David Lloyd George
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Accessed: 2/26/20
The Right Honourable David Lloyd George OM PC (n.b.)
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office: 6 December 1916 – 19 October 1922
Monarch: George V
Preceded by: H. H. Asquith
Succeeded by: Bonar Law
Leader of the Liberal Party
In office: 14 October 1926 – 4 November 1931
Preceded by: H. H. Asquith
Succeeded by: Herbert Samuel
Secretary of State for War
In office: 6 July 1916 – 5 December 1916
Prime Minister: H. H. Asquith
Preceded by: The Earl Kitchener
Succeeded by: The Earl of Derby
Minister of Munitions
In office: 25 May 1915 – 9 July 1916
Prime Minister: H. H. Asquith
Preceded by: Office created
Succeeded by: Edwin Montagu
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office: 12 April 1908 – 25 May 1915
Prime Minister: H. H. Asquith
Preceded by: H. H. Asquith
Succeeded by: Reginald McKenna
President of the Board of Trade
In office: 10 December 1905 – 12 April 1908
Prime Minister: Henry Campbell-Bannerman; H. H. Asquith
Preceded by: The Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded by: Winston Churchill
Father of the House
In office: 31 May 1929 – 13 February 1945
Preceded by: T. P. O'Connor
Succeeded by: The Earl Winterton
Member of the House of Lord, Lord Temporal
In office: 1 January 1945 – 26 March 1945
Hereditary peerage
Preceded by: Peerage created
Succeeded by: The 2nd Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
Member of Parliament for Carnarvon Boroughs
In office: 10 April 1890 – 13 February 1945
Preceded by: Edmund Swetenham[1]
Succeeded by: Seaborne Davies
Personal details
Born: 17 January 1863, Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died: 26 March 1945 (aged 82), Tŷ Newydd, Caernarfonshire, Wales
Resting place: Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, Wales
Nationality: British
Political party: Liberal (1890–19161924–1945); Coalition Liberal (1916–1922); National Liberal (1922–1923)
Spouse(s): Margaret Owen, (m. 1888; died 1941); Frances Stevenson (m. 1943)
Children: 5 (including RichardGwilymMegan)
Occupation: Solicitor politician
n.b. Styled as 'The Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor' from 1945.
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, PC (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1922. He was the final Liberal to hold the post.
Lloyd George was born in Manchester to Welsh parents. His father—a schoolmaster—died in 1864 and he was raised in Wales by his mother and her shoemaker brother, whose Liberal politics and Baptist faith strongly influenced Lloyd George; the same uncle helped the boy embark on a career as a solicitor after leaving school. Lloyd George became active in local politics, gaining a reputation as an orator and a proponent of a Welsh blend of radical Liberalism which championed nonconformism and the disestablishment of the Anglican church in Wales, equality for labourers and tenant farmers, and reform of landownership. In 1890 he narrowly won a by-election to become the Member of Parliament for Caernarvon Boroughs, in which seat he remained for fifty-five years. Lloyd George served in Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet from 1905. After H. H. Asquith succeeded to the premiership in 1908 Lloyd George replaced him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. To fund extensive welfare reforms he proposed taxes on land ownership and high incomes in the "People's Budget" (1909), which the Conservative-dominated House of Lords rejected. The resulting constitutional crisis was only resolved after two elections in 1910 and the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. His budget was then enacted alongside the National Insurance Act 1911 which helped to establish the modern welfare state. In 1913 he was embroiled in the Marconi scandal, but he remained in office and promoted the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 suspended its implementation.
As wartime Chancellor Lloyd George strengthened the country's finances and forged agreements with trade unions to maintain production. In 1915 Asquith formed a Liberal-led wartime coalition with the Conservatives and Labour. Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions and rapidly expanded production. In 1916 he was appointed Secretary of State for War but was frustrated by his limited power and clashes with the military establishment over strategy. Amid stalemate on the Western Front, confidence in Asquith's leadership waned. He was forced to resign in December 1916; Lloyd George succeeded him as Prime Minister, supported by the Conservatives and some Liberals. He centralised authority through a smaller war cabinet, a new Cabinet Office and his "Garden Suburb" of advisers. To combat food shortages he implemented the convoy system, established rationing, and stimulated farming. After supporting the disastrous French Nivelle Offensive in 1917, he had to reluctantly approve Field Marshal Haig's plans for the Battle of Passchendaele which resulted in huge casualties with little strategic benefit. Against the views of his commanders, he was finally able to see the Allies brought under one command in March 1918. The war effort turned to their favour that August and was won in November. In the aftermath he and the Conservatives maintained their coalition with popular support following the December 1918 "Coupon" election. His government had extended the franchise to all men and some women earlier in the year.
