Neville Chamberlain: Encyclopedia II - Neville Chamberlain - Early ministerial career

Neville Chamberlain - Early ministerial career

In December 1916, Chamberlain was in London when he received a message asking him to meet the new Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. In a brief meeting, Lloyd George offered Chamberlain the new position of Director of National Service, with responsibility for co-ordinating conscription and ensuring that essential war industries were able to function with sufficient workforces. Chamberlain had been recommended for the position by, among others, his brother Austen, and he agreed to accept the post; despite several interviews, however, he was left unclear about many aspects of the job. Over the following eight months only a few thousand volunteers were placed in industry. Chamberlain clashed several times with Lloyd George, who had taken a strong disliking to him, thus making the position even harder to operate. It had also been decided that Chamberlain did not need a seat in Parliament to undertake the job, which proved to be an error. Chamberlain finally resigned in 1917. He and Lloyd George retained a mutual contempt that would last throughout their political careers.

Embittered by his failure, Chamberlain decided to stand in the next general election, when he was successfully elected for the first time at the age of 49 – by far the oldest age for any future Prime Minister entering Parliament to date. He was offered a junior post at the Ministry of Health but declined it, refusing to serve again in a Lloyd George government. He also declined a knighthood. Chamberlain spent the next four years as a Conservative backbencher, despite his half-brother Austen becoming leader of Conservative MPs in 1921.

In October 1922, discontent amongst Conservatives against the Lloyd George Coalition Government erupted. At a meeting at the Carlton Club, the majority of MPs voted to leave the coalition, even though it meant abandoning their current leadership, as Austen had pledged to support Lloyd George. Fortuitously for Neville, he was abroad at the time of the meeting and so not forced to choose between supporting his brother's leadership and bringing down a man he despised.

In 1922, the Conservatives won the general election. The new Conservative Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, offered Neville the position of Postmaster General outside the Cabinet. There was much discussion amongst the Chamberlain family as to whether or not he should accept; in the end, Austen reluctantly agreed to allow Neville to accept the post.

The Minister of Health, Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, lost his seat and failed to win a by-election. To fill the position, Law chose Chamberlain, who entered the Cabinet for the first time as Minister of Health. In this position, he introduced a Housing Act which provided subsidies for private companies building affordable housing as a first step towards a programme of slum clearances. He also introduced the Rent Restriction Act, which limited evictions and required rents to be linked to the property's state of repair. Neville Chamberlain's main interest lay in housing. These ideas had stemmed from his father, Joseph Chamberlain. He had been elected Mayor of Birmingham before this and had incorporated his ideas for housing there, and when he became the Minister for Health, it gave him a chance to spread these ideas on a national basis.

When Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister four months later, he promoted Chamberlain to Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position which he held until the government fell in January 1924. His first Chancellorship was unusual in that he presented no budget.

Chamberlain remained one of the leading Conservative figures, but he faced a significant challenge in the 1924 general election from Oswald Mosley, head of the Labour Party in Birmingham. After a tense series of recounts, Chamberlain was elected by a mere 77 votes; in subsequent elections he stood in a safer seat. The Conservatives formed a new government, but Chamberlain declined a second term as Chancellor of the Exchequer, choosing to become Minister of Health again.

Over the next four and a half years, he successfully introduced 21 pieces of legislation, the boldest of which was perhaps the Rating and Valuation Act 1925, which radically altered local government finance. The act transferred the power to raise rates from the Poor Law boards of guardians to local councils, introduced a single basis and method of assessment for evaluating rates, and enacted a process of quinquennial valuations. The measure established Chamberlain as a strong social reformer, but it angered some in his own party. He followed it with the Local Government Act 1929, which abolished the boards of guardians altogether, transferring their powers to local governments and eliminating workhouses. The Act also eliminated rates paid by agriculture and reduced those paid by businesses, a measure forced by Winston Churchill and the Exchequer; the result was a strong piece of legislation that won Chamberlain many acclaims. Another prominent piece of legislation was the Widows, Orphans, and Old Age Pensions Act 1925, which did much to foster the development of the embryonic Welfare State in Britain.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early ministerial career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki