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The Peace Ballot and the Public

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

J.A. Thompson
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , Winter 1981 , pp. 381 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

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References

1 The New Statesman and Nation, 29 June 1935, p. 951.Google Scholar

2 Expressed in the “Conclusion” of Livingstone, Dame Adelaide, The Peace Ballot: The Official History (London, 1935), p. 59.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 60.

4 Churchill, Winston, The Second World War, vol. 1Google Scholar; The Gathering Storm (London, 1948), p. 133.Google ScholarPubMed

5 Noel-Baker, Philip, The First World Disarmament Conference 1932-33 (London, 1979), p. 141Google Scholar. Noel-Baker's assessment of The Peace Ballot is given on pages 138-141.

6 Nicolson, Harold, “British Public Opinion And Foreign Policy,” Public Opinion Quarterly 1 (1937): 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See The Times, July 1, 1935.

8 Livingstone, , The Peace Ballot, p. 28.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 19. See pages 19-26 for ways the Ballot was an educational experience for the country.

10 For the origins of the Ballot, see Thompson, J.A., “The ‘Peace Ballot’ and the ‘Rainbow’ Controversy,” The Journal of British Studies 20 (Spring, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ceadel, Martin, “The First British Referendum: the Peace Ballot, 1934-5,” English Historical Review 95 (October, 1980)Google Scholar. Michael Pugh contends that the Union's involvement in the Ballot was an effort to meet the rising pacifist challenge in the country. It was meant to exercise influence on government policy, but also “to capture pacifist sentiment” and “relieve pressure on the L.N.U. itself.” See his article, “Pacifism And Politics in Britain, 1931-1935,” The Historical Journal 23 (1980): 641–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 xsThe National Referendum Committee, said Austen Chamberlain, was attempting to snatch a verdict on “these complicated issues.” 5 Hansard 293: 1346 (8 Nov. 1934)Google Scholar. Sir John Simon charged that the Committee was seeking a favorable response “by hook or by crook.” 5 Hansard 293: 1315–16 (8 Nov. 1934).Google Scholar

12 Gilbert Murray, chairman of the executive committee of the LNU, used this argument in a letter to The Times, 28 Nov. 1934.

13 See the article by Cecil, in The Daily Herald, 8 Nov. 1934.Google Scholar

14 Cecil contended that the Ballot did raise issues of war and peace. See his letter in The Times, 10 Nov. 1934. For the admission of the official history, see Livingstone, , The Peace Ballot, p. 12Google Scholar. The controversial phrase was quietly dropped in December, 1934 and was replaced on all new publications by the simple title, “National Declaration.” The change was ordered by the National Declaration Conference, a policy-making body composed of representatives from all sponsoring organizations. See the minutes of the Conference for 18 December 1934 in the Philip Noel-Baker Papers, 2/22, Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge.

15 Gilbert Murray cited this statement and took exception to it in a letter to The Times, 28 Nov. 1934.

16 The Times, 12 Nov. 1934.

17 Nicolson, , “British Public Opinion And Foreign Policy,” p. 58.Google Scholar

18 Branson, Noreen and Heinemann, Margot, Britain in the 1930s (New York, 1971), p. 307Google Scholar. The Ballot was offered as “the moral issue”, said a writer to The Times. It reminded him of the prohibition crusade in the United States. See letter by John Headlam, 17 Nov. 1934.

19 In frequent articles and editorials appearing in the Daily Express during Nov.-Dec. 1934. To sign the Ballot would be “to pledge your sons, husbands, brothers to march to war against any nation that the League designated,” according to an editorial of November 12.

20 Martin Ceadel argues that the campaign became “an anti-government crusade” and “the nearest thing in the inter-war period to a true ‘Popular Front.’” This explains the doubling of the anticipated total of votes. See “The First Referendum: the Peace Ballot, 1934-35.”

21 The view of the Daily Express, June 28, 1935.

22 The Times, Nov. 19, 1934.

23 The Times, Nov. 15,1934.

24 Approval was given in a blue leaflet, reproduced in the Manchester Guardian, Nov. 10, 1934.

25 Amery, Leopold S., My Political Life, 2 vols. (London, 1953), 2:165.Google Scholar

26 See “1. British Institute of Public Opinion” Public Opinion Quarterly 4(1940): 77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Letter to The Times, Nov. 14, 1934.

28 See The Times, Nov. 15, 1934, and the objections of Chamberlain and others in the blue leaflet entitled “Observations.”

29 The blue and green leaflets have been reproduced in full in J. A. Thompson, “The ‘Peace Ballot’ and the ‘Rainbow’ Controversy.”

30 See the Manchester Guardian for Nov. 10 and 13. The officer was C.E. Clift, Secretary of the Manchester District Council.

31 See Cecil's, article in the Daily Herald, Nov. 8, 1943Google Scholar, and his letter to The Times, July 25, 1934.

32 The Times, July 1 and 8, 1935. For an early attack on the Ballot, see The Times, Nov. 19, 1934.Google Scholar

33 The percentage of the total answers voting “Yes” on each question was: Question 1: 99.2; Question 2: 88.0; Question 3: 84.6; Question 4: 86.3; Question 5a 85.5 and Questions 5b: 56.4 See the Manchester Guardian, Nov. 22, 1934.

34 The Daily Express, Nov. 24, 1934. The Daily Express took another poll in July, 1935. All households in the Northwood district of Uxbridge, Middlesex, an area which “had shown the largest possible vote in favour of sanctions” under the Ballot (3,791 for economic sanctions, 386 against; 2,814 for military measures, 775 against), were polled on two “straight precise questions,” unlike those “airyfairy” ones of the Ballot. The questions, and the poll results, were published in the Express on July 31:

1. When Italy goes to war with Abyssinia are you opposed to using British army under the orders of the League of Nations to fight the Italians? Yes or No?

2. Are you opposed to using the British Navy under the orders of the League of Nations to blockade the Italian harbours? Yes or No?

On the first question 1,510 voted “Yes” and 119 “No”. On the second question 1,500 voted “Yes” and 127 “No”. The Express interpreted the outcome as a “15-To-One Vote for Splendid Isolation.

35 Nicolson, , “British Public Opinion and Foreign Policy,” p. 59.Google Scholar

36 See the Daily Herald for Nov. 16, 20, 23, 24, 28, 30 and Dec. 22.

37 Daily Herald, Nov. 13, 1934.

38 Daily Herald, Nov. 30, 1934.

39 The phrase and thesis is found in Ceadel's, Martin important study, Pacifism In Britain 1914-1945: The Defining of A Faith (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar. See especially chapters nine, “Pacifist Internationalism, 1934-5,” and eleven, “The 1935 Crisis and Pacifist Inspiration.”

40 Murray to Cecil, March 9, 1934, Cecil Papers, 51132, British Library, London.

41 Manchester Guardian, Nov. 13, 1934.

42 Baldwin made the pledge when he, Samuel Hoare, and Anthony Eden were presented the final figures of the Ballot by a deputation headed by Cecil. See The Times, July 24, 1935.

43 The questions were “possibly over-simplified,” said Murray, but space was given for comments and reservations. See his letter to The Times, Nov. 28, 1934.

44 Carr, E.H., “Public Opinion As A Safeguard Of Peace,” International Affairs 15 (November-December, 1936): 858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Vansittart, Lord, The Mist Procession (London, 1958), p. 504.Google Scholar