Lloyd George was a major player in Paris Peace Conference of 1919 but the situation in Ireland worsened that year, erupting into the Irish War of Independence which lasted until Lloyd George negotiated independence for the Irish Free State in 1921. At home he initiated reforms to education and housing but trade union militancy entered record levels, the economy became depressed in 1920 and unemployment rose; spending cuts followed (1921–22) and he was embroiled in a scandal over the sale of honours and the Chanak Crisis in 1922. Bonar Law won backbench support for the Conservatives to contend the next election alone. Lloyd George resigned; with his party split between his and Asquith's supporters, his faction won just over 50 seats in the 1922 election, Asquith's just over 60. The next year the pair reunited to oppose Stanley Baldwin's tariff proposal which he put to the country. The Liberals made gains in 1923 but remained third after the Conservatives and Labour, propping up a Labour minority government; they never regained their status as second party and, when the Labour government fell, went down to just over 40 seats in 1924 under Asquith. Lloyd George led the Liberals from 1926 to 1931, putting forward innovative proposals for public works; this failed to convert into seats in 1929 and from 1931 he was a marginalised and mistrusted figure heading a small rump of breakaway Liberals opposed to the National Government. He declined an offer to serve in Winston Churchill's War Cabinet in 1940 and was raised to the peerage in 1945, shortly before his death.
Upbringing and early life
Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents, and was brought up as a Welsh-speaker. He is so far the only British Prime Minister to have been Welsh[a] and to have spoken English as a second language.[2]
His father, William George, had been a teacher in both London and Liverpool. He also taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools, which were administered by the Unitarians, where he met Unitarian minister James Martineau.[3]:1 In March of the same year, on account of his failing health, William George returned with his family to his native Pembrokeshire. He took up farming but died in June 1864 of pneumonia, aged 44. His widow, Elizabeth George (1828–96), sold the farm and moved with her children to her native Llanystumdwy in Caernarfonshire, where she lived in a cottage known as Highgate with her brother Richard Lloyd (1834–1917), who was a shoemaker, a minister (in the Scottish Baptists and then the Church of Christ),[4] and a strong Liberal. Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school Llanystumdwy National School and later under tutors. Lloyd George's uncle was a towering influence on him, encouraging him to take up a career in law and enter politics; his uncle remained influential up until his death at age 83 in February 1917, by which time his nephew had become Prime Minister. He added his uncle's surname to become "Lloyd George". His surname is usually given as "Lloyd George" and sometimes as "George". The influence of his childhood showed through in his entire career, as he attempted to aid the common man at the expense of what he liked to call "the Dukes" (that is, the aristocracy); however, biographer John Grigg argued that Lloyd George's childhood was nowhere near as poverty-stricken as he liked to suggest.[5]
Brought up a devout evangelical, as a young man he suddenly lost his religious faith. Biographer Don Cregier says he became "a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and connoisseur of good preaching all his life". He kept quiet about this, and was, according to Frank Owen, for 25 years "one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity".[6][3]:6[7]
It was also during this period of his life that Lloyd George first became interested in the issue of land ownership. As a young man he read books by Thomas Spence, John Stuart Mill and Henry George, as well as pamphlets written by George Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb of the Fabian Society on the issue of land ownership.[8] By the age of twenty-one, he had already read and taken notes on Henry George's Progress and Poverty.[9] This strongly influenced Lloyd George's politics later in life; the People's Budget drew heavily on Georgist tax reform ideas.
