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Pacifism and Politics in Britain, 1931–1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Pugh
Affiliation:
University of Southampton

Extract

In the 1930s the British peace movement expanded rapidly from a preserve of small elitist peace societies into a mass phenomenon. More specifically, it was in the period from the Manchurian crisis to the Italo-Ethiopian war that what has been loosely called ‘pacifism’ gained political weight. Whilst its effect on the making of foreign policy has been the subject of much historical inquiry, the manifestations of the peace debate, including the famous Peace Ballot, can best be explained in the domestic context of party and pressure-group politics. The divisive nature of war rejection as an issue then becomes clearly apparent. Indeed the argument that the peace movement was a point of consensus can only be valid at a superficial level. One can agree with Marwick that a ‘middle opinion’ preferring peace to war developed in the thirties.1 But in public discussion about collective security pacifists caused schisms which hindered the clarification of party and pressure-group policies.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 Marwick, Arthur, Britain in the century of total war (London, 1968), pp. 243, 247Google Scholar; Middle opinion in the thirties: planning, progress and “political agreement’”, English Historical Review, LXXIX (April 1964), 285–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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3 Headway (March 1932), p. 51. It was even suggested (in Headway, November 1932), that the formation of a correct judgement about the dispute was more important than any action to give it effect.

4 Copy of Murray to Hills, 31 March 1933, Cecil papers, Add. MSS 51132. See also Murray to Cecil, 7 March 1933, Cecil papers, ibid.; Headway (June 1932), p. 111; L.N.U., , London Bulletin, LIX (June 1933); P. Noel-Baker, ‘Note of the breakdown of the collective system over the Manchurian dispute’, 26 February 1935, Lothian papers, Scottish Record Office, GD 40, 17/108.Google Scholar

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29 Ibid. p. 176. See also Fenn, pp. 193–220, for the policy approved by the Socialist League's conference in May 1934. Both the T.U.G. and the Labour party issued reports on dictatorship which tarred fascism and communism with the same brush, T.U.C. annual report, 4–8 September 1933, appendix C; Labour party annual report, 2–6 October 1933, appendix IX.

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31 There were other issues of course, but it is significant to note that Baldwin and the Conservative Central Office understood pacifism to have been the major issue in the East Fulham by-election of October 1933. In point of fact the Labour candidate, John Wilmot, was a collectivist who followed Dalton on foreign policy. See James, Robert Rhodes, Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's memoirs and papers, 1910–1937 (London, 1969), pp. 397–8Google Scholar; Heller, Richard, ‘East Fulham revisited’, Journal of Contemporary History, VI (1971), 172–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43 Cecil to Baldwin, 26 November 1934, Cecil papers, Add. MSS 51080. See also Murray's letter in The Times (28 November 1934), p. 10.

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