The Dissidence of Dissent
By LORD ATTLEE
MR. A. J. P. TAYLOR, the well-known television star, has in this book* published the sub- stance of his Ford lectures which he delivered in his other capacity as an historian. He traces from the time of Charles James Fox the history of what he terms 'dissent' over foreign policy. Mr. Taylor adopts the term 'dissenter' on the' analogy of ecclesiastical affairs to describe a person who is in opposition to the government of the day on foreign policy. He says that the dissenter repudiates the aims, methods and prin- ciples of British foreign policy, differentiating him from the man who disagrees with a par- ticular line of foreign policy while accepting its general assumptions.
This, I think, leads him into a very curious attitude. He hardly allows that a Conservative can be a dissenter, though he is at pains to main- tain that one must not confuse dissent with party policy. He considers that, except very occa- sionally, all dissent comes from the Left, and indeed he seems at first to consider dissent and Radicalism to be almost identical terms. Perhaps this is why he chooses to start with Charles James Fox. One would have thought that the most emphatic dissenter from foreign policy was Chatham, but then he was not of the Left. He passes over lightly Conservative .dissent even over Munich, though I should have thought that Sir Winston Churchill and the Conservatives who stood with him were certainly qualified. In the same way he does not mention Tory oppo- sition to Palmerston's support of the Spanish Constitutionalists.
It would in my view have been better to have considered the attitude of politicians under the familiar headings of Government and Oppo- sition rather than to have imported a term from another sphere. He would not then have got into the difficulty of explaining the position of the Opposition politician when he attains to power. Mr. Taylor seems to hold that the dissenter must always be negative and seems to think that by taking office the dissenter is false to his prin- ciples. The dissenter would say that he was * THE TROUBLE-MAKERS : DISSENT OVER 'FOREIGN POLICY 1792-1939. By A. J. P. Taylor. (Hamish Hamilton. l8s.1 trying to carry out his principles, but that the assumption of office had made him realise the inevitable limitations on carrying them out im- posed by the actions of others and by the facts of geography.
Urquhart and Cobden are the author's two great examples of dissent in the middle of the nineteenth century. Urquhart is a not uncommon type, a man convinced of the danger of the domination of the world by one Power, in this instance Russia. Cobden, on the other hand, is the complete non-interventionist with an abso- lute distrust of Foreign Offices. Mr. Taylor points out how enduring was this feeling that foreign policy was a kind of conspiracy by diplomats. It was the view of Bright, Cobden and others that foreign affairs were, to quote the words of the former, 'a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain.' Bright, too, was the expounder of the somewhat Pharisaic attitude of war resisters who wash their hands of all responsibility.
Mr. Taylor deals faithfully with the twists and turns of Gladstonian foreign policy. He describes Gladstone as a rare type, the demagogue- statesman. He suggests that behind his moral fervour was the desire for power. He makes the unusual suggestion that British imperialism is the fruit of Radicalism rather than Conser- vatism, pointing in particular to Gladstone's action in Egypt. Egypt seems to have an unfor- tunate effect on liberal-minded statesmen. Arabi in 1882 and Nasser in 1956 roused the ire of statesmen who were generally in favour of col- lective action for the maintenance of peace.
The years 'preceding the First World War saw the rise of the Labour Party, but, beyond a general belief that wars were caused by im- perialistic rivalries and economic interests and that they could be stopped by united action by the workers, the Labour Party had no very dis- tinctive policy. Mr. Taylor deals mainly with the Liberal dissenters who were more powerful in literature than in Parliament. It is difficult to recapture the atmosphere of the past. I can recall the time when • France was considered the dan- gerous Great Power. The Dreyfus case and Fashoda had made her most unpopular, while her alliance with Russia damned her in Labour circles. The change in British policy which re- sulted in the Entente Cordiale was regarded by most of us as a really healthy attempt to get away from quarrels over minor points of friction. Germany then became the bugbear and not without reason. Arriong Labour people there was a failure to recognise the strength of national feeling, which was far stronger than class soli- darity. The Liberal dissenters were a fairly heterogeneous body with a great variety of reasons for their dissent, and Mr. Taylor gives a full account of them.
Mr. Taylor gives much space to the Union of Democratic Control and its founder E. D. Morel, whose influence, I think, he exaggerates. In dealing with the period between the two ,wars Mr. Taylor does not, I think, give sufficient im- portance to the revulsion caused by the slaughter of the First World War. Pacifism had always been a strong element in the Labour movement. particularly in the ILP, and it was now reinforced by the feelings of thousands who had fought in the First World War and had seen, in their view, the ideals for which they fought betrayed at the Peace Conference. From this there stemmed the great emotional force behind the League of I Nations. 'Fhe adoption by the Labour Party of I support for the League was undoubtedly due ; largely to the influence of Arthur Henderson. but Mr. Taylor is wrong in thinking that this support was purely academic. If the National Government had taken a fir'm line, the Labour Party, possibly with a few dissentients, would have supported it. The rise of Hitler killed the sentimental regard for Germany which was so strong immediately after the war. The Fulham election was not fought on a pacifist ticket but on support for the League. In his concluding chapter I think Mr. Taylor overemphasises the extreme dissenters. He is wrong in thinking that there was not as strong feeling over the Czechs as over the Spaniards. I never heard anyone con- sider Czechoslovakia as the vassal of France. • He thinks that the Labour movement retained " ii its old illusions until August, 1939. As one of the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Par1Y from 1931 onwards, I can say that the legend is right and Mr. Taylor's second thoughts are wrong. I think that he tends to take as charae' , teristic of Labour opinion certain organs of the intelligentsia which are not very representative.1 . Mr. Taylor has a lively style and has written 801 a interesting book, though I think that he tends te d i over-stress the importance of the intellectuals as i5 natural in an academic writer. Labour men and women knew the Social Demo- crats very well. Mr. Taylor says that he had long accepted what he now calls the legend that the dissenters between the wars began as dreamers and pacifists and moved gradually to a more realistic aud' tougher policy, but that he now thinks it untrue.
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