Lloyd George circa 1890
Articled to a firm of solicitors in Porthmadog, Lloyd George was admitted in 1884 after taking Honours in his final law examination and set up his own practice in the back parlour of his uncle's house in 1885. The practice flourished, and he established branch offices in surrounding towns, taking his brother William into partnership in 1887. Although many Prime Ministers have been barristers, Lloyd George is to date the only solicitor to have held that office.[10]
By then he was politically active, having campaigned for the Liberal Party in the 1885 election, attracted by Joseph Chamberlain's "unauthorised programme" of reforms.[11]:43 The election resulted firstly in a stalemate with neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives having a majority, the balance of power being held by the Irish Parliamentary Party. William Gladstone's proposal to bring about Irish Home Rule split the party, with Chamberlain eventually leading the breakaway Liberal Unionists. Uncertain of which wing to follow, Lloyd George moved a resolution in support of Chamberlain at a local Liberal Club and travelled to Birmingham to attend the first meeting of Chamberlain's National Radical Union, but he had his dates wrong and arrived a week too early.[11]:53 In 1907 he told Herbert Lewis that he thought Chamberlain's plan for a federal solution correct in 1886 and still thought so, that he preferred the unauthorised programme to the Whig-like platform of the official Liberal Party, and that "If Henry Richmond, Osborne Morgan and the Welsh members had stood by Chamberlain on an agreement as regards the disestablishment, they would have carried Wales with them".[11]:53
He married Margaret Owen, the daughter of a well-to-do local farming family, on 24 January 1888.[3]:15-16 Also in that year, he and other young Welsh Liberals founded a monthly paper Udgorn Rhyddid (Bugle of Freedom). They also won the Llanfrothen burial case, which established the right of Nonconformists to be buried according to their own denominational rites in parish burial grounds, a right given by the Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880 but which had up to then been ignored by the Anglican clergy. On Lloyd George's advice, a Baptist burial party broke open a gate to a cemetery which had been locked against them by the vicar. The vicar sued them for trespass and the local judge misrecorded the jury's verdict and found in his favour, awakening suspicions of bias by the local Tory landowning class. Lloyd George's clients won on appeal to the Divisional Court of Queen's Bench in London, where Lord Chief Justice Coleridge found in their favour.[12][3]:14-15 This case, which was hailed as a great victory throughout Wales, led to his adoption as the Liberal candidate for Carnarvon Boroughs on 27 December 1888.[13]:46
In 1889 he became an Alderman on Carnarvonshire County Council which had been created by the Local Government Act 1888, and was to remain so for the rest of his life.[3]:15[11]:65-66 For the same county Lloyd George would also become a JP (1910)[14] and chairman of Quarter Sessions (1929–38),[15] and Deputy Lieutenant in 1921.[14]
At that time he appeared to be trying to create a separate Welsh national party modelled on Parnell's Irish Parliamentary Party and worked towards a union of the North and South Wales Liberal Federations.
Member of Parliament
Lloyd George was returned as Liberal MP for Carnarvon Boroughs – by a margin of 18 votes – in the by-election on 10 April 1890, following the death of the Conservative member Edmund Swetenham.[16] He sat with an informal grouping of Welsh Liberal members who had a programme of disestablishing and disendowing the Church of England in Wales, temperance reform, and Welsh home rule. He would remain an MP for the same constituency until 1945, 55 years later.[13]:50
As backbench members of the House of Commons were not paid at that time, he supported himself and his growing family by continuing to practise as a solicitor, opening an office in London under the name of 'Lloyd George and Co.' and continuing in partnership with William George in Criccieth. In 1897 he merged his growing London practice with that of Arthur Rhys Roberts (who was to become Official Solicitor) under the name of 'Lloyd George, Roberts and Co.'.[17]
He served as the legal adviser of Theodor Herzl in his negotiations with the British government regarding the Uganda Scheme, proposed as an alternative homeland for the Jews due to Turkish refusal to grant a charter for Jewish settlement in Palestine.[18]
Issues
