Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T17:04:57.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Britain Debates Justice: an Analysis of the Reparations Issue of 1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Barbee-Sue Rodman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has been noticed by various observers that in the election campaign of 1918, which focused on the issue of “reparations” versus “indemnities,” the debate was dominated not by discussions of the practical issues of international relations, national interests, or economic possibilities, but rather by abstract moral arguments about “justice” — a “just peace” and a “just punishment” for Germany. It has not been noticed, however, that these arguments about justice were very largely carried over into international politics from the sphere of domestic criminal law, to such an extent that positions expressed vis-à-vis the Prison Acts of 1908 foreshadowed the positions expressed in foreign affairs in 1918.

When, only three days after the Armistice, a parliamentary election was announced for December 14, there was little expectation that the terms of the treaty would be part of the electoral battle. It quickly became apparent, however, that despite the pre-Armistice agreement limiting German responsibility to reparations for damage done to Belgium and to the civilian population of Allied countries, there was a widespread public desire to force Germany to pay an indemnity for the entire cost of the war. Although Labour and the Asquithian Liberals refused to abandon their commitment to “reparations but no indemnity,” the Coalition leadership succumbed, though hesitantly, to popular pressure. Despite the private convictions of both David Lloyd George and Bonar Law that an indemnity would be unwise and harmful, the Coalition committed itself, before the campaign closed, to demanding the “entire cost of the War.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , November 1968 , pp. 140 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. There has been a tendency for historians to credit Lord Northcliffe with the creation of “indemnities” and “hang the Kaiser” as campaign issues. A study of the chronology, however, makes it clear that the issue first emerged in public meetings and letters as an emotion-laden, popular demand and was then picked up and championed by the imperialistic (i.e., Northcliffe's Times and Daily Mail) and conservative (i.e., Morning Post) press. For a full discussion of the issue, see Rodman, Barbee-Sue, British Political Opinion and the German Question, 1918-1920 (Ph.D. thesis, Radcliffe, 1958), pp. 92–116.Google Scholar

Since this essay is concerned with the public debate over reparations, it is based almost entirely on publicly expressed opinions, that is, on periodicals, speeches, and pamphlets, rather than on private letters or diaries. In order to secure as broad a representation of political opinions as possible, the following newspapers and journals were analysed: Morning Post, Daily Telegraph, Times, Daily Express, Daily News, Observer, Manchester Guardian, Herald, Labour Leader, Nation, New Europe, Round Table, English Review, Economist, New Statesman, Spectator, and Punch.

2. Most important in this respect is Lloyd George's Bristol speech of December 11, in which he asserted: “First, as far as justice is concerned, we have an absolute right to demand the whole cost of the war from Germany. The second point is that we propose to demand the whole cost of the war. (Cheers.)” George, David Lloyd, Memoirs of the Peace Conference (New Haven, 1939), I, 309Google Scholar. Although Lloyd George in his memoirs tried to emphasize the limitations and hesitations expressed in this speech, the response of reporters from both the Manchester Guardian and the Times makes it clear that hesitancy was not the impression conveyed to his listeners.

3. These factors include: the continuation of war-induced hysteria; England's inability to realize that Germany was really defeated; the tendency of politicians, tired from the burdens of war, to take the path of least resistance; the concern aroused by Labour's hard-hitting campaign on domestic issues among the newly enlarged electorate, leading the other parties to welcome an issue which diverted attention from the home front; the only half-submerged tensions within the Coalition between protectionists and free-traders, businessmen and radicals; the widely shared fears for England's economic future; the lack of expert agreement on the possibility of exacting indemnities.

4. The initial tendency to discuss the war in moral and legal terms originated among the radicals. Deeply committed in 1914 to peace as a moral and practical good, they found it possible to accept the war only by denning English war aims in ethical terms. Since their explanation appealed to the traditional moral sense of Englishmen, as well as to their perception of reality, it gained immense acceptance during the war. For discussions of this development, see Willis, I. C., England's Holy War (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Playne, C. E., Society at War, 1914-1916 (London, 1931)Google Scholar.

