Lord Snowden's Second Volume
By J. A. SPENDER
AFTER reading Lord Snowden's second volume I am more surprised that he got on with the Labour Party for so long and was for so many years regarded as one of its most advanced members than that he broke with it in the end. For by most of the more obvious tests he seems to be much nearer Liberalism than what now ranks as Socialism. He is the staunchest of Free Traders ; he holds Gladstonian views on finance and credit, he is totally free from the Marxian class-war ideas with which a little band of doctrinaires have imbued the Labour Party, and evidently does not share their schwarmerei for the dictatorship of the proletariat. When he comes up against the foreigner, as at the famous Hague Conference of 1929, he is the patriotic Briton fighting for the interests of his country, and behaves in a manner which makes it a little surprising that he should be so severe on others who lost patience on much greater provocation. His Socialism is " no cut-and-dried scheme of social organiza- tion to be applied indiscriminately to the country's industrial and economic life," but a " co-operative principle " which
will take various forms according to the nature of the undertakings to which it is applied," and which will probably " be applied so gradually that men will not realize that great changes are taking place in their midst." Reinforce these general ideas with the ardent temperament which Lord Snowden has posse§sed throughout his life, and you have the make-up of an active Liberal or Radical SOcial reformer.
His vivid description of the crisis of 1931, in which he played so central and conspicuous a part, shows all these qualities at work. To a man of revolutionary temperament the financial chaos of that year would have been a heaven- sent opportunity. What if the foreigner withdrew his money from London ! What if a stubborn refusal either to tax or to retrench led to inflation and the collapse of the currency What if the whole credit and capitalist system came down ! Was not this precisely what the denouncers of capitalism desired and was within their grasp, if a Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer, finding himself in charge of the capitalist machine, simply sat still and refused to work it ? Could there have been greater folly for a Socialist than to appoint the May Committee and invite the aid of capitalist opponents in restoring their machine ?
That Lord Snowden did this and did it successfully is, I imagine, the real root of bitterness between him and his former left-wing colleagues. At the critical moment we see him dis- playing his anti-revolutionary temper. He looks ahead and sees no substitute for the existing order if it breaks down. He sees ruin falling not only on capitalists but on immense num- bers of hard-working poor people whose( friend and advocate he has been all his life. He doubts the capacity of any members of his party to take the place of the bankers whom they are denouncing ; he is bold enough to say that the bankers are behaving extremely well, and none more so than the maligned Mr. Norman, whom he pronounces to be a man of high ability and great public spirit. His guiding line throughout is that the ship must not be• alloWed to founder on the chance that something may come out of the wreck which would be profitable to Socialists.
Lord Snowden speaks with a certain bitterness of the Prime Minister, and if there were no more to say about him than may be gleaned from this book, his career would be one of the most baffling mysteries of modern times. And yet in his narrative of 1931 Lord Snowden himself partly explains
An Autobiography. By Viscount Snowden. Vol. II. "• (Ivor Nicholson and Watson. 21.s.) it. He shows Mr. MacDonidd keeping a firm grip on the situation, and at the critical moment seizing the reins and going his own way without a word to his colleagues. It was of course, extremely mortifying to them•and left sonic of them with an acute sense of grievance, but it was a strong and right move well within the prerogatives of his office. The parleyings had been interminable ; there was no time to lose ; the moment had come for the Prime Minister to act. Speaking as a Liberal, I share Lord Snowden's view that if the same strong hand had been displayed on later occasions, the " National " character of his Government might have been kept un- tarnished, or at all events much less compromised than it has been in the subsequent years.
In speaking of the Labour Government of 1924 Lord Snowden puts his finger on what are still the weaknesses of the Labour Party as a Parliamentary force." I imagine that Mr. MacDonald's handling of the Russian Treaty, the. Campbell prosecution, and the Zinovieff letter were riot quite so incon- sequential as they appear in Lord Snowden's account of them. But what ruined his Government was the sudden realization by the House of Commons that it was being pulled this way and that by bodies unknown to Parliament, by the Trade Union Congress, by anonymous Committees which were putting a pistol to its head behind the scenes. The trouble about the Zinovieff letter was that it was so exactly in line With what the Bolshevists were known to be doing, and were even boasting of doing, that, in default of positive evidence of its being a forgery, the presumption was all in favour of its being genuine. It was not the letter alone, but the letter coming on top of the Russian Treaty and loan which made the damaging impression. It was, to say the least, a highly suspicious document, and yet, with it in their possession, the Government seemed to be under some mysterious compulsion to go ahead with Treaty and loan.
Some allowance must be made for Lord Snowden's feelings as he looks back on the past from his present position, but his narrative shows the difficulty of making a coherent and disci- plined unit out of the three elements which compose the Labour Party—the Trade-Unionists, the doctrinaire Socialists, and the ex-Liberals who seceded from their party on the question of the War. The doctrinaires have the advantage of being ready writers who have captured the advanced Press, and their efforts to land the other two with their proletarian and class-war theories have come within an inch of success. I agree with Lord Snowden that their success would be disas- trous to Labour, but to prevent it needs a livelier apprehension by the other two of where they are being led. Looking back on past days, Lord Snowden has an air throughout of being astonished at his own moderation, and even more astonished at being supposed to possess a formidable tongue. He is, I am sure, essentially benevolent, but the specimens of his quality given in this book help to explain why some of his victims needed first aid when he had done with them. But lively as it is in its personalia, this book is much more than a personal record. It supplies essential material for the history of the last few years, and the questions it raises are still very much alive. I would only suggest to Lord Snowden once again that he should reflect a little before he dismisses the history of pre-War Europe and the final stupendous crash of old systems and dynasties as if it were a mere branch of criminology, the crime of something called the " old diplomacy." A much closer study of what happened in those years seems to me necessary if we are either to under4 stand what is happening now or to build any secure foundation for peace in the future.
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