(1) Ramsay MacDonald, speech in the House of Commons on why he was opposed to Britain's involvement in the First World War (3rd August, 1914)

There has been no crime committed by statesmen of this character without those statesman appealing to the nations' honour. We fought the Crimean War because of our honour. We rushed to South Africa because of out honour. The Right Hon. Gentleman (Sir Edward Grey) is appealing to us today because of our honour. What is the use of talking about coming to the aid of Belgium, when, as a matter of fact, you are engaging in a whole European War which is now going to leave the map of Europe in the position it is in now?

 

(2) Union of Democratic Control Manifesto (August, 1914)

1. No Province shall be transferred from one Government to another without the consent by plebiscite or otherwise of the population of such Province.

2. No Treaty, Arrangement, or Undertaking shall be entered upon in the name of Great Britain without the sanction of Parliament. Adequate machinery for ensuring democratic control of foreign policy shall be created.

3. The Foreign Policy of Great Britain shall not be aimed at creating alliances for the purpose of maintaining the 'Balance of Power', but shall be directed to concerted action between the Powers, and the setting up of an International Council, whose deliberations and decisions shall be public, with such machinery for securing international agreement as shall be the guarantee of an abiding peace.

4. Great Britain shall propose, as part of the Peace Settlement, a plan for the drastic reduction, by consent, of the armaments of all the belligerent Powers, and to facilitate that policy shall attempt to secure the general nationalization of the manufacture of armaments and the control of the export of armaments by one country to another.

5. The European conflict shall not be continued by economic war after the military operations have ceased. British policy shall be directed toward promoting free commercial intercourse between all nations and the preservation and extension of the principle of the Open Door.

 

(3) On the 4th September, 1914 C. P. Scott, recorded details of a meeting he had with David Lloyd George.

He (Lloyd George), Beauchamp, Morley and Burns had all resigned from the Cabinet on the Saturday before the declaration of war on the ground that they could not agree to Grey's pledge to Cambon (the French ambassador in London) to protect north coast of France against Germans, regarding this as equivalent to war with Germany. On urgent representations of Asquith he (Lloyd George) and Beauchamp agreed on Monday evening to remain in the Cabinet without in the smallest degree, as far as he was concerned, withdrawing his objection to the policy but solely in order to prevent the appearance of disruption in face of a grave national danger. That remains his position. He is, as it were, an unattached member of the Cabinet.

 

(4) David Kirkwood, joined the Union of Democratic Control in 1914. He wrote about his decision in his autobiography My Life of Revolt (1935)

I hated war. I believed that the peoples of the world hated war, and had no hate for each other. A terrific struggle tore my breast. I could not hate the Germans. They loved their land as I loved mine. To them, their traditions and their history, their religion and their songs were what mine were to me. Yet I was working in an arsenal, making guns and shells for one purpose - to kill men in order to keep them from killing men. What a confusion ! What was I to do ? I was not a conscientious objector. I was a political objector. I believed that finance and commercial rivalry had led to war.

 

(5) E. D. Morel, editorial, Union of Democratic Control (10th October, 1916)

The politicians are preparing a worse world for our children than the one they were born into. And we should be inclined almost to despair of the future were it not that we still preserve our faith in the ultimate triumph of reason over the national and international dementia now prevailing, and that we believe there is a vast mass of opinion in this country represented by the politicians nor by the Press, and considerably saner than either.

 

(6) The Union of Democratic Control (10th October, 1916)

The Council of the Union of Democratic Control re-affirms its unshaken conviction that a lasting settlement cannot be secured by a peace based upon the right of conquest and followed by commercial war, but only by a peace which gives just consideration to the claims of nationality, and which lays the foundation of a real European partnership.

 

(7) Helena Swanwick, Builders of Peace (1924)

When mobs, assiduously working up by a few papers or a few persons, broke up meetings or assaulted speakers, no protection was to be had, and the tone taken by the authorities was it "served them rights". Members of the UDC were shadowed by the police, raids were made on offices and private houses, and in many cases publications passed by the Censor were seized and impounded, and people who were engaged in selling them were taken up, threatened and intimidated.

 

(8) Lee Smith, speech in the House of Commons (21st October 1916)

Security can only be obtained by a scheme by which the nations of Europe and outside agree together that all will guarantee each and each will guarantee all. The purposes of the war will be achieved if there is a League of Nations with an absolute and decisive veto upon any mere aggression, and consideration of any legitimate claims which any of the countries engaged in the War may be able to make good. Go back to the old Liberal tradition and trust yourself boldly to those decent, kindly, humane forces to be found in every man and every nation.

 

(9) G. H. Roberts, report to Sir Edward Carson, Attorney General (10th October, 1917)

No evidence has at present come to light which shows that the Union of Democratic Control or the No-Conscription Fellowship are financed from enemy sources, and the fact that they command the support of very wealthy Quaker families may account for their ability to carry on their present activities.

 

(10) Basil Thompson, report to the Home Secretary (November, 1917)

The Union of Democratic Control has been more before the public eye than other pacifist bodies, partly on account of the position of Ramsay MacDonald, Arthur Ponsonby, Charles Trevelyan, and Frederick Jowett, and partly because of the notoriety of E. D. Morel. It is not a revolutionary body, and it has been appealing, at any rate in the early days of the war, more to the intellectual classes than to the working class. Beyond the cost of printing, its expenses are not very large. The Society of Friends and Messrs. Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree have all subscribed fairly liberally to its funds.

 

(11) Bertrand Russell wrote a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell after visiting E. D. Morel, in prison (27th March, 1918)

His hair is completely white (there was hardly a tinge of white before) when he first came out, he collapsed completely, physically and mentally, largely as the result of insufficient food. He says one only gets three quarters of an hour reading in the whole day - the rest of the time is spent on prison work, etc.

 

(12) William Gallacher was one of those who queued for four hours in an attempt to hear E. D. Morel speak at the Metropole Theatre in Glasgow in June, 1918.

The theatre was packed out and a huge overflow meeting was held in an open space across the way. Morel confined himself to the inside meeting. But what a reception he got. Outside, across the way, we could hear cheering as though they wanted to lift the roof off. We admired Morel and we turned out in full strength to do him honour.

 

(13) Richard Tawney, speech at a Union of Democratic Control (11th November, 1920)

For every man who a year ago knew and said that the Peace Treaty was immoral in conception and would be disastrous, there are thousands who say it now. Though there seems little to be said about the Treaties which has not been said already, it is nevertheless of immense importance to let public opinion abroad realise that the heartless and cynical politicians who negotiated them do not represent the real temper of Great Britain.

 

(14) Captain E. N. Bennett, speech at a Union of Democratic Control (11th November, 1920)

The fundamental falsehood on which the Versailles Treaty is built is the theory that Germany was solely and entirely responsible for the war. No fair-minded student of the war and its causes can accept this contention; but the propaganda story of Germany's sole guilt has been preached so persistently from pulpit, Press and Parliament that the bulk of our people have come to regard it as an axiomatic truth which justifies the provisions of the most brutal and unjust Treaty in the world's history.

 

(15) General Hubert Gough, speech at a Union of Democratic Control (11th November, 1920)

It seems to me that the Peace Treaty can be viewed from two points of view, the moral and the purely utilitarian. From either it appears thoroughly bad, and it has failed and must continue to fail to reach any good result, such as all who fought in the war supposed we were to gain. We hoped to establish justice, fair-dealing between nations, and the honest keeping of promises; we thought to establish a good and lasting peace which would, of necessity, have been established on good will. The Peace Treaty has done nothing of the kind.