Though most conservatives and imperialists did not originally consider the outbreak of war a criminal act and did not normally think of war in these moral, legal terms, they tended to adopt the terminology of the radicals. After 1916 it was particularly useful as a means of stimulating enthusiasm to continue the war, and by the time the Armistice was signed, it had almost become official jargon in England. It was Germany's adoption of President Wilson's terminology which “converted” the last of the English traditionalists. Cf. Morning Post, 18 Oct. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2, with 28 Oct. 1918, p. 4:3, and 13 Nov. 1918, p. 4:2, for an example of such a last-minute shift in terminology. Such a “conversion” involved no more than a shift in semantics for the Post.

5. After all, even the Lord Chancellor assured Englishmen during the campaign that “Such proceedings [Germany's methods of warfare] violated all laws, human and Divine, and those guilty of them should be punished.” Quoted in ibid., 5 Dec. 1918, p. 7:5. See also Daily Telegraph, 30 Nov. 1918, p. 6:4.

6. Liberal and Labour supporters did tend to use the term “justice” in both its general and its legal sense. Because of their approach to criminal justice, this ambiguity raised no significant problems for Labour. (See below, pp. 147-49, 151-53) For Liberals, on the other hand, this ambiguity of terminology produced, at times, confusion and difficulties in communication. The Guardian, for example, continued throughout the campaign to talk of justice in both senses of the term, without making any real effort to discriminate. Cf. Manchester Guardian, 19 Nov. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:1-2

7. Manchester Guardian, 13 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:1. Statements of a similar nature can be found in papers of all political views. See the imperialistic Daily Mail, 3 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:1, and the ultraconservative Morning Post, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 4:2-3.Google Scholar with 13 Dec. 1918, p. 6:1-2. Among liberal papers only the Nation reached the point of being able to characterize Wilson's Fourteen Points as “just but not punitive.” See Nation, 21 Dec. 1918, p. 344, also 7 Dec. 1918, pp. 274-75.

8. Quoted in Postgate, R. and Vallance, A., England Goes to Press (New York, 1937), p. 269Google Scholar.

9. Wells, H. G., Mr. Britling Sees It Through (New York, 1916), pp. 386–88Google Scholar.

10. See statement by LordCecil, Hugh quoted in Playne, C. E., Britain Holds On (London, 1933), p. 349Google Scholar; sermon preached by Barnes, E. W. at Temple Church quoted in Times, 30 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:3; diary entry reproduced in SirFitzroy, Almeric, Memoirs (London, n.d.), II, 685Google Scholar.

11. Quoted in Times, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:5. See also Daily Express, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2; Daily Telegraph, 12 Nov. 1918, p. 8Google Scholar:4-5.

12. Labour Leader, 19 Dec. 1918, p. 1Google Scholar.

13. U.D.C. Open Letter to President Wilson quoted in Swanwick, H. M., Builders of Peace (London, 1924), pp. 116–17Google Scholar. See also Labour Party column in Daily Mail, 4 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:1.

14. Ibid., 3 Dec. 1918, p. 6:3.

15. Morning Post, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:3.

16. See Report from the Departmental Commission on Prisons (London, 1895), p. 18Google Scholar; MacLean, D., Parliamentary Debates 4 s., 190: 484Google Scholar; Report of the Commissioners of Prisons and the Director of Convict Prisons, 1913 (London, 1913), I, 21–22Google Scholar. For a general discussion of penal developments in the prewar years, see Radzinowicz, Leon and Turner, J. W. C. (eds.), Penal Reform in England (London, 1946), esp. pp. 19–25Google Scholar; Howard, D. L., The English Prisons (London, 1960), esp. pp. 155 ff.Google Scholar

17. See Gladstone, Herbert, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Parl. Deb. 4 s., 190: 299Google Scholar; Report from the Departmental Commission on Prisons, p. 7.

18. See Gladstone, , Parl. Deb. 4 s., 197: 249Google Scholar and 198: 130; W. R. Adkins, ibid., 198: 127.

19. See Gladstone, introducing the bill, ibid., 189: 1124 and 197: 247.

20. See Gladstone, ibid., 189: 1125.

21. See Gladstone, ibid., 190: 504-05 and 197: 252; C. Roberts, ibid., 190: 489; MacLean, ibid., 190: 484. See also Report from the Departmental Commission on Prisons, p. 13; Report of the Commissioners of Prisons, II, 27Google Scholar.

