Philip Snowden was a profoundly controversial figure in the early years of the British labor movement. His name is closely associated with that of Ramsay MacDonald in the “betrayal” of 1931, which saw the collapse of the second Labour government, an event that many construed as having arisen from his policies as Labours first chancellor of the exchequer.
Background
Snowden was born on 18 July 1864, in the remote Pennine moorland parish of Cowling, near Keighley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was raised in a small textile town where Nonconformity, particularly Wesleyan Methodism, shaped community life.
Education
He received a basic elementary education, worked as a clerk, and eventually joined the civil service. He was forced to leave his post due to a bone deformity that resulted either from an accident or an illness; and while he was recuperating, he became involved in the activities of the Liberal Party.
Career
In local politics, Snowden was elected to the Cowling school board and Keighley town council. He was also the editor of the Keighley Labour Journal. Nonetheless, it is for his parliamentary activity that he is most famous. After two un-successful parliamentary contests, he was elected M.P. for Blackburn in 1906, and was twice reelected in 1910. However, his opposition to World War I led to his defeat at Blackburn in the 1918 general election. Nevertheless, he returned to Parliament as M.P. for Colne Valley in the 1922 general election, and maintained that seat through four general elections until he was raised to the House of Lords as Lord Snowden of Ickomshaw, in November 1931. During his time in the Commons, Snowden was chancellor of the exchequer in the first two Labour governments, in 1924 and from 1929 to 1931. As Viscount Snowden of Ickornshaw, he was briefly a member of Ramsay MacDonalds National government, acting as Lord Privy Seal until his resignation on 28 September 1932.
He was a staunch member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and acted as its chairman and treasurer at various times between 1900 and 1921. During World War I, he also mounted the ILPs Peace Campaign of 1917 and attended the convention of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council, held at Leeds in June 1917, at which a mixture of Marxists and socialists sought to bring about international peace in the wake of the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
From 1922 on, as M.P. for Colne Valley, Snowden made the Labour Party his political home. He was frustrated at Ramsay MacDonald’s return as Labour’s parliamentary leader in 1922, but served under him as chancellor of the exchequer and shadow chancellor. In the former role he gave free rein to his notion of balancing the budget, reducing the national debt, and if necessary, deflating the economy. In 1924 he was alarmed at the rhetoric of his fellow cabinet ministers, which gave the impression of great increases in expenditure when, in fact, little extra was being spent.
Although his tenacity brought him some personal success, and Britain some economic savings at the conference on war reparations in 1929, it is clear that his policies were inappropriate to the economic climate of 1929—1931. The Wall Street crash had reverberated around the world and led to a rise in unemployment in Britain, which increased government expenditure enormously. The enormous deficit of £100-£170 million—representing between a quarter and a fifth of the national budget— placed a severe downward pressure on the pound, resulting in a serious economic crisis. Snowden, concerned about sound finance, advocated the twin policies of a 10 percent cut in unemployment benefit and increased taxation on the middle classes (which he referred to as “equality of sacrifice”). The Labour government was deeply divided on the cuts, even though Snowden maintained that they were required by the international bankers in order to justify the loans to Britain needed to restore economic confidence in the pound. The indecisive vote on the benefit cuts on 23 August 1931, and the fact that the tax increases seemed to have been abandoned, led to the resignation of the second Labour government and the formation of the National government on 24 August 1931, in which Snowden was appointed Lord Privy Seal.
Snowden became alarmed when Britain was taken off the gold standard on 21 September 1931, but he assured himself that it was only a temporary situation and not the basis of a move toward protectionism. Yet less than a year later, when it became clear to him that the government had indeed abandoned free-trade policies, Snowden resigned. Although he continued thereafter to launch personal attacks on MacDonald from his seat in the Lords, his political activity was ineffective. He died of a heart attack, following a long illness, on 15 May 1937.
Politics
In January 1895 he began to participate in the Independent Labour Party, which was active in the West Riding.
Views
Throughout his life Snowden adhered to radical Liberal sentiments. He opposed World War I, was a dedicated free trader, and abhorred borrowing. His economic policies were those of an old Gladstonian Liberal.
Connections
His wife, Ethel Annakin, whom he married in 1905, contributed to his favorable views on women’s suffrage.