(Excerpt from National Defence: A Study in Militarism Whe...)
Excerpt from National Defence: A Study in Militarism When the war. Broke out conscription could not be avoided. We had committed ourselves to policies and expeditions which made every other method of raising the necessary troops a mere makeshift. If voluntaryism could have been saved, it was not by recruiting meetings which only hastened it to its end, but by a policy which at the outset would have defined in severely precise language our responsibilities and our purpose in entering the war, and which would have kept open channels for diplomatic negotiation. That was never done except in perorations which increased fervour and misunderstanding at the same time. When the Coalition was formed, voluntaryism, doomed for months, actually died, because the Cabinet had to be kept together, and in the face of the military demands the conscriptionists had to be appeased. Labour in particular lost its chance of saving the nation by keeping control upon militarism, and the country set out upon the road to military victory through the ruin of civil liberty. We sacrificed the future to the present when we might have saved both. In this book I deal with the future. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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journalist politician statesman
Ramsay MacDonald, born in October 1866 in the little peasant and fishing village of Lossiemouth in Morayshire, Scotland, was the illegitimate son of Anne Ramsay, a farm servant, and John MacDonald, a plowman and a Highlander from the Black Isle of Ross. He was reared by his mother and his grandmother, Isabella Ramsay, a woman of strong religious convictions, remarkable intelligence, and character.
He attended first the Free Kirk School in Lossiemouth and then, the Drainie Parish School, where at 15 he was the leading pupil and at 16 became a pupil-teacher.
In 1885 MacDonald went south to Bristol to a position in a Church-sponsored guild for young men. He associated with the Bristol branch of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), a Marxist-oriented society. His employment soon proved unsatisfactory, and, after a brief return to Lossiemouth, he went to London in 1886. Secretaryships with the Scottish Home Rule Association in 1888 and with the Fellowship of the New Life in 1892, as well as membership on the executive of the Fabian Society from 1894 to 1900, made him known and respected.
In 1894 he joined the Independent Labour party (ILP), whose advocacy of both socialist doctrine and labor representation in Parliament attracted him. In 1895 he was an unsuccessful ILP candidate for Parliament. All these years he was educating himself by voracious reading.
In the meantime, MacDonald's career developed quickly. He wrote for labor and socialist journals. When the Labour Representation Committee (LRC; later the Labour party) was organized in 1900, MacDonald was unanimously elected its first secretary. In 1903 he negotiated with the Liberals an agreement whereby in 35 parliamentary constituencies the Liberals would not oppose Labour. In 1906 the LRC was victorious in 29 constituencies, including Leicester, where MacDonald was elected. He at once became the party's most effective spokesman in the Commons.
In 1911 he became chairman of the parliamentary Labour party. When party differences over the war developed, MacDonald resigned his chairmanship. He was one of the founders in 1914 of the Union of Democratic Control, which sought parliamentary control over foreign policy. Repudiation of secret diplomacy was also a main theme of the Labour party statement on war aims in December 1917, drafted largely by MacDonald. Defeated in 1918, MacDonald returned to the Commons in 1922 and was elected chairman of the parliamentary Labour party.
As such, he formed the first Labour government, in January 1924. He drafted, in large part, "Labour and the Nation, " the party manifesto in the election of 1929, which gave Labour a plurality in the Commons.
In his second government the world economic situation steadily worsened, with mounting unemployment placing unprecedented demands on the Unemployment Insurance Fund and rendering precarious the finances of the country. Failure of his Cabinet to agree on measures brought MacDonald's resignation in August 1931.
Under pressure from the King and with the support of other party leaders, MacDonald formed a national government, an action soon repudiated by his party. The new government stabilized the financial situation and won an overwhelming mandate from the electorate in October, MacDonald remaining as prime minister until 1935, though with little Labour support. In general he accepted Conservative policies, notably a return to a general tariff in 1932, but failing health greatly reduced his effectiveness.
After inaugurating rearmament in March 1935, he resigned and took the honorary post of lord president of the Council. Though defeated in 1935, he was returned to Parliament in 1936 by a by-election from the Scottish Universities. He died in November 1937, while on a holiday trip to South America.
He became the first Labour Prime Minister, the first from a working-class background and one of the very few without a university education. He was one of the great architects of the British Labour party. In 1924 he formed the first Labour government.
His major achievement was the acceptance by France and Germany of the Dawes Plan for the payment of German reparations. His government recognized the Soviet Union. In his second government his main achievements were again in foreign policy; his talks with President Herbert Hoover were a successful preliminary to the Five Power Naval Conference in London, over which he presided with great skill.
(Excerpt from National Defence: A Study in Militarism Whe...)
MacDonald had long been a leading spokesman for internationalism in the Labour movement; at first he verged on pacifism. He opposed the Boer War and resigned from the Fabian Society over the issue. He condemned the British entry, but he was no pacifist and believed that the war must be won, with peace coming as soon as possible.
He became a member of the London Trades Council and in the Fabian Society.
With his wife by his side, MacDonald readily acquired the manners, though not the prejudices, of the ruling class. Their home became a focal point for the labor and socialist world in London. The MacDonalds travels, so important for his later role as diplomat.
He demonstrated energy, executive ability, and political astuteness.
Quotes from others about the person
Historian John Shepherd states that, "MacDonald's natural gifts of an imposing presence, handsome features and a persuasive oratory delivered with an arresting Highlands accent made him the iconic Labour leader. "
In 1896 MacDonald married Margaret Gladstone, daughter of John Hall Gladstone, a prominent scientist and one of the founders of the YMCA. His marriage made him less skeptical and brought an income sufficient for independence. They lived in London and raised a family of six children. Margaret MacDonald died in 1911.
Following his wife's death, MacDonald commenced a relationship with Lady Margaret Sackville.