He was soon speaking on Liberal issues (particularly temperance – the "local option" – and national as opposed to denominational education) throughout England as well as Wales. During the next decade Lloyd George campaigned in Parliament largely on Welsh issues and in particular for disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England. He wrote extensively for Liberal papers such as the Manchester Guardian. When Gladstone retired in 1894 after the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Liberal members chose him to serve on a deputation to William Harcourt to press for specific assurances on Welsh issues; when those were not provided, they resolved to take independent action if the government did not bring a bill for disestablishment. When that was not forthcoming, he and three other Welsh Liberals (D. A. Thomas, Herbert Lewis and Frank Edwards) refused the whip on 14 April 1894, but accepted Lord Rosebery's assurance and rejoined the official Liberals on 29 May. Thereafter he devoted much time to setting up branches of Cymru Fydd (Young Wales), which, he said, would in time become a force like the Irish National Party. He abandoned this idea after being criticised in Welsh newspapers for bringing about the defeat of the Liberal Party in the 1895 election and at a meeting in Newport on 16 January 1896 of the South Wales Liberal Federation, led by D. A. Thomas, he was shouted down.[19]
Lloyd George also supported the idea of Pan-Celtic unity and gave a speech at the 1904 Pan-Celtic Congress in Caernarfon.[20]
Opposes Boer War
Lloyd George had been impressed by his journey to Canada in 1899. Although sometimes wrongly supposed – both at the time and subsequently – to be a Little Englander, he was not an opponent of the British Empire per se, but in a speech at Birkenhead (21 November 1901) he stressed that it needed to be based on freedom, including for India, not "racial arrogance".[21]:61 Consequently, he gained national fame by displaying vehement opposition to the Second Boer War.[22]
Following Rosebery's lead he based his attack firstly on what were supposed to be Britain's war aims – remedying the grievances of the Uitlanders and in particular the claim that they were wrongly denied the right to vote, saying "I do not believe the war has any connection with the franchise. It is a question of 45% dividends" and that England (which did not then have universal male suffrage) was more in need of franchise reform than the Boer republics. A second attack came on the cost of the war, which, he argued, prevented overdue social reform in England, such as old age pensions and workmen's cottages. As the fighting continued his attacks moved to its conduct by the generals, who, he said (basing his words on reports by William Burdett-Coutts in The Times), were not providing for the sick or wounded soldiers and were starving Boer women and children in concentration camps. But his major thrusts were reserved for the Chamberlains, accusing them of war profiteering through the family company Kynoch Ltd, of which Chamberlain's brother was Chairman. The firm had won tenders to the War Office though its prices were higher than some of its competitors. After speaking at a meeting in Birmingham Lloyd George had to be smuggled out disguised as a policeman, as his life was in danger from the mob. At this time the Liberal Party was badly split as H. H. Asquith, R. B. Haldane and others were supporters of the war and formed the Liberal Imperial League.[23]
David Lloyd George in 1902
Opposes Education Act of 1902
Lloyd George was the main spokesman for the Nonconformists, and they made a major issue out of the government's Education Act 1902. It provided funding for Church of England schools, paid out of local taxation. The bill passed but opposition to it helped reunite the Liberals. His successful amendment that county councils need only fund those schools where the buildings were in good repair served to make the Act a dead letter in Wales, where the counties were able to show that most Church of England schools were in poor repair. Having already gained national recognition for his anti-Boer War campaigns, his leadership of the attacks on the Education Act gave him a strong parliamentary reputation and marked him as a likely future cabinet member.[24]
The Act served to reunify the Liberals after their divisions over the Boer War, and to increase Nonconformist influence in the party, which then included educational reform as policy in the 1906 election, which resulted in a Liberal landslide.[25]
President of the Board of Trade (1905–1908)
David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill in 1907
Further information: Education Act 1902 § The failed Education Bill of 1906
In 1905 Lloyd George entered the new Liberal Cabinet of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as President of the Board of Trade.[26]:63
The first priority on taking office was repeal of the 1902 Education Act. Lloyd George took the lead along with Augustine Birrell, President of the Board of Education. Lloyd George appears to have been the dominant figure on the committee drawing up the bill in its later stages, and insisted that the bill create a separate education committee for Wales. Birrell complained privately that the bill, introduced in the Commons on 9 April 1906, owed more to Lloyd George and that he himself had had little say in its contents.[27]:74-77 The bill passed the House of Commons greatly amended, but was completely mangled by the House of Lords.[25] For the rest of the year, Lloyd George made numerous public speeches attacking the House of Lords for mutilating the bill with wrecking amendments, in defiance of the Liberals' electoral mandate to reform the 1902 Act. Lloyd George was rebuked by King Edward VII for these speeches: the Prime Minister defended him to the Kings's secretary Francis Knollys, stating that his behaviour in Parliament was more constructive but that in speeches to the public "the combative spirit seems to get the better of him".[27]:74-77 No compromise was possible and the bill was abandoned, allowing the 1902 Act to continue in effect.[25] As a result of Lloyd George's lobbying, a separate department for Wales[ b] was created within the Board of Education.[27]:74-77
