the very possibility of any relaxation of the original sentences passed ten years before on Irish dynamitards. “Mr. Asquith,” said Mr. Justice McCarthy, “has shut the prison door with a clang.” The truth was Mr. Asquith "always took a somewhat juridical view of his position, as that of a supreme law-keeper, a sort of super-Chief Justice. . . . He stood firmly for the security and solidity of the State.” His Second Marriage. In 1891 Mr. Asquith’s wife died. His boys were sent away to a school while he lived chiefly in a flat. "This homeless existence threw him very much into society, and hp joined that interesting and stimulating group of the younger men and women of the time known as the “Souls,” and there it was lie met Miss “Margot” Tennant, the young daughter of the great industrialist. Sir Charles Tennant. She was at that time regarded as the most brilliant and daring young woman in English society, a great, reader, a splendid talker, a youthful friend of the great, a correspondent of Dr. Benjamin Jowett (master of Balliol College, Oxford, who predicted a greater career- for Mr. Asquith, “because he is so direct”), and of Mr. Gladstone. They were married in 1894 and Mr. Bladstone attended the wedding. Return to the Bar. Mr. Asquith returned to the Bar tn 1895 when the Government went out of office, and he spoke less often in the House and in the country during the years following the great defeat. In matters political he was known as a Liberal Imperialist in contradistinction to the term “Little Englander” which became faslv n.-ble about that time. He regarded the British Empire as “the greatest and most fruitful experiment that the world has yet seen in the corporate union of free and self-governing communities.” Mr. Asquith was the only 'nliinet Minister present on Lord Roseberry's Edinburgh platform on the oce ision of his resignation speeceh ; his name was canvassed in connection with the vacant leadership; he supported the Government in the Fashoda crisis; he had been complimented by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at the famous dinner on March 28, 1897, to Sir Alfred Milner on his going out to South Africa; he had, on the occasion of Lord Roseberry’s resignation rebuked his lordship for his implied suggestion that he had appointed him (Mr. Asquith) to succeed as Leader of the Liberal Party. These things, and Mr. Asquith’s Imperialistic ideas (although moderate) made him “suspect” by the rank and file. The position of loader of the party was offered to SitHenry Campbell Bannerman, who, to I he surprise of everybody, accepted it. Mr. Asquith's time had not yet come. The Boer War. “At the outset of the events that led up to the Boer War, Mr. Asquith was the most vigorous opponent of Mr. Chamberlain’s policy in South Africa,” but when war started he supported the Government while condemning the manner in which the British cause had been presented to the world. At first he was opposed to the annexation of the Republics; but he ended by acquiescing in the necessity for that step. He joined with Lord Roseberry. Sir Edward Grev, and Lord Haldane in forming the. Liberal League, “which was probably tho, means of saving the unity of the Liberal Party, for it provided a teni|i>»nry refuge for a very great body of opinion which might otherwise have drifted over to the Unionists. Tariff Reform. If the South African War was to be a cause of disunion among Liberals, Mr. Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform campaign n 1903 was to stop that Process and give the party a fresh interest in life. “In the tremendous conflict of 1903-6 it was Mr. Asquith’s speeches thaj largely turned the scale against Mr. Chamber lain.” He followed Mr. Chamberlain over the country, pinning him down to fundamental questions with bulldog tenacity. He was tin out and out free trader. He would allow no compromise on the question of free trade or protection, and he would have none of Mr. Chamberlain’s preference proposals., Mr. Chamberlain was forced to admit in the House of Commons that, in order to fulfil his policy he must tax food. That
spelt the death knell of Mr. Chamberlain’s chances of succeeding in his campaign. . . Prime Minister. Mr. A. J. Balfour resigned office in 1905 and Sir Henrv Campbell Bannerman became Prime Minister. He offered Mr. Asquith the nosition of Chancellor of the Exchequer. From the election of 190 G the Liberals came back with a big majority, but found the House of Lords a bar to the passage of their Bills. The last and greatest act of Mr. Asquith s chancellorship was to introduce a wide and comprehensive scheme of old age pensions. In April, 1908, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, sick, and worn out by manv labours, resigned from the Premiership, and Mr. Asquith was chosen by King Edward VII to succeed him. The fight with the House of Lords was brought to a hend when they rejected the famous budget introduced by Mr. Lloyd George, who succeeded Mr. Asquith as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Asquith moved a resolution in the House of Commons to the effect that the action of the House of Lords was a breach of the Constitution and usurpation of the rights of the Commons, and in the