198. Unfit for heroes

At the end of the First World War, a devastating worldwide flu pandemic killed perhaps as many as 50-100 million around the globe, and even 228,000 in Britain. That was a cruel addition to the 880,000 lost to the war itself.

Despite that blow, Lloyd George’s government did what it could to realise its objective of making Britain a ‘land fit for heroes’. That meant moving on with the programme of social reforms he’d already launched before the war. He made considerable progress in health, education, pensions and housing. However, Lloyd George was a Liberal Prime Minister in a Tory-dominated government. That imposed serious limitations on how far he could take a radical programme.

This was made worse by the economic downturn that hit the world economy in 1920. The Conservatives, never very keen on all this social radicalism, became increasingly concerned about Lloyd George when economic conditions it more difficult than ever to finance the kind of public spending that his reforms required. The Prime Minister, coming under growing pressure from his Conservative partners, tried to placate them by dumping a Minister most associated with this high spending, even though he was an important ally to him. Christopher Addison, perhaps the most distinguished medic ever to become a Member of the British Parliament, was driven from his position and soon afterwards resigned.

Something similar happened with Edwin Montagu who, as Secretary of State for India, had begun to introduce a programme of political reform there. Confused and far too limited, it was still a well-intentioned initiative, hated by the arch-imperialists, such as the Conservative MPs who had backed General Dyer, the man responsible for the Amritsar massacre. Eventually, Montagu too had to go.

The trouble was that throwing raw allies to the Tory so-called diehards in this way didn’t blunt their growing opposition to him. It did, however, deprive him of much-needed support.

Illustration: Christopher Addison in 18917, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery x67932 (left), and Edwin Montagu, public domain.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.