First World War: Centenary

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Clark—and I call him my noble friend quite literally—for introducing the debate and for making a speech that was balanced, thoughtful and powerful. I come from a slightly different tradition from those who have spoken so far. My family did not fight in the First World War. In fact, my family opposed the First World War. My uncle, of course, was Jimmy Maxton and he went to prison in Edinburgh—the Calton Jail—for urging munitions workers to strike in order to stop the supply of munitions to the front and therefore trying to stop the war. My own father went to jail because he applied to be a conscientious objector. His appeal was turned down and he was conscripted under the 1916 Act. He was taken to Stirling Castle where he was ordered to put the uniform on. He refused to do so. He was court martialled and spent a whole year in Wormwood Scrubs as a result.

I come not only from a family that opposed the war but also from a city, Glasgow, although I may not sound as if I come from Glasgow, where to some extent—not a majority by any means—a revolt against the war was political and became part and parcel of the city’s experience. First of all there was a political side: the Jimmy Maxtons. We must remember that Keir Hardie, who was the founding father of the party on this side, opposed the war. One of the great iconic pictures for me is of Keir Hardie, leading an anti-war demonstration in August 1914, speaking in Trafalgar Square. Our first Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, too opposed the war.

There was then increasing trade union activity in Glasgow against the war, led by people such as David Kirkwood and William Gallacher. David Kirkwood finished up as Lord Kirkwood of Bearsden—I gather the grandfather-in-law of the noble Lord, Lord Vallance. He did not go to jail. He suffered an even worse fate. He was deported from Glasgow to Edinburgh. It is difficult to imagine a worse fate than that. Therefore, I represent a different tradition and I hope that when we commemorate the war that tradition will be part and parcel of it. Perhaps I may suggest to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, that he may want to look at doing programmes on that tradition. In terms of the women, there was the rent strike in Glasgow.

Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, is wrong. Yes, there is still violence and killing in the world but can one imagine a Minister during the First World War standing up and reading out the list of those who have died, as Ministers do now for Iraq or Afghanistan? They would not have been off their feet for four years if they had done that in the First World War. We have reduced violence. Let it long continue.