22. Nation, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 120Google Scholar. Arnold Bennett even concluded that by the criteria of retribution, “theoretically, no penalties, material or moral, could be too stiff for Germany.” Daily News, 13 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:5.

23. Round Table, IX (1918), 37Google Scholar. See also Daily Express, 8 Oct. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2.

24. Lloyd George, in a speech reported in Times, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:5.

25. Daily Express, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2. See also ibid., 31 Oct. 1918, p. 2:2; Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:1-2, 13 Dec. 1918, p. 6:1-2; Daily News, 12 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2; speech by LordAsquith, reported in Daily Mail, 11 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:1.

26. Round Table, IX, 37.Google Scholar See also Daily Express, 4 Nov. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2; Nation, 9 Nov. 1918, pp. 148–50Google Scholar; speech by LordFairley, reported in Daily News, 26 Oct. 1918, p. 5Google Scholar:3.

27. Nation, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 121Google Scholar. See also Daily News, 13 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:4-5.

28. Ibid., 17 Oct. 1918, p. 4:2.

29. Radzinowicz, and Turner, , Penal Reform in England, p. 164Google Scholar.

30. See testimony by SirLushington, Godfrey quoted in Report from the Departmental Commission on Prisons, p. 8Google Scholar.

31. See SirBanbury, F. G., Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 138Google Scholar.

32. See Times, 30 May 1908, p. 13Google Scholar:5.

33. See Russell, Earl, Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 687Google Scholar.

34. C. H. Lyell, ibid., 198: 111.

35. Ibid. See also Akers-Douglas, A., Parl. Deb. 4 s., 190: 454Google Scholar.

36. See Morning Post, 2 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:6-7. “If crime or civil injury is to be prevented a disturber of the public peace when finally brought to book ought to pay not only the full cost of the damage done, but also the costs of the prosecution and a specific fine as punishment for the crime he has committed.”

37. See speech by Bishop of Liverpool reported in Manchester Guardian, 13 Nov. 1918, p. 3Google Scholar:4: “The world must learn that the way of the transgressor is hard.” See also Daily Telegraph, 22 Nov. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:5, 3 Nov. 1918, p. 6:4-5; Morning Post, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2; speech by Primate of Ireland, Crozier, J. B., quoted in Daily Mail, 26 Oct. 1918, p. 3Google Scholar:4; speech by Chamberlain, Austen quoted in SirPetrie, Charles, The Life and Letters of the Right Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain (London, 1940), II, 128Google Scholar.

38. See Morning Post, 23 Oct. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2-3, 30 Oct. 1918, p. 4:4, 13 Nov. 1918, p. 4:2-3; Times, 23 Dec. 1918, p. 7Google Scholar:5; speech of Chamberlain, reported in Daily Mail, 29 Nov. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:2.

39. Robertson, J. M., The German Idea of Peace Terms (London, 1917), p. 18Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that in 1908 Robertson felt that “Once it was decided that he [the criminal] was a danger to society … then society was entitled to keep that man in confinement for the rest of his life.” Parl. Deb. 4 s., 190: 478Google Scholar.

40. Morning Post, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:3.

41. Ibid., 23 Oct. 1918, p. 4:3.

42. See Daily Mail, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:3, 4 Dec. 1918, p. 5:2, 11 Dec. 1918, p. 6:1; Morning Post, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2-3.

43. Ibid., 8 Nov. 1918, p. 4:3.

44. See Curran, Peter, Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 136Google Scholar; Llewellyn Atherley-Jones, ibid., 190: 475; Devon, J., The Criminal and the Community (London, 1912), pp. 176–77Google Scholar; Ives, G., History of Penal Methods (London, 1914), pp. 325–39Google Scholar.

45. See SirCollins, W. J., Parl. Deb. 4 s., 197: 240–43Google Scholar; Atherley-Jones, ibid., 190: 270; Devon, , The Criminal and the Community, pp. 179, 310–11Google Scholar; Ives, , History of Penal Methods, pp. 205–39Google Scholar.

46. Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 135Google Scholar. See also letter from John, A. St. (Hon. Sec., Penal Reform League), Times, 12 June 1908, p. 20Google Scholar:6.

47. See letter of R. Anderson, ibid., 14 Dec. 1908, p. 10:2; Devon, , The Criminal and the Community, p. 170Google Scholar; Ives, , History of Penal Methods, pp. 334–40Google Scholar.