General Election the Liberals were again returned to power, although with a reduced majority. But a second election was necessary before the Parliament Act, a measure to curtail the. power of the Lords, became law. “The Parliament Act.” said Mr. Asquith, “does not protend, indeed it expressly disclaims any intention, to deal with the reform of the House of Lords. It contemplates that as a thing to be done quite independently. But it was needed to make, as it has made, Liberal legislation possible. . . . Year bv year measures which the electors hail sent us there to pass were summarily rejected in the House of Lords. That only happened when the Liberal Party was in power. When the Tory Party was in power things for which m electoral mandate had been obtained passed through the House of Lords without difficulty and without remonstrance. It was a lop-sided situation. It was an intolerable outrage against democratic principles, and I shall never forget to my dying day that my name was associated with that measure of the Liberal Party.” Irish Affairs. Among the measures that were to become law by the automatic process of the Parliament Act was the Home Rule for Ireland Bill. As the tmie drew near there were mutterings of civil war ,in Ireland, and even a suggestion of mutiny at Curragli camp. The situation there was taken in hand by Mr. Asquith’s assumption of the office of Secretary of State For War. In taking that step he consulted nobody. On July 24, 1914, a conference summoned by the King to consider the Irish situation broke up without, coming, to any agreement “in principle or detail.” On August 4 England was at war with Germany and the talk of civil war immediately faded out. Mr. Asquith took a united. Empire into the war with him, declaring ‘For my part, I say that sooner than be a silent witness of this tragic triumph of force over law, and of brutality over freedom, I would see this country of ours blotted out of the pages of history.” Deposition. Mr. Asquith remained Prime Minister until December, 1916 (from 1915 as head of a coalition), when he was forced to resign by the attitude of Mr. Lloyd George, who had the support of a large following of discontents in tlig .Cabinet, the House of Commons, and in the country. Mr. Lloyd George was endeavouring to effect a more vigorous prosecution of the war and had suggested a new basis of committees to which Mr. Asquith could not agree. “I have come decidedly to the conclusion,” he wrote Mr. Lloyd George, “that it is not possible that such a committee (the War Committee) could be made workable and effective without the Prime Minister as its chairman. - . .. He must continue to be, as he always has been, its permanent president. ... I am satisfied any other arrangement would be found in experience, impracticable and incompatible with the Prime Minister’s final and supreme control. . . . Unless the impression is at once corrected, that I am being relegated to the position of being an irresponsible spectator of the war, I cannot possibly go on.” After his resignation Mr. Asquith continued to take an active interest in politics. He was defeated in the election of 1918 and elected to Paisley at a byelection in 1920. He was re-elected in 1923, but defeated in 1924, and raised to the peerage as Earl of Oxford and Asquith in January, 1925.
He has at various times delivered prominent addresses, and has published books, “The Genesis of the War,” “Fifty Years of Parliament,” “Addresses and Essays,” and a comprehensive selection of his speeches. In the course of his long life most of the English and Scottish Universities honoured him by the conferring of degrees, and several towns have given him their freedom. He was appointed a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1926, and in 1927 he was elected High Steward of Oxford.
“He had none of the vulgar marks of a successful leader, either of thought or of action. His was a union of worldly sagacity with lhe most transparent simplicity of nature, ambition, keen and unsleeping, but entirely detached from self, and wholly absorbed in the fortunes of a great institution and its members; a generosity upon which no call could be too heavy, and a delicate kindness which made the man himself, always ready to give the best hours either of the day or night, to help and advise the humblest of those who appealed to him for aid. In personal attack he made no effort at all to defend himself. He was a proud man, although without a touch of persona] vanity. His attitude towards criticism and abuse of himself was “They say. What say they? Let them say.” lie was prepared to take the blame which rightly belonged fo others. He would never throw the blame of any act of his on others. That ho should ever intrigue against a friend or opponent was to friend and opponent alike a thing impossible. He was.as true as the dial to the sun though the sun shine not upon it.”
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19280218.2.99.1
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 120, 18 February 1928, Page 22
Word count
Tapeke kupu
3,480EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 120, 18 February 1928, Page 22
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.