Nonconformists were bitterly upset by the failure of the Liberal Party to carry through on its most important promise to them, and over time their support for the Liberal Party slowly fell away.[28]
At the Board of Trade Lloyd George introduced legislation on many topics, from merchant shipping and the Port of London to companies and railway regulation. His main achievement was in stopping a proposed national strike of the railway unions by brokering an agreement between the unions and the railway companies. While almost all the companies refused to recognise the unions, Lloyd George persuaded the companies to recognise elected representatives of the workers who sat with the company representatives on conciliation boards—one for each company. If those boards failed to agree then an arbitrator would be called upon.[27]:69-73
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–1915)
See also: David Lloyd George and the suffrage movement, 1907–1912
On Campbell-Bannerman's death he succeeded Asquith, who had become Prime Minister, as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915.[27]:81[29]:189-190 While he continued some work from the Board of Trade—for example, legislation to establish the Port of London Authority and to pursue traditional Liberal programmes such as licensing law reforms—his first major trial in this role was over the 1908–1909 Naval Estimates. The Liberal manifesto at the 1906 general election included a commitment to reduce military expenditure. Lloyd George strongly supported this, writing to Reginald McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, "the emphatic pledges given by all of us at the last general election to reduce the gigantic expenditure on armaments built up by the recklessness of our predecessors." He then proposed the programme be reduced from six to four dreadnoughts. This was adopted by the government, but there was a public storm when the Conservatives, with covert support from the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jackie Fisher, campaigned for more with the slogan "We want eight and we won't wait". This resulted in Lloyd George's defeat in Cabinet and the adoption of estimates including provision for eight dreadnoughts.[30] During this period he was also a target of protest by the women's suffrage movement, as he professed support personally but did not move for changes within the Parliament process.[31]
Portrait of Chancellor Lloyd George by Christopher Williams (1911)
People's Budget, 1909
Further information: People's Budget
In 1909 Lloyd George introduced his People's Budget, imposing a 20% tax on the unearned increase in value of land, payable at death of the owner or sale of the land, and ½ d. on undeveloped land and minerals, increased death duties, a rise in income tax, and the introduction of Supertax on income over £3,000.[32] There were taxes also on luxuries, alcohol, and tobacco, so that money could be made available for the new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. The nation's landowners (well represented in the House of Lords) were intensely angry at the new taxes, mostly at the proposed very high tax on land values, but also because the instrumental redistribution of wealth could be used to detract from an argument for protective tariffs.[33][page needed]
The immediate consequences included the end of the Liberal League, and Rosebery breaking friendship with the Liberal Party, which in itself was for Lloyd George a triumph. He had won the case of social reform without losing the debate on Free Trade.[34]:166 Arthur Balfour denounced the budget as "vindictive, inequitable, based on no principles, and injurious to the productive capacity of the country."[34]:167 Roy Jenkins described it as the most reverberating since Gladstone's in 1860.[34]:172
In the House of Commons Lloyd George gave a brilliant account of the budget, which was attacked by the Conservatives. On the stump, notably at his Limehouse speech in 1909, he denounced the Conservatives and the wealthy classes with all his very considerable oratorical power. The budget was defeated by the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. The elections of 1910 narrowly upheld the Liberal government. The 1909 budget was passed on 28 April 1910 by the Lords, and received the Royal Assent on the 29th.[35][36] Subsequently, the Parliament Act 1911 curtailed the veto power of the House of Lords.
