Researched for 'We Were There Too' by Nadav Sweiry

Reasons for opposing a Jewish Homeland in the Land of Israel:
“I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion It is no more true to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation.
“When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants”.
His concern was also for his own political future: “If Palestine will be the National Home of the Jews – all the voters in my constituency will tell me: “Go Home!!!”.
According to Weizmann, Montagu waged an all-out war against the declaration and gave fiery speeches about it in cabinet meetings. The future first president of the State of Israel wrote in his memoirs about Montagu that, “There was nothing new in what he had to say, but the vehemence with which he urged his views, the implacability of his opposition, astonished the cabinet. I understand the man almost wept.”

Edwin Montagu, 1879-1924
By Packer, Ian
Few of the young men swept into Parliament by the Liberal landslide in 1906 endured as meteoric a rise and fall as Montagu. By the age of thirty-eight he was Secretary of State for India, introducing sweeping reforms to the government of the subcontinent. Yet he was forced to resign in 1922 after a bitter Cabinet dispute and he died a disappointed man only two years later.
Edwin Samuel Montagu was born on 6 February 1879 in London, the second son of Samuel Montagu, later the first Lord Swaythling. Swaythling was a prominent financier, a staunchly Orthodox Jew and a Liberal MP for fifteen years. His son was sympathetic only to the last of these activities. Montagu was educated at Clifton College, the City of London School and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became President of the Union and developed political ambitions. An allowance from his father enabled Montagu to become a full-time politician and in 1904 he was selected by the local Liberals to fight Cambridgeshire Chesterton. He won the seat in 1906 and held it until 1918, when he became MP for the unified Cambridgeshire constituency.
Montagu was attracted to the Liberal Imperialist strand of thought in the party and had caught the eye of one of its leaders, H. H. Asquith, while still at Cambridge. Asquith became his mentor and his friend, making Montagu one of his private secretaries in 1906, and in 1910 promoting him to the post of Under-Secretary of State for India. Unusually, Montagu actually visited India in 1912-13 and soon came to regard himself as an expert on Indian affairs. It was not until February 1914 that Montagu started to move out of Asquith’s orbit. In that month he became Financial Secretary to the Treasury, working under David Lloyd George, the Cabinet’s other commanding figure. In February 1915 he entered the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
However, when the coalition government was formed in May 1915, Montagu, as the most recent recruit, was left out of the Cabinet and went back to his post as Financial Secretary. But his work at the Treasury was highly regarded and he returned to the Cabinet in January 1916, succeeding Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions in July of that year. In that post he came to share his predecessor’s views about the necessity for the direction of industrial labour and to drift further away from Asquith. He attempted, without success, to mediate between his old chief and Lloyd George during the crisis of December 1916, when he found his loyalties severely torn. He would have liked to have accepted a post under Lloyd George, had he not felt obliged to follow the rest of his Liberal colleagues out of office on Asquith’s resignation.

In June 1917, though, Lloyd George offered Montagu the Secretaryship of State for India, after a long mutual courtship. This was too attractive an offer to turn down and Montagu accepted. He had strong views that a further round of reform was inevitable in the government of India. The First World War had produced intense strains in the Raj. Its response to such situations since the late nineteenth century had been to give Indians a bigger role in local and provincial government, so separating moderates from extremists, while preserving British rule at the centre. Montagu believed this process should be taken a step further and coupled this plan with a declaration that Britain’s ultimate goal was Indian self-government. However, this was to be in the far-distant future and Montagu’s reforms were meant to swing India behind the war effort and quieten unrest for the next decade or so. His intentions were embodied in the 1919 Government of India Act, planned after a lengthy visit to India in 1917-18.
However, the Act seemed initially to stimulate violent protests, rather than produce calm. Montagu urged the Indian government to moderation in its response and wished for a stronger condemnation of General Dyer for his massacre of demonstrators at Amritsar in 1919.
His attitude was fiercely criticised by Tory diehards in a bad-tempered Commons debate in July 1920, but by 1922 the situation in India was quiet and remained so until the late 1920s, seeming to vindicate Montagu’s approach. In domestic politics Montagu consistently urged the coalition Cabinet in the direction of social reform. He also took a strong interest in foreign policy – a field in which he claimed an independent voice as the representative of India. In particular, he insisted the government should not provoke Indian Muslim opinion by partitioning Turkey, the only Muslim power and seat of the Caliphate.
The latter issue was Montagu’s undoing. In March 1922 he authorised the publication of a message from the Viceroy, setting out India’s wish to revise the Treaty of Sevres that had been imposed on Turkey in 1920. This severely embarrassed the Foreign Secretary in the middle of negotiations on this subject. Montagu had already challenged Cabinet policy in Egypt and Kenya and Lloyd George was finding him an increasingly obstreperous colleague. He took the opportunity to force him to resign. Montagu was devastated and vigorously denounced Lloyd George as a quasi-dictator in a speech to his constituents. But his career was over, and when he lost his seat in the 1922 election he retired from politics, an embittered man. He took a number of jobs in the City and died in London on 15 November 1924.
Montagu married in 1915 Venetia Stanley, daughter of the Liberal landowner and politician, Lord Sheffield. They had one daughter, Judy. Asquith had been in love with Venetia – probably a factor in his estrangement from Montagu. She edited Montagu’s An Indian Diary (1930). There is a biography by S. D. Waley, Edwin Montagu: a Memoir (Bombay, 1964)

There was only one Jewish member among the British Cabinet when it debated Chaim Weizmann’s request that it back the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine during the summer and autumn of 1917.
But Edwin Montagu, who was born 140 years ago this month, was not, as might have been expected, the strongest advocate of what soon became known as the Balfour Declaration. Actually, he was its most bitter adversary.
He railed against the “mischievous political creed” of Zionism, attacked the very notion that Jews were a nation, and ridiculed the idea that, in such a state, Jews “drawn from all quarters of the globe” would even be capable of communicating with one another. In an angry memo to his fellow Cabinet members in August 1917 he went so far as to declare that the proposal before the government would be “anti-Semitic in result [and] will prove a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country in the world.” .......................

