Lord Snowden's Autobiography
THE story which Lord Snowden has to tell in his Autobio- graphy is the always stimulating one of a long fight against odds. We see great ability backed by strong will winning its way to all but the highest place against handicaps, poverty, physical weakness, lack of early education, almost any one of which would have been fatal to an ordinary man. We see a deliberate choice of apparently losing or lost causes un- quenched by opposition or obloquy. This in itself would make the book brave reading, and it is what most remains in memory when one lays it down.
Apart from the chapters on early days, which are of fascin- ating interest, and especially to Yorkshire readers, the book is mainly the story of British politics from about 1905 to the end of the War, told from the Labour point of view, with many personal sketches and reminiscences thrown in. One gathers that the Labour party had rather more than the usual "internal difficulties," as they are euphemistically called, and that its members were as conscious of each other's infirmities as are the members of other parties. On the whole Lord Snowden is at peace with old friends, but there is enough of various condiments in his narrative to display his qualities as candid friend, if not to justify the reputation for "acerbity" which he expressly disclaims.
In repeating his conversations with other people, he is not, I think, quite free from the besetting temptation of the autobiographer, that of putting his own opinions into their mouths—a thing easily done without malice after the lapse of years. But he makes a great effort to be just, and as an old Liberal I take special pleasure in his tribute to the ability and zeal of the Liberal Administrations between 1906 and 1914, for it has been the fashion in Labour circles to decry them. The book stops short of the recent and most exciting passages in his career, but this is only Vol. I, and there is more to follow.
When we come to the War—to which a large part of this book is devoted—we find Lord Snowden adopting what for short may be called the Morley-Loreburn theory, viz., that the defence of Belgium was a pretence, and that we got "entangled" by the "military conversations" and other commitments to France which were kept secret from the Cabinet. He repeats that Mr. Lloyd George and other Ministers were "aghast" on learning late in the day that these conversations were going on. Mr. Lloyd George of all men who had made the famous Mansion House speech threatening or at least contemplating war with Germany ! One would have supposed that he would have been aghast, if after making this speech, he had discovered that there was no plan for concerted action between us and the French in the event of Germany defying us.
This theory requires us to believe that very able men who had lived through the Algeciras crisis, the Bosnia-Herzegovina crisis, the Agadir crisis, who had been supplied with all important Foreign Office papers, and been party to a great scheme of army reform for the avowed object of providing an army to operate in Europe—that these men had never given a thought to the military aspects of the situation they were in, or the need of concerting action with the nation in alliance with whom they had at least three times had to face the possibility of fighting a war. The explanation seems to do them less than justice.
The notion that Great Britain's part in the War was a " side-slip " or an " entanglement " rests, I believe, on •a misunderstanding of her position in the world and her relations to her neighbours which would be dangerous even now if it were persisted in. Grey and Asquith undoubtedly considered the Belgian Treaty to be of high importance, and it would be strange if peace-lovers who base their hopes on the observance of Treaties and Covenants held them to blame for so doing. But, Belgium apart, the question which they asked was broadly this : What would happen to Great Britain, if she stood aside, let Germany conquer France, overrun Belgium, occupy the Channel ports, and (as likely as not) add the French and Russian fleets to her own The question may conceivably be answered in different ways, but it must be argued in these terms, if justice is to be done to the men of 1914. From the fact, which everybody admits, that the War was a great calamity, Lord Snowden seems to infer that nothing was saved or gained by those who won it— which is an altogether different proposition.
Lord Snowden supplies important new details about the efforts of the Labour party, or some of its members, to join hands with Socialists abroad in promoting peace negotiations, and of the fate which befel Mr. Henderson in his zeal for the Stockholm Conference. The difficulty about negotiations was that the belligerents were prepared for them when they were doing badly, and bent on a fight to a finish when they were doing well. Lord Snowden would, I think, get further light on the subject if he consulted the report of the German Committee of Inquiry at the end of 1919. There were two fatal obstacles to any offer from the Germans of terms which the Allies could be expected to consider, first the unbounded belief of the Germans in the unrestricted submarine as a means of winning the war, and secondly the collapse of Russia which inspired them with new hope when the submarine failed. The terms which they communicated to President Wilson in December, 1916, were Conquerors' terms, and I know of no evidence that they were willing seriously to modify- those until they were plainly facing defeat in the summer of 1918— defeat in the military sense, not, as Lord Snowden suggests, mere exhaustion from starvation. Then, on their side, being flushed with victory, the Allies were obdurate. My own impression, after making some study of the various efforts is that a more skilful handling of Prince Sixtus of Parma might have shortened the War by detaching Austria, but this would scarcely have been "peace by negotiation." At the same time nothing but praise is due to the courage and persistency and readiness to face obloquy which Mr. Snowden and his friends displayed in these efforts.
Among many good things in this book, there is a delightful story of the late Lord Mersey. He was retained to defend an action brought against an oil-tanker by the owners of a tramp steamer who alleged that it had been set on fire by oil dis- charged into the River Mersey by the tanker. The defence was that since the oil was non-inflammable, it could not have caused the fire. To prove his case Lord Mersey brought a hollow tray into Court, and placed it on the table in front of him. ." Now I have here, your Worship," he said, "a bottle of oil taken from the tanker. I will pour it on to this tray and apply a match. Your Worship will see that it will not ignite." He did so and there was an explosion which nearly blew the roof oft the court-room. Lord Mersey retired from that case. There are things in this book which would make one hesitate to certify that Lord Snowden will not ignite, but he burn, with the flame of honest conviction.
J. A. SPENDER.
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