48. See Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 141–43Google Scholar.

49. Labour Leader, 14 Nov. 1918, p. 1Google Scholar. See also Lansbury, G., My Life (London, 1928), p. 182Google Scholar; Brand, C. F., British Labour's Rise to Power (Stanford, 1941), pp. 64–71Google Scholar; Brockway, F., Socialism over Sixty Years (London, 1940), pp. 181 ffGoogle Scholar. For a less socialistic expression of the same basic idea of environmental causation, see Morel, E. D., Truth and War (London, 1918), pp. 51 ff.Google Scholar, 127 ff.

50. Labour Leader, 26 Dec. 1918, p. 1Google Scholar:2. See also speech by Thomas, J. B. reported in Daily Mail, 4 Nov. 1918, p. 3Google Scholar:4; speech by Henderson, A. reported in Times, 9 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:4; Herald, 7 Dec. 1918, p. 12Google Scholar; New Statesman, 14 Dec. 1918, pp. 211–12Google Scholar.

51. From a speech by de la Warr, Earl quoted in Daily Mail, 11 Dec. 1918, p. 7Google Scholar:5; see also New Statesman, 16 Nov. 1918, pp. 129–30Google Scholar.

52. MacDonald, J. R., National Defense (London, 1918), p. 79Google Scholar. See also Herald, 30 Nov. 1918, p. 9Google Scholar; letter from Lansbury, G., Nation, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 130Google Scholar.

53. See interview with Henderson, reported in Morning Post, 29 Oct. 1918, p. 5Google Scholar:2; also Henderson, A., Prussian Militarism (London, 1917), p. 19Google Scholar.

54. See Herald, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 12Google Scholar; speech by Henderson, reported in Morning Post, 9 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:6; quotation from MacDonald, J. R. in Times, 5 Dec. 1918, p. 12Google Scholar:2.

55. As the Labour platform explained, there must be “reparations for injuries and violations of international law. But also reconciliation of all free peoples, and terms of peace which will enable them to live together in concord without provoking future wars.” Reproduced in Daily Mail, 13 Dec. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:6. See also Labour Leader, 14 Nov. 1918, p. 1Google Scholar; speech by Henderson, reported in Daily News, 15 Dec. 1918, p. 8Google Scholar:1.

56. It is interesting in this respect to note the overlapping membership of the following groups: (1) The unofficial Liberal committee formed in 1906 to work for peace. E. G., and Baker, P. J. N., J. Allen Baker, M.P., A Memoir (London, 1927), p. 156Google Scholar. (2) The group of Liberals who voted in 1908 against the retention of penal servitude. Parl. Deb. 4 s., 198: 142–43Google Scholar. (3) The group of Liberal members of the Union for Democratic Control — a group opposed, among other things, to the imposition of harsh peace terms — who, during or immediately after the war, joined the Labour Party. Swanwick, , Builders of Peace, pp. 50–53Google Scholar.

57. The Labour Party program was then adopted in modified form by Lloyd George, before Wilson and the principal Allied statesmen and Germany had accepted them. See Brand, British Labour's Rise to Power, chs. iv, vi.

58. Nation, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 127Google Scholar.

59. Manchester Guardian, 10 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:3.

60. Daily News, 3 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:6. See also Nation, 7 Dec. 1918, pp. 273–74Google Scholar, 21 Dec. 1918, pp. 344-45; Manchester Guardian, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:1-2, 2 Dec. 1918, p. 6:1-2, 6 Dec. 1918, p. 4:2-3.

61. The belief that deterrence and reformation could be successfully combined in a single punishment rested upon a Benthamite psychology which most Liberals had ceased to accept. They had not yet, however, abandoned either Jeremy Bentham's preference for a punishment at once reformatory and deterrent or his belief that this was possible. See Rodman, Barbee-Sue, “Bentham and the Paradox of Penal Reform,” J.H.I., XXIX (1968), 197–210Google Scholar.

62. Thus Asquith began using the phrase “a clean peace,” instead of talking about a “just peace.” Daily News, 10 Dec. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2. At the same time the Guardian began warning its readers, “Who thinks that history will say … that guilt was only to be found in Germany?” Manchester Guardian, 28 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:1. See also Daily News, 3 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:3.

