The Rise of F. E. Smith
Frederick Edwin, Earl of Birkenhead. The First Phase. By His Son, the Earl of Birkenhead. Foreword by the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill. (Thornton Butterworth. 21s.)
THE grandson of a man, who turned his .son adrift for skating
on Sunday, the son. of a man . who made his way from this bleak start to success at the Bar, helped also by some gipsy
blood, F. E. Smith inherited qualities that promised well for an adventurous and dashing career in politics. From child- hood his mind was set on this career, and as a boy he announced that he meant to become either Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor. The story of his success in the pursuit of this career is told by his son in this very lively and interesting book—a striking piece of: work which exhibits some _of .the qualities of the writer's father. As a schoolboy he interrupted an auctioneer at a sale by loud and persistent talking. The auctioneer at last broke off and remarking that they could not both speak at once asked Smith what it was all about. Smith replied that he and his friend were disputing whether the auctioneer or his man was the uglier : he, Smith, had been putting the case for the auctioneer. Early in life Smith learnt that whereas nothing is so ineffective as insolence that runs away, insolence that stands its ground is a power on the platform. Such insolence demands for its success a mastery of language, and. Smith, as this book shows in a very interesting chapter, spared no pains to develop and perfect his remarkable natural gifts as a speaker. He studied every kind of orator and every kind of writer to learn the secrets of his style. A man whose most appropriate motto might have seemed to be oderint dum metuant might have been expected to be unpopular in private life. But Smith combined with this offensive power in debate and controversy qualities that attracted friendship, for he was in all personal relations generous, delightful, and constant. His wit could be as charming in peace as it was wounding in war. Mr. Churchill describes him in his preface as " a gay, brilliant, loyal, lovable being." It is significant that this outwardly bitter party man was made a Privy Councillor by Asquith. • Two achievements stand out in Smith's career, but neither of them falls inte this book. One was his constructive work as Lord Chancellor ; the other the part he played in the Irish negotiations in December, 1921. At a critical moment, when the collapse of the Conference seemed imminent, Smith made a profound, and decisive impression on the Irish leaders by his initiative, and his large- and generous view of the problem. His political history in the years covered by this volume as revealed from the inside prepares the reader for this paradox. As his son shows there were from the first two Smiths, though in these first years the world only knew one of these Smiths, a master of guerilla warfare. Smith was in some respects singularly fortunate. He entered a House of Commons in which his party was small and had lost most of its leaders. Through Chamberlain's interest he obtained a most favourable occasion for his maiden speech. His speech in his regular caustic manner was a dazzling success and specially- welcome to a dispirited party. Knowing well the dangers of such a triumph he managed his later Parliamentary operations with the utmost care. He soon 'found himself on the Front Bench, helped again by circumstances, for the. growing violence of polities gave special opportunities to his style and technique. Then came the Ulster rebellion. He attached himself to Sir Edward Carson ; he became known as Galloper Smith, and his name was soon a synonym for the reckless damn-the-consequences spirit that was spreading over politics.
The guerilla warfare of those, years did untold mischief in the public life of England and. Ireland. As we look back now the British people seem to have been playing at Civil War on the edge of a volcano. From time to time efforts were made to rescue the nation from the dangers of such a state of conflict, but singularly little is known abdut them. Even the history of the Conference of 1910 has only been sketched in the barest outline. The .biographies of .Lansdowne and Asquith throw little light on the proceedings. This official Conference was followed or accompanied • by an unofficial effort to form a Coalition Government, about which hardly anything has been published. This book adds a. little to our knowledge, for Smith was eager for such an arrangement. ".On the surface,"
says- his son, " he was- the bitter party frondeur, beneath, he was feeling his way towards the creation of a coalition." Two letters that he wrote to Sir Austen Chamberlain describe the concessions he was ready to make.. From these. pages it appears that the politicians most anxious for coalition were those who made the most violent speeches ; Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Churchill, and F. E. Smith. These. three men, perhaps recognizing affinities of improvement, drew together. " You know how anxious I have-been for years," wrote Mr. Lloyd George to F. E. Smith, in October, 1913, " to work with you and a few others on your. side. I. have always realized that our differences have been very artificial and do not reach to realities.' "
These plans came to -nothing at the time, but renewed efforts Were made during the Home Rule controversy to obtain an Irish settlement behind the scenes. Most people hold that the breakdown of those efforts marked the breakdown of the British genius for politics. It seemed astonishing that a people which had escaped all the revolutions of the nineteenth century-, whilst completely 'reorganizing .its franchise and its fiscal policy, could have come to grief because it could not agree whether a small district in Ireland should be treated as inside or outside Ulster. In this case again the most militant politicians were the most anxious for settlement. But they did not cease to be militant politicians and the event proved that the combination of outward violence and private reason- ableness possesses fatal disadvantages. In March, 1914, Asquith proposed that any county which desired it should be excluded from the operation of the Home Rule Bill for_ six years. Though Sir Edward Carson rejected the offer, most people would have supposed that when such negotiation had begun _the hour for violent speech had passed. But Mr. Churchill talked of putting these grave matters to the proof. Yet this fatal speech was made -by a minister, anxious behind the scenes for peace. At Buckingham Palace neither Red- mond nor Sir. Edward Carson dared to concede the small points that divided them. Of whom .was Sir Edward Carson afraid ? Of the men who had been organized and inflamed for resistance by himself and F. E. Smith and provoked by Mr. Churchill. Of wham was Redmond afraid ? Of the Nationalists in Ulster who -had smarted under the rhetoric of the Covenanters, and of the Nationalists in the South of Ireland to whom the spirit of rebellion had spread. Nothing could be better than the private memorandum printed in this book that F. E. ,Smith wrote in 1913, on the Irish question. Nothing could be less likely to produce in Ireland the temper that would make his suggested settlement possible than the series of wild speeches bp which- he had excited her passions and her fears. Today when we are offered excitement and entertainment in a hundred forms and public speeches have lost their old attraction, the apathy of our age to politics and to politicians is often -deplored, and not without reason. But it is well to remember.that the nation had to pay a heavy price for the excitements provided by the most brilliant of its guerilla
Previous page
