Lord Beaverbrook by David Adams Richards Page A
Authors: David Adams Richards
Tags: Biography
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retirement to be the saviour of the Conservative Party.
Ill and elderly, Bonar Law came back in June 1922 and opposed Chamberlain in a leadership runoff over the very fact of the coalition. The coalition finally fell. In the next general election, the Liberals went down to defeat.
It was a horrendous election. William Manchester writes that Churchill’s wife, Clementine, campaigning for her Liberal husband in Ireland, was spit upon. The noble local Irish paper made a point of mentioning that she carried “her un-baptized baby in her arms.” Churchill himself was under threat of death, and had armed guards at his door. Beaverbrook of course did not wish this. But he spent money to help the Tory candidates wherever he could. So, in the election of 1922, Bonar Law became what Max had wanted him to be since 1912, prime minister of Great Britain.
Winston’s son, Randolph Churchill, stated in his book Lord Derby, “King of Lancashire” that “the prime mover and principal agent in the plan to bring down the coalition Government” was Lord Beaverbrook.
Max would become known forever as what Jenkins liked to call, in his biography of Churchill, “a bounder” and a deeply distrusted press baron. And this is much how he is perceived today, even by many in our hometown.
Well, Churchill did not distrust our Max, nor did Bonar Law.
WITH BONAR LAW as prime minister, Max Aitken was perhaps at the height of his power as a back-room strategist. He wanted to use the new power of Bonar Law to support, among other things, his vision of Free Trade. Again, this was the main thing on his mind. Commonwealth Free Trade was to him the balm to keep Britain great, to keep it Imperial, without the need to meddle in Europe, and to safeguard against the great power of the United States, in financial, not military, forums. He wrote about this continually in his papers’ editorials.
Max was of his day. He believed in his own supremacy—as a white Englishman. He did not consider that the world had changed and many who had benefited most from Empire no longer claimed they wanted it. Max was old-fashioned and, in his own way, naive—as men from the colonies are at times, who believe in Empire more than those who are more privy to its blessings. In some ways Max believed he was a godsend tothe people of England. If not, why would he be there? And it was in some part not only Empire Free Trade but Empire consolidation—a kind of unity, almost like amalgamation—that he was working toward.
But psychologically any talk of Empire after such a terrible war was in bad taste. I don’t think Beaverbrook understood this. His time, if he had it (and he did have it), was gone over yonder.
And then, Bonar Law, prime minister for only seven months, died in 1923.
With a vacancy at the top of government, the king had to choose to replace the deceased Bonar Law. It was said the Conservatives wanted to turn toward the common man. So Law’s former clerk, and second-term MP, Stanley Baldwin, suddenly found himself “The Man.” Truly a quixotic choice.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin! From 1923 to 1937 it was to be the age of Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin in Tired Great Britain.
Since they hated each other, it was a stroke of fate that would put Max Aitken into the wilderness for years.
Max was much like Tolstoy’s unfortunate dice player. At first, everything he threw worked to his call. From Saint John to London, he could not seem to roll bad dice. Then, after a time, try as he might, the dice no longer went his way.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And Then Poor Gladys Dies
What kind of life she had, we can imagine. Like one of the characters in Anna Karenina , she was left alone with the children for long stretches of time while her husband gallivanted. Some say she did not mind this—the price to pay, so to speak—and was not a great bedfellow for him, often being asleep by nine at night, not really on the same beam. He loved the gay evenings, and
Ill and elderly, Bonar Law came back in June 1922 and opposed Chamberlain in a leadership runoff over the very fact of the coalition. The coalition finally fell. In the next general election, the Liberals went down to defeat.
It was a horrendous election. William Manchester writes that Churchill’s wife, Clementine, campaigning for her Liberal husband in Ireland, was spit upon. The noble local Irish paper made a point of mentioning that she carried “her un-baptized baby in her arms.” Churchill himself was under threat of death, and had armed guards at his door. Beaverbrook of course did not wish this. But he spent money to help the Tory candidates wherever he could. So, in the election of 1922, Bonar Law became what Max had wanted him to be since 1912, prime minister of Great Britain.
Winston’s son, Randolph Churchill, stated in his book Lord Derby, “King of Lancashire” that “the prime mover and principal agent in the plan to bring down the coalition Government” was Lord Beaverbrook.
Max would become known forever as what Jenkins liked to call, in his biography of Churchill, “a bounder” and a deeply distrusted press baron. And this is much how he is perceived today, even by many in our hometown.
Well, Churchill did not distrust our Max, nor did Bonar Law.
WITH BONAR LAW as prime minister, Max Aitken was perhaps at the height of his power as a back-room strategist. He wanted to use the new power of Bonar Law to support, among other things, his vision of Free Trade. Again, this was the main thing on his mind. Commonwealth Free Trade was to him the balm to keep Britain great, to keep it Imperial, without the need to meddle in Europe, and to safeguard against the great power of the United States, in financial, not military, forums. He wrote about this continually in his papers’ editorials.
Max was of his day. He believed in his own supremacy—as a white Englishman. He did not consider that the world had changed and many who had benefited most from Empire no longer claimed they wanted it. Max was old-fashioned and, in his own way, naive—as men from the colonies are at times, who believe in Empire more than those who are more privy to its blessings. In some ways Max believed he was a godsend tothe people of England. If not, why would he be there? And it was in some part not only Empire Free Trade but Empire consolidation—a kind of unity, almost like amalgamation—that he was working toward.
But psychologically any talk of Empire after such a terrible war was in bad taste. I don’t think Beaverbrook understood this. His time, if he had it (and he did have it), was gone over yonder.
And then, Bonar Law, prime minister for only seven months, died in 1923.
With a vacancy at the top of government, the king had to choose to replace the deceased Bonar Law. It was said the Conservatives wanted to turn toward the common man. So Law’s former clerk, and second-term MP, Stanley Baldwin, suddenly found himself “The Man.” Truly a quixotic choice.
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin! From 1923 to 1937 it was to be the age of Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin in Tired Great Britain.
Since they hated each other, it was a stroke of fate that would put Max Aitken into the wilderness for years.
Max was much like Tolstoy’s unfortunate dice player. At first, everything he threw worked to his call. From Saint John to London, he could not seem to roll bad dice. Then, after a time, try as he might, the dice no longer went his way.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And Then Poor Gladys Dies
What kind of life she had, we can imagine. Like one of the characters in Anna Karenina , she was left alone with the children for long stretches of time while her husband gallivanted. Some say she did not mind this—the price to pay, so to speak—and was not a great bedfellow for him, often being asleep by nine at night, not really on the same beam. He loved the gay evenings, and
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