Book Review: Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) 1882–1940
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Author | Gordon A. Craig |
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500407 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
LORD
LOTHIAN
(Philip
Kerr)
1882-1940.
By
J.
R.
M.
Butler.
1960.
(London:
Toronto: Macmillan
Co.
ix,
385pp.
$8.25.)
If
there
is
one
conclusion
that
emerges
from
J.
R.
M.
Butler's
new
life
of
Lord
Lothian
it
is
that,
if
one
talks
very
earnestly
and
very
much
about
international
affairs,
one
will
be
taken for
an expert,
no
matter
how
muddle-headed
many
of
one's opinions
may
be.
It
helps,
of
course,
to
have
the
right
kind
of
references,
for there
are
always
people
who
are
more
interested
in
connections
than
in
opinions.
But
with
earnest-
ness
and
connections
one
can
go
very
far.
Lothian
did.
He
started
as
a member
of
the
Milner
Kindergarten,
where he
acquired
the
towering self-satisfaction,
the
moralizing
tone,
and the
fixed
belief
that
great
political
decisions
should
be
reserved
for
the
Happy Few
that
were
peculiar
to
that
organization;
and he
then
went
on
to
be
editor
of
The
Round
Table
and,
after
1916,
one
of
Lloyd
George's
private secretaries.
For
that
complicated
personality
he
con-
ceived
a
wholly
uncritical admiration,
as
a
rather
embarrassing
letter
of
farewell
to
his
chief, which
is
re-printed here
and
which
fairly
drips
of
adulation,
shows
all
too
clearly.
This
is
perhaps understandable.
The
Welsh
Wizard
gave
the
young
Philip
Kerr
his
head
at
the
Peace
Conference,
allowing
him a
freedom
of
action
and
expression
that
thoroughly
annoyed
Lord Balfour and Winston
Churchill,
who
did
not
believe
that
decisions
should
be
made
by
people who
could
not
be
held
accountable
for
them.
This
was
an unfortunate
impression
to
create,
for
Lloyd
George
did
not
last,
and,
after
1922,
Kerr
had
to
find
new
employment.
He
served
briefly
as
editor
of
the Daily
Chronicle and
then,
in
1925,
became
secretary
of
the
Rhodes
Trust,
a
post
which
he
held
for
fourteen
years
and
which
lent
an air
of
unimpeachable
res-
pectability to
his views on
international
affairs.
Those
views,
looked
at
from
our
present
vantage
point,
are
not
im.
pressive.
On
the
one
hand, Lothian
talked
with
great
enthusiasm
and
greater
looseness
about
world
government.
On
the
other,
he claimed-
and here
he
resembled
people
like
Neville
Chamberlain,
Sir
Horace
Wilson,
and
R.
A.
Butler-to
be
a
realist,
which, when
translated
into
concrete
terms, meant
that
he
did
not
believe
that
the
League
of
Nations
would
work
if
subjected
to
any
real strain
and
that
he
was
willing,
therefore,
to
make
the
utmost
concessions
to
those
who
threatened
the
ideals
it
stood
for.
As
the
threats
multiplied,
his
position came
to
be
that
Great
Britain must
not
be
placed
in
the
negative
position
of
fighting
a
war
to
defend
the
status
quo
in
Europe; and
he
was
capable
or
arguing
that
the
Franco-Soviet and
Czecho-Soviet
treaties
encircled
Germany
and made
peaceful
revision
of
the
Versailles
Treaty
impos-
sible.
He
never,
however, faced
up
to
the
question
of
what,
if
any,
revision
was
justifiable;
and
his
attitude
by
1938
was
one of
believing
that,
somehow
or
other,
one could
dispose
of
Hitler
by
smothering
him
with
gifts.
Some
of
his
letters-including
one
in
which
he
attacks
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