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A Gathering Storm.

Extract from “A gathering storm” by George Dangerfield.
Published New York, 1935
...

The General Election of 1913 took place in a troubled period.

Continued violence in Ulster, mainly on the part of the well armed and increasingly brutal UVF had led the Irish Parliamentary Party to threaten to withdraw support unless action to curb the Unionists was taken. Asquith was also being warned informally that if the army was ordered to take action against the UVF many officers would resign their commissions or face dismissal from the service rather than fire on those they saw as their own people.

At the same time disturbances continued to erupt across the North of England in 1912 and into 1913, leading to hundreds of detentions under the Emergency Powers Act. At first these detainees had been kept in their local area, but after numerous cases of them being broken out, in some cases by dissident units of the Territorial Army, they were moved to a makeshift camp at Frongoch in South Wales. The delicate feelings of Regular Army officers seemed not to apply when dealing with working class Northerners and the death toll continued to rise. That this was being done by a Liberal government, elected in the North on the back of working class votes was creating an increasing unease on the part of Northern Liberal MPs, who threatened their own rebellion unless the violence was not curbed.

Midway through the year 1913, yet another Transport Strike erupted. As in 1911 it spread from London to the other major ports, with much agitation by Syndicalists attempting to stir up a General Strike. Matters were not helped by the intervention of a newly aggressive Civilian Force, under a new President and with a reformed command structure modeled on Carson's UVF.

In the end, faced with waning support from his own party, increased violence in Ireland and the prospects of an Army mutiny, Asquith had no choice but to call yet another general election in September, the third since 1910, probably anticipating that the government would fall and the problem would pass to Bonar Law. The result was surprising, even though it still left the main parties roughly balanced as in 1910. The surprise came in the way the parties fragmented.

Conservative 251
Ind Conservative 1
Labour 69
Liberal 216
Liberal unionist 17
Irish Parliamentary Party 70
Irish Unionist 7
Ulster Socialist 10
All for Ireland 11
Independents 17
Scottish Nationalist 1

The Liberals had lost ground to the Conservatives but had managed to recover some seats previously held by Liberal Unionists. In Ireland the Irish Party had lost seats, but so had the Irish Unionists, where the split in the Orange Orders had led to the creation of a new party, the Ulster Socialists, who were nominally Unionist in sentiment, but strongly aligned with the Irish Trades Unions. Also a surprise was the appearance of the first Scottish Nationalist MP and a gaggle of Independents, largely in the North of England. These had not stood on any common platform, although all were generally to the left. In some respects they had much in common with the Ulster Socialists, in other ways they would have been indistinguishable from Labour. Some had in fact been Labour Party members or Trades Unionists, disgruntled at the failure, as they saw it of the party to stand up for Northern workers, or to oppose the Detention Orders. Some were avowed federalists. Two Welsh Nationalists also came close to being elected, losing to Labour candidates who were themselves sympathetic to the idea of Home Rule All Round.

In the end, although Asquith could probably put together a government around a promise of Home Rule for Ireland, the opportunity first fell to Bonar Law,as the leader of the Party with the largest number of seats. It was a Pyrrhic victory. The largest group he could put together only commanded about 275 seats as opposed to the 336 he needed for a bare majority. Although pressed by the likes of Willoughby de Broke to try nevertheless he reluctantly told the King that he would be unable to form a Government.

The position was not much better for Asquith. Any coalition he put together had to include Labour and he knew they would exert a high price. Just how high he would soon find out.