College: TRINITY
Entered: Michs. 1898
Died: 15 Nov 1924
More Information: Adm. pens. at TRINITY, June 25, 1898. [2nd] s. of Samuel [later 1st Baron Swaythling], of South Stoneham House, Swaythling, near Southampton (and Ellen, dau. of Louis Cohen). B. [Feb. 6], 1879, in London. Schools, Clifton College [and City of London]. Matric. Michs. 1898; B.A. 1902; M.A. 1905. President of the Union, 1902. M.P. for Cambs. (Chesterton div.), 1906-22. Parliamentary Secretary to Asquith when Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1906-8, and to the Prime Minister, 1908-10. Under Secretary of State for India, 1910-14. Financial Secretary to the Treasury, 1914-16. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1915. P.C., 1914. Minister of Munitions, 1916. Secretary of State for India, 1917-22. Toured India with a delegation, 1917-18; and subsequently drafted his Report on Constitutional reforms, embodying a scheme which passed into law as the Government of India Act, 1919. Forced to resign, 1922, owing to disagreements with his colleagues over Turkish policy. Member of the British Empire Delegation to the Peace Conference, 1918. Trustee of the British Museum, 1920. A keen ornithologist; made many visits to Spain and elsewhere for purposes of observation. Married, July 6, 1915, the Hon. Beatrice Venetia, dau. of Lyulph Stanley, the 4th Baron Sheffield, and had issue. Part author, Canada and the Empire. Died Nov. 15, 1924. (Clifton Coll. Reg.; Burke, P. and B. (sub Swaythling); India Office Lists; D.N.B.; Who was Who.)

DEATH OF MR. EDWIN S. MONTAGU
We regret to record the death, last Saturday, of the Right Hon. E. Montagu, who passed away at the early age of forty-five years. He had been in ill-health for some time, following a visit to Brazil on a financial mission, but his condition became serious only about the middle of last week.
Edwin Samuel Montagu was the second son of the late Lord Swaythling (Sir Samuel Montagu), and brother of the present peer. He was educated at Clifton College and City of London School, subsequently going to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a distinguished President if the Cambridge Union Society. At the age of twenty-seven he was elected to Parliament for the Chesterton Division of Cambridgeshire (illegible) Liberal interest. Mr Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer thought so highly of Mt Montagu’s abilities that he appointed him his private secretary. This position the deceased occupied during some part of Mr Asquith’s Premiership, subsequently entering the Ministry as Under-Secretary for India. He proved a moist capable administrator, having an exceptional knowledge of the country, which was doubtless to some extent gained from the business in which members of the family were engaged, that of Messrs Samuel Montagu and Co., founded by his late father. Mr Montagu left the India Office in February 1914 and became Financial Secretary of the Treasury. It was while holding this office that he originated the proposal to issue War Savings Certificates, which have done so much to encourage national thrift. He was made a Privy Councillor in the following year. In 1916 the deceased was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the Cabinet. He was responsible for the drafting of the arrangement with J,.P. Morgan and Co., which ensured the Allies an abundant supply of munitions and war material, and at the same time saved many hundreds of millions of pounds on American purchases. When Mr Asquith retired from the Premiership Mr Montagu was for a time out of office; but at the invitation of Mr Lloyd George, he became Secretary of State for India.
It was in this office that the deceased found the greatest opportunities for his undoubted statesmanship. With Lord Chelmsford (then Viceroy of India), he was responsible for the famous report on Indian constitutional reform, granting a large extension of local self-government which aroused very strong opposition in certain quarters. Later, he published on his own responsibility, a telegram from the Government of India (Lord Reading being then Viceroy), which stated the Government’s views on British policy. This notion was hotly denounced by many of his colleagues, and he resigned from office. From that date Mr Montagu took but little part in political activity, and was defeated as Liberal candidate in the Chesterton Division (Cambridgeshire) in November 1922. He transferred his activities to the City, where he was a Director of various companies.
The deceased was a first cousin of Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner for Palestine, and of Sir Stuart Samuel. One of his sisters is the Hon. Lily Montagu. He married, in 1915, the HON. Venetia Stanley, a daughter of Lord Sheffield. In his father’s will, under which he was a residuary legatee, there was a clause disinheriting any beneficiaries of the Jewish faith who should marry outside the community, and Miss Stanley became a Jewess prior to the wedding. The only child of the marriage, a daughter, was born last year. Mr Montagu took no part in communal affairs, and was generally believed to be, like his brother, Lord Swaythling, a staunch opponent of Zionism as well as of the policy of the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine. It is said that privately he used as much influence as he could bring to bear in opposition to that policy.
The news of Mr Montagu’s death has been received with great regret throughout India. The Viceroy referred with feeling to the former Secretary of State in his address to the Chamber of Princes, and notable tributes were paid to his memory, including one by the Maharaja of Alwar

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