63. One typical device, adopted by the Daily News and Daily Express as well as by some Labour and Liberal candidates, involved emphasizing one's commitment to the idea of “hanging the Kaiser,” while ignoring the problem of reparations versus indemnities. It should also be noted that neither the Economist nor the Observer ever discussed the issue in terms of justice. The Economist, rather naturally, was concerned simply with the practical economic issue; the Observer, on the other hand, ignored the whole question of the peace treaty until the spring of 1919.

64. See Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:2-3; Daily News, 30 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:3-4.

65. In this respect it is interesting to follow the editorial policy of the Daily Express, which began the campaign full of opinions as to the nature of a just peace, gradually adopted a neutral position on the issue of indemnities, and at the very end of the debate followed Lloyd George in adopting the necessity of exacting an indemnity: “Let us exact full penalty — an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” See Daily Express, esp. 12 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2, 16 Dec. 1918, p. 4:2. Equally in structive is the history of Sir Eric Geddes, who at the end of November was resisting the demand for an indemnity by casting doubt on its practicality. After being attacked in public meetings and by the press, he shifted his emphasis to insist, “I am entirely for Germany paying every cent of the war. Tenderness to the Huns is not, and never has been one of my faults.” See Daily Mail, 6 Dec. 1918, p. 5Google Scholar:6; Times, 2 Dec. 1918, p. 8Google Scholar:4; Daily Mail, 6 Dec. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:3.

66. See Nicolson, Harold, Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919-1925 (London, 1934), pp. 192–93Google Scholar; Dugdale, B. E. C., Arthur James Balfour, 1906-1930 (New York, 1937), II, 203–04Google Scholar; SirCallwell, Charles, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (New York, 1927), pp. 163–67Google Scholar; Churchill, Winston, The Aftermath (London, 1929), pp. 20–21Google Scholar. Lloyd George is the most important exception to this statement; he seems to have had no consistent, independent view of foreign affairs. For a thoughtful discussion of this point, see Davis, R. O., “Lloyd George; Leader or Led in British War Aims, 1916-1918,” Power, Public Opinion and Democracy, ed. Wallace, L. P. and Askew, W. C. (Durham, N.C., 1959)Google Scholar.

67. See speech by Bonar, Law reported in Times, 4 Dec. 1918, p. 12Google Scholar:5.

68. “A deep horror of war has entered into the souls of … millions of men.” Ibid., 5 Oct. 1918, p. 7:1. See also reports on the progress of the campaign in Daily News, 6 Dec. 1918, p. 5Google Scholar:4, 7 Dec. 1918, p. 5:4.

69. “The idea of the Allies is that the war should be followed by a vast expansion of international law, but this cannot occur without the punishment of offenders against those international laws that were already accepted.” Daily Express, 4 Nov. 1918, p. 2Google Scholar:2. See also Daily News, 17 Oct. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2; Morning Post, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2; Nation, 9 Nov. 1918, p. 149Google Scholar; Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct. 1918, p. 6Google Scholar:4.

70. See Nation, 21 Dec. 1918, pp. 337–39Google Scholar; Morning Post, 11 Dec. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:2-3.

71. See ibid., 7 Dec. 1918, p. 4:3, 12 Dec. 1918, p. 4:3.

72. See Radzinowicz, and Turner, , Penal Reform in England, p. 19Google Scholar. The 1925 report of prison commissioners stated that “Prisons … can only give efficient protection in one of two ways, either: (a) by removing the antisocial person from the community altogether or for a long time; or (b) by bringing about some change in him. Any general application of the first method would not be supported by public opinion … Unless some use can be made of the period of imprisonment to change the anti-social attitude of the offender … he may indeed be worse than before, if the only result has been to add a vindictive desire for revenge on society.” Howard, who quotes this passage, goes on to observe, “Thus the function of the 20th century prison was recognized as one of education: of changing a man's outlook and behavior persuasively, not violently.” Howard, , The English Prisons, p. 122Google Scholar.

73. Quoted in Manchester Guardian, 11 Nov. 1918, p. 4Google Scholar:1. For other comments on this aspect of British character, see the following letters to the editor: Times, 15 Nov. 1918, p. 9Google Scholar:15; Nation, 2 Nov. 1918, p. 130Google Scholar.