Although Britain was on the rise, unemployment was the highest it had been for a very long time. This was in a sense due to the continuation of the slow decline of the British economy which had begun in the 1870’s. Countries that wanted British goods had reverted to other means of receiving this as during was times it was hard to get them from Britain. After the war they did not come back to Britain to get the goods but kept on receiving them from other sources. Lloyd George then extended unemployment insurance which pleased many people as they were in financial difficulty after the war. He offered unemployment payments for no more than fifteen weeks in any one year and only to workers earning less than £250 a year. This enabled many families to eat as Britain was on the brink of starvation during the war. This added to Lloyd George’s popularity.
In addition Lloyd George passed The Sex Disqualification Removal Act in 1919; this allowed women to stand in parliament. This added to his popularity with women, which was a very large percentage of the country as many men had been killed in the war.
The Lloyd George government pledged to build `homes fit for heroes' for the troops returning from the war and the 1919 Housing Act was passed to fulfil this pledge; under the Act government grants were available, subject to compliance with strict conditions, for houses for the working classes. On 12th June 1919 Dr. Addison, President of the Local Government Board and the minister responsible for implementing the government housing policy, cut the first sod at Stourton. This added to Lloyd George’s popularity even more as troop returning from war got new houses ‘fit for heroes’.
Another problem that Lloyd George avoided was that the miners wanted to work a six hour day for a 30% increase in wages, the miners also wanted the government to keep control of the mines but the mine owners wanted the mines back. Lloyd George offered them a 7hour day and continued government control for the time being and in order to solve this issue a commission called the Sankey commission was set up. This commission was set up to try and negotiate a possible agreement between the miners and the mine owners. The miners accepted this offer.
In 1921 the Sankey commission was unable to negotiate an agreement between the miners and the mine owners. This enabled Lloyd George to avoid permanent nationalisation of the mines and he gave control back to the mine owners on the 1st April. The mine owners told the miners that they would have to work more hours for less pay due to the slump in exports. This outraged the miners who formed a triple alliance between the railway, transport and general workers and themselves the miners. They threatened a General Strike but on the 15th April the miner’s allies abandoned the idea, the miners were furious and regarded this as betrayal. The miners continued their strike, which lasted three months, but without support they could not win on any of their fronts. They returned to work and soon afterwards workers in other trades faced wage reductions. Lloyd George had just solved the problem of a general strike but he was losing support rapidly from the workers.
A reduction in government revenue due to the expense of unemployment benefits and a dip in business profits lead to a committee lead by Sir Eric Geddes, which recommended drastic cuts in government spending, was set up. The government took this advice and saved £64 million. This policy became known as the Geddes act. The government saved money by reducing expenditure on the army, navy, education, health services and council house buildings. Many believed that Lloyd George was doing the Conservatives dirty work for them as it was not really affecting the rich but was very damaging for the poor as they had many necessities damaged.
On the other hand Lloyd George did make errors which led to his downfall as prime minister; one of these errors was when he sent in British troops into to help the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian civil war. The Bolshevik’s won the civil war and the British troops had achieved nothing from going into war, they were pulled out of the war soon after the Bolshevik’s won. Many people resented Lloyd George’s intervention including the Russian Bolshevik’s, and many among the working class who admired the Russians. Lloyd George was nervous and consequently an Anglo-Russian trade treaty was signed in March 1921.
Another mistake Lloyd George made was at the Genoa Conference, which took place on Lloyd George’s initiative. The Germans were complaining that they would not be able to make the next reparations payments to France, and Lloyd George decided that he would hold a meeting to try and negotiate an agreement between the two. Other problems were also discussed there including the diplomatic relations between Russia and Europe war debts to USA. The conference fail horribly as France did not compromise at all and wanted the whole cost of the reparations payments from the German’s, the Americans refused to even attend the meeting and the new Russian government were insulted that they would have to repay debts from the previous Tsarist government. The German’s and the Russians withdrew from the meeting and signed their own treaty which consisted of the German’s officially recognizing the Russian government and both mutual debts being wiped off. This worried many nations as the two ‘suspect’ states were now reconsolidated. The finger was pointed towards Lloyd George as he set up the conference.
A major rift between English and Irish relations brewed immediately after the election, this called for Lloyd George to solve. This occurred when the 73 Sinn Fein MPs, who wanted Ireland as a separate country from Britain, organised their own parliament in Dublin, called the Dail. Sinn Fein proclaimed the Republic of Ireland. The IRA began a terrorist campaign against the police and the government retaliated by using the Blacks and Tans. Although Lloyd George found a temporary solution to the problem by partitioning Ireland he enraged many people as the conservatives were furious that the union between Ireland and Britain was destroyed, this was very problematic for Lloyd George’s coalition as he depended hugely on the conservatives support.
The event that lost decided Lloyd George’s fate as prime minister was the Chanak incident. The Turks threatened to break the treaty of Sevres which had handed most of Turkey’s European land over to the Greeks. The Turkish nationalists overthrew the Sultan for signing the treaty and were determined to overturn the treaty. The Greek army went in to overthrow the new nationalist government but were defeated by the Turks; the Turks then threatened the British forces occupying parts of Turkey. Lloyd George did not allow Britain to be bullied by the Turks as the Greeks had, he stated that if Turkey broke into the neutral zone then they would not only face war with Britain but the whole British Empire. Britain avoided warfare by agreeing that a new treaty should be signed called the treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Lloyd George made the fatal error of not consulting the other prime ministers of the commonwealth before promising them into a possible war. This outraged the conservative and was the last straw for them as they saw his unforgivable rashness as uncontrollable. From then on he had few days in charge.
Lloyd George’s antics had been to blame for his fall in popularity as he had a reputation for sleeping around with other MPs wives, as u can imagine this enraged many MPs. Before his election as leader of the coalition he didn’t have his whole liberal party supporting him as they deemed him untrustworthy. He used to sell Honours for his own personal fortune which was deemed unreasonable by many. He used to use his position to his advantage as he used to play the stock market to his advantage as he had inside knowledge because of his high position, this lead to him acquiring a small personal fortune due of his seedy antics and by abusing his position as leader of the country.
The conservatives had used him to get Britain through the toughest few years after the war and now had no more use for him as they could replace him with Bonar Law becoming the leader and the conservatives taking full control.
In conclusion I believe that Lloyd George’s attitudes and Antics were important but not very significant as the conservatives knew what they wanted to get out of him, and from day one his days were numbered as prime minister. If he averted some negative incidents then maybe he could have had another term in power but not much after that. I believe that the main incident that caused Lloyd George to fall from power was the Chanak crisis as it put the ‘cherry on top’ for the conservatives. This was because Lloyd George lost much respect of many people.
