The White Papers, 1935–1936

2018 ◽  
pp. 143-172
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Miller
Keyword(s):  
National Government ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
General Election ◽  
The Public

This chapter focuses on the attempt to ‘sell’ rearmament – which the National Government increasingly believed was necessary – to the public through a series of White Papers outlining its position on defence in 1935 and 1936. The 1935 general election, the League of Nations Peace Ballot, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and the appointment of further subcommittees on defence requirements (and their effects on rearmament) are all discussed. The latter part of the chapter discusses Lithgow’s business empire, part of which was built on information he received through his work as a government advisor.

Simon and Eden at the Foreign Office, 1931–1935

1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
David Dutton
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Government ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Public Mind ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Standing Up ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The One

This is according to Protocol. More briefly ‘Dear Anthony meet me at Geneva. Yrs. Cleopatra’Very few of the figures who held responsibility for the making and direction of British foreign policy in the 1930s did so with much benefit to their subsequent historical reputations. Three of the four men who occupied the post of Foreign Secretary after the General Election of 1931 appeared in the cast list of the ‘Guilty Men’, vilified by the triumvirate of left-wing journalists who wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Cato’ in the dramatic summer of 1940. That vilification has been only partially redeemed by the efforts of later revisionist biographers. Certainly, Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Halifax all left the Foreign Office with their political reputations lower in the public mind than at the time of taking office. The exception to this experience was, of course, the case of Anthony Eden who, at the time of his resignation in February 1938 after more than six years as a member of the National Government, stood, in Churchill's famous words, as the ‘one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender’. The making of his reputation had begun in the early 1930s when Eden occupied only subordinate office within the administration. Yet an examination of the making of British foreign policy in the years 1931–5 will show that popular perceptions of Eden's position and of an apparently serious rift between him and his departmental superior were somewhat misleading.

The Peace Ballot and the Public

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Private Enterprise ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
The Public ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
British People

In 1934-35 more than 11 ½ million adults in Great Britain completed the famous “Peace Ballot” (the official title was A National Declaration on the League of Nations and Armaments) designed to test, and indeed to demonstrate, popular support for the League and “the collective peace system.” The massive response exceeded all expectations and greatly impressed observers. It was, said the New Statesman, “the most remarkable popular referendum ever initiated and carried through by private enterprise.”But what did the Ballot demonstrate? Did it return a “plain and decisive” answer as Lord Cecil of Chelwood, President of the League of Nations Union and Chairman of the National Referendum Committee, claimed?Supporters of the Ballot had no doubt about the national verdict. Britons, said Cecil, had shown “overwhelming approval” of the collective system. They were, according to Winston Churchill, “willing, and indeed resolved, to go to war in a righteous cause,” provided that all action was taken under the auspices of the League. The British people were ready to fulfill their obligations under the Covenant, Philip Noel-Baker later wrote. The country was prepared to stop Mussolini by armed force if that should be required.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 235-242
Author(s):  
Steven McKevitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
World Wide Web ◽  
World Wide ◽  
New Labour ◽  
General Election ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Media Platforms

The Conclusion draws together the main findings of the study. Britain in 1997 was a far more emotional and expressive society. This is highlighted by two events: the public response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the success of New Labour in the general election. The extent to which persuasion industries were responsible for bringing these changes about is discussed. There is a discussion of some areas for further study: the subsequent impact of the World Wide Web and social media platforms; persuasion aimed at children/juvenile consumption, and the development of single British brand throughout the period—for example, Virgin.

