Parliament

Abstract

Entering the House of Commons was a great moment for Gooch. It brought him to one of the two most important professional tasks of his life, the other being the co-editorship of British Documents on the Origins of the War. He was fortunate enough to enter Parliament at one of the most interesting stages in its long history, supporting the reform programme of a talented Liberal government, under a Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who inspired his devotion.¹ He was not so happy with Campbell-Bannerman’s successor, Asquith. Though Gooch recognised his second leader’s qualities, he missed in him the personal warmth of his predecessor. In addition, they disagreed on women’s suffrage. In Gooch’s view, it was Asquith’s opposition alone which prevented the Liberal Government from carrying but a long-overdue constitutional reform. Gooch himself voted for various — unsuccessful — private members’ bills granting women the right to vote. On the positive side, Gooch appreciated Asquith’s support for social reform and his stalwart championship of the Commons against the Lords. Gooch’s lukewarm attitude towards Asquith can be adequately explained without going back to the divisions that plagued the Liberal party during the Boer War. Though the split was never fully healed, even after the 1906 victory, Gooch’s later friendship with Haldane shows that Asquith’s liberal imperialist past was not a major factor in his attitude to Asquith.²