Although old-age pensions had already been introduced by Asquith as Chancellor, Lloyd George was largely responsible for the introduction of state financial support for the sick and infirm (known colloquially as "going on the Lloyd George" for decades afterwards)—legislation referred to as the Liberal Reforms. Lloyd George also succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act 1911, making provision for sickness and invalidism, and a system of unemployment insurance. He was helped in his endeavours by forty or so backbenchers who regularly pushed for new social measures, often voted with Labour MPs.[37][page needed] These social reforms in Britain were the beginnings of a welfare state and fulfilled the aim of dampening down the demands of the growing working class for rather more radical solutions to their impoverishment.[citation needed]
Under his leadership after 1909 the Liberals extended minimum wages to farm workers.[38]
David Lloyd George circa 1911
Mansion House Speech, 1911
Lloyd George was considered an opponent of war until the Agadir Crisis of 1911, during which he gave a stirring and patriotic speech at Mansion House on 21 July 1911. Grey was aghast and felt that the Chancellor was more qualified to be Foreign Secretary than he was; German opinion recognised that Britain would resist further German aggression.[39] Haldane and Lloyd George were among the minority in the Cabinet who were pro-German, on grounds of a shared religion, philosophy, artistic culture and scientific enquiry. Germany blamed Lloyd George for doing "untold harm both with regard to German public opinion and the negotiations...namely, to the despatch of the German warship to Agadir", and citing Count Metternich "...Mr Lloyd George's speech came upon us like a thunderbolt"[40]
Marconi scandal 1913
In 1913 Lloyd George, along with Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General, was involved in the Marconi scandal. Accused of speculating in Marconi shares on the inside information that they were about to be awarded a key government contract (which would have caused them to increase in value), he told the House of Commons that he had not speculated in the shares of "that company". He had in fact bought shares in the American Marconi Company.[41]
Welsh Church Act 1914
The Church of England no longer had majority adherence in most parts of Wales in preference to Wales-led Protestantism, in particular Methodism. Lloyd George had long called for disestablishment and was instrumental in introducing the Welsh Church Act 1914 which disestablished the Anglican Church in Wales (though, upon the outbreak of war, the actual coming into force of the Act was postponed by the Suspensory Act 1914 until 1920), removing the opportunity of the six Welsh Bishops in the new Church in Wales to sit in the House of Lords and removing (disendowing) certain pre-1662 property rights.[42][43]
First World War
Lloyd George was as surprised as almost everyone else by the outbreak of the First World War. On 23 July 1914, almost a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and on the eve of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, he made a speech advocating "economy" in the House of Commons, saying that Britain's relations with Germany were better than for many years.[44]:325-326 On 27 July he told C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian that Britain would keep out of the impending war.[45] With the Cabinet divided, and most ministers reluctant for Britain to get involved, he struck Asquith as "statesmanlike" at the Cabinet meeting on 1 August, favouring keeping Britain's options open. The next day he seemed likely to resign if Britain intervened, but he held back at Cabinet on Monday 3 August, moved by news that Belgium would resist Germany's demand for passage for her army across her soil. He was seen as a key figure whose stance helped to persuade almost the entire Cabinet to support British intervention.[46][44]:327-329 He was able to give the more pacifist members of the cabinet and the Liberal Party a principle - the rights of small nations - which meant they could support the war and maintain united political and popular support.[47]
Lloyd George remained in office as Chancellor of the Exchequer for the first year of the Great War. The budget of 17 November 1914 had to allow for lower taxation receipts because of the reduction in world trade. The Crimean and Boer Wars had largely been paid for out of taxation; but Lloyd George raised debt financing of £321 million. Large (but deferred) increases in Supertax and income tax rates were accompanied by increases in excise duties, and the budget produced a tax increase of £63 million in a full year.[34]:174-175 His last budget, on 4 May 1915, showed a growing concern for the effects of alcohol on the war effort, with large increases in duties, and a scheme of state control of alcohol sales in specified areas. The excise proposals were opposed by the Irish Nationalists and the Conservatives, and were abandoned.[34]:175-176