A Contrast in Styles at the Office of Works. Layard and Ayrton: Aesthete and Economist

1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. H. Port
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Growth ◽  
The State ◽  
General Election ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Purse ◽  
Special Duty

‘The rapid growth of wealth, especially among the classes of the greatest activity and enterprise, has led, for a number of years past, to a diminished watchfulness, outside the walls of Parliament, respecting the great and cardinal subject of economy in the public charges, and the relation between the income of the State and its expenditure. I earnesdy desire that the paramount interest of the lately enfranchised classes in thrifty administration may operate powerfully to bring about a change.’ So Gladstone trumpeted the leitmotif of his administration, at the outset of the general election campaign in October 1868. The fundamental importance of fiscal strategy in Gladstone's politics has recently been emphasized. Faced with an ineluctable increase in civil expenditure and rising expectations of governmental contributions to the public weal – what he termed ‘scattering grants at the solicitation of individuals and classes’, the system of ‘making things pleasant all round’ and stimulating ‘local cupidity to feed upon the public purse’ – Gladstone was determined that his ministry, backed as he believed by the votes of the thrifty working classes, should reduce such expectations. ‘I t is the special duty of public men’, he told his constituents soon after taking office, ‘to watch the very beginnings of evil’ in regard to any relaxing of the general principles of economy and thrift; and he promised to reduce expenditure in the coming year.

The Conservative Party and the Formation of the National Government: August 1931

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Ball
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
National Government ◽  
General Election ◽  
British History ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Intrinsic Interest

On 24 August 1931 the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, tendered the resignation of the second Labour government. In its place he became the premier of an all-party ‘National’ cabinet. This included both the leader of the Conservative party, Stanley Baldwin, and the acting-leader of the Liberal party, Sir Herbert Samuel, together with a number of their senior colleagues. This temporary emergency administration went on to win a landslide majority in the general election of October 1931, and to govern for the ensuing decade. The crisis which created the National government has proved to be of enduring fascination, as a result of its intrinsic interest as the major political crisis of the inter-war period and its profound consequences for subsequent British history. However, historical attention has been principally focused upon the problems of the Labour government, the decisions of Ramsay MacDonald, and the contribution of King George V. As a result the role of the Conservative party – often portrayed as having been the sole benefactor from these events – has been either neglected for its supposed passivity or misunderstood in its mood and intention.

The epistemic project of open diplomacy and the League of Nations: Co-evolution between diplomacy, PR and journalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-621
Author(s):  
Arne Lorenz Gellrich ◽  
Erik Koenen ◽  
Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz
Keyword(s):  
League Of Nations ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Communication History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Collective Biography ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Method Approach

PurposeThe article discusses findings from a research project on the communication history of the League of Nations. It departs from the League's normative goal of “open diplomacy”, which, from an analytical standpoint, can be framed as an “epistemic project” in the sense of a non-linear and ambivalent negotiation by communication of what “open diplomacy” should and could be. The notion of the “epistemic project” serves as an analytical concept to understand this negotiation of open diplomacy across co-evolving actors' constellations from journalism, PR and diplomacy.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a mixed-method approach, including hermeneutic document analysis of UN archival sources and collective biography/prosopography of 799 individual journalists and information officers.FindingsIt finds that the League's conceptualisations of the public sphere and open diplomacy were fluent and ambivalent. They developed in the interplay of diverse actors' collectives in Geneva. The involved roles of information officers, journalists and diplomats were permeable, heterogenous and – not least from a normative perspective – conflictive.Originality/valueThe subject remains under-researched, especially from the perspective of communication studies. The study is the first to approach it with the described research framework.

Burying the News for the Public: Agenda Cutting of the Tamil Newspapers and MIC Candidate Facebook during the 13th General Election

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasmah Zanuddin ◽  
◽  
Jen Sern Tham ◽  
Fauziah Ahmad ◽  
Badrul Redzuan Abu Hassan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Election ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Agenda Cutting

Church and State in England

1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-92
Author(s):  
E. P. Chase
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
General Election ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Church

In that revolutionary movement by which slowly and unobtrusively the government of England has been made over in the last twenty years, no institution has changed more perceptibly than the Church of England. Church and State: The Report of the Archbishops’ Commission on the Relations between Church and State, dated 1935 but withheld from the public by the Commission until after the general election of that year, sets forth the latest stage in a notable constitutional development.

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