Minister of Munitions
David Lloyd George in 1915
See also: Minister of Munitions and Shell Crisis of 1915
Lloyd George gained a heroic reputation with his energetic work as Minister of Munitions, 1915–16, setting the stage for his move up to the height of power. After a long struggle with the War Office, he wrested responsibility for arms production away from the generals, making it a purely industrial department, with considerable expert assistance from Walter Runciman.[48] The two men gained the respect of Liberal cabinet colleagues for improving administrative capabilities, and increasing outputs.[49]
When the Shell Crisis of 1915 dismayed public opinion with the news that the Army was running short of artillery shells, demands rose for a strong leader to take charge of munitions. In the first coalition ministry, formed in May 1915, Lloyd George was made Minister of Munitions, heading a new department.[50] In this position he won great acclaim, which formed the basis for his political ascent. All historians agree that he boosted national morale and focussed attention on the urgent need for greater output, but many also say the increase in munitions output in 1915–16 was due largely to reforms already underway, though not yet effective, before he had even arrived. The Ministry broke through the cumbersome bureaucracy of the War Office, resolved labour problems, rationalised the supply system and dramatically increased production. Within a year it became the largest buyer, seller, and employer in Britain.[48]
Lloyd George, Edward Grey, Herbert Kitchener, Nikola Pašić, Antonio Salandra, Alexander Izvolsky, Aristide Briand, Joseph Joffre at a conference of the Allied Powers on 27–28 March 1916 in Paris
Lloyd George was not at all satisfied with the progress of the war. He wanted to "knock away the props", by attacking Germany's allies – from early in 1915 he argued for the sending of British troops to the Balkans to assist Serbia and bring Greece and other Balkan countries onto the side of the Allies (this was eventually done – the Salonika expedition – although not on the scale that Lloyd George had wanted, and mountain ranges made his suggestions of grand Balkan offensives impractical); in 1916 he wanted to send machine guns to Romania (insufficient amounts were available for this to be feasible). These suggestions began a period of poor relations with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Robertson, who was "brusque to the point of rudeness" and "barely concealed his contempt for Lloyd George's military opinions", to which he was in the habit of retorting "I've 'eard different".[51]
Lloyd George persuaded Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, to raise a Welsh Division, and, despite Kitchener's threat of resignation, to recognise nonconformist chaplains in the Army.[52]
Late in 1915 Lloyd George became a strong supporter of general conscription, an issue that divided Liberals, and helped the passage of several conscription acts from January 1916 onwards. In spring 1916 Alfred Milner hoped Lloyd George could be persuaded to bring down the coalition government by resigning, but this did not happen.[53]
Secretary of State for War
Lloyd George in 1916
In June 1916 Lloyd George succeeded Lord Kitchener (who died when his ship was sunk) as Secretary of State for War, although he had little control over strategy, as General Robertson had been given direct right of access to the Cabinet so as to bypass Kitchener. He did succeed in securing the appointment of Sir Eric Geddes to take charge of military railways behind British lines in France, with the honorary rank of major-general.[54] Lloyd George told a journalist, Roy W. Howard, in late September that "the fight must be to a finish – to a knockout", a rejection of President Woodrow Wilson's offer to mediate.[55]
Lloyd George was increasingly frustrated at the limited gains of the Somme Offensive, criticising General Haig to Ferdinand Foch on a visit to the Western Front in September (British casualty ratios were worse than those of the French, who were more experienced and had more artillery), proposing sending Robertson on a mission to Russia (he refused to go), and demanding that more troops be sent to Salonika to help Romania. Robertson eventually threatened to resign.[56]
Much of the press still argued that the professional leadership of Haig and Robertson was preferable to civilian interference which had led to disasters like Gallipoli and Kut. Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times stormed into Lloyd George's office and, finding him unavailable, told his secretary "You can tell him that I hear he has been interfering with Strategy, and that if he goes on I will break him", and the same day (11 October) Lloyd George also received a warning letter from H. A. Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post. He was obliged to give his "word of honour" to Asquith that he had complete confidence in Haig and Robertson and thought them irreplaceable, but he wrote to Robertson wanting to know how their differences had been leaked to the press (affecting to believe that Robertson had not personally "authorised such a breach of confidence & discipline"). He asserted his right to express his opinions about strategy in November, by which time ministers had taken to holding meetings to which Robertson was not invited.[57]
The weakness of Asquith as a planner and organiser was increasingly apparent to senior officials. After Asquith had refused, then agreed, and then refused again to agree to Lloyd George's demand that he should be allowed to chair a small committee to manage the war, he resigned in December 1916. Grey was among leading Asquithians who had identified Lloyd George's intentions the previous month.[58] Lloyd George became Prime Minister, with the nation demanding he take vigorous charge of the war. A Punch cartoon of the time showed him as "The New Conductor" conducting the orchestra in the "Opening of the 1917 Overture".[59]
Although during the political crisis Robertson had advised Lloyd George to "stick to it" and form a small War Council, Lloyd George had planned if necessary to appeal to the country, his Military Secretary Colonel Arthur Lee having prepared a memo blaming Robertson and the General Staff for the loss of Serbia and Romania. Lloyd George was restricted by his promise to the Unionists to keep Haig as Commander-in-Chief and the press support for the generals, although Milner and Curzon were also sympathetic to campaigns to increase British power in the Middle East.[60] After Germany's offer (12 December 1916) of a negotiated peace Lloyd George rebuffed President Wilson's request for the belligerents to state their war aims by demanding terms tantamount to German defeat.[61]
Prime Minister (1916–1922)
Further information: Lloyd George ministry
War leader (1916–1918)
Forming a government
The fall of Asquith as Prime Minister split the Liberal Party into two factions: those who supported him and those who supported the coalition government. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George compared himself with Asquith:[62]
There are certain indispensable qualities essential to the Chief Minister of the Crown in a great war. . . . Such a minister must have courage, composure, and judgment. All this Mr. Asquith possessed in a superlative degree. . . . But a war minister must also have vision, imagination and initiative—he must show untiring assiduity, must exercise constant oversight and supervision of every sphere of war activity, must possess driving force to energize this activity, must be in continuous consultation with experts, official and unofficial, as to the best means of utilising the resources of the country in conjunction with the Allies for the achievement of victory. If to this can be added a flair for conducting a great fight, then you have an ideal War Minister.
After December 1916 Lloyd George relied on the support of Conservatives and of the press baron Lord Northcliffe (who owned both The Times and the Daily Mail). Besides the Prime Minister, the five-member War Cabinet contained three Conservatives (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons Bonar Law, and Minister without Portfolio Lord Milner) and Arthur Henderson, unofficially representing Labour. Edward Carson was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, as had been widely touted during the intrigues of the previous month, but excluded from the War Cabinet. Amongst the few Liberal frontbenchers to support Lloyd George were Christopher Addison (who had played an important role in drumming up some backbench Liberal support for Lloyd George), H. A. L. Fisher, Lord Rhondda and Sir Albert Stanley. Edwin Montagu and Churchill joined the government in the summer of 1917.[63]
Lloyd George's Secretariat, popularly known as Downing Street's "Garden Suburb", assisted him in discharging his responsibilities within the constraints of the war cabinet system. Its function was to maintain contact with the numerous departments of government, to collect information, and to report on matters of special concern. Its leading members were George Adams and Philip Kerr, and the other secretaries included David Davies, Joseph Davies, Waldorf Astor and, later, Cecil Harmsworth.[64]
Lloyd George wanted to make the destruction of Ottoman Empire a major British war aim, and two days after taking office told Robertson that he wanted a major victory, preferably the capture of Jerusalem, to impress British public opinion.[65]
At the Rome Conference (5–6 January 1917) Lloyd George was discreetly quiet about plans to take Jerusalem, an object which advanced British interests rather than doing much to win the war. Lloyd George proposed sending heavy guns to Italy with a view to defeating Austria-Hungary, possibly to be balanced by a transfer of Italian troops to Salonika, but was unable to obtain the support of the French or Italians, and Robertson talked of resigning.[66]