Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden

Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden PC (18 July 1864 – 15 May 1937) was a British politician and the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he held in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931.

Early life: 1864–1906

Snowden was born in Cowling in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father John Snowden (1830/1 – 1889) had been a weaver and a supporter of Chartism and then a Gladstonian liberal. Snowden later wrote in his autobiography: "I was brought up in this Radical atmosphere, and it was then that I imbibed the political and social principles which I have held fundamentally ever since".^[1]

In August 1891 Philip Snowden became ill and was paralysed from the waist down. He learned to walk again with the aid of sticks within two years.^[2]

Snowden joined the Liberal Party and followed his parents in becoming a Methodist and a teetotaller. In 1893 Snowden was asked to give a speech for the Cowling Liberal Club on the dangers of socialism in the aftermath of the formation of the Independent Labour Party. In his research on socialism Snowden instead became convinced by the ideology. He eventually joined the executive committee of the Keighley ILP in 1899.^[2] He became a prominent speaker for the party and wrote a popular Christian socialist pamphlet with Keir Hardie entitled The Christ that is to Be in 1903.

In 1905, Snowden married Ethel Annakin, a campaigner for women's suffrage. Snowden supported his wife's ideals and he became a noted speaker at suffragette meetings and other public meetings.

Member of Parliament: 1906–1924

In 1906 he became the Labour Party MP for Blackburn.^[3][4] He also wrote extensively on economics, advocating more radical measures than the ruling Liberals were implementing, and he devised his own "Socialist budget" to rival David Lloyd George's 1909 "People's Budget".^[2]

Snowden was in Australia on a worldwide lecture tour when the First World War broke out in August 1914; he did not return to Britain until February 1915. He was not a pacifist but he did not support recruiting for the armed forces and he campaigned against conscription. His stance was unpopular with the public and he lost his seat in the 1918 general election.^[2] In 1922 he was elected to represent Colne Valley.^[5][6]

Chancellor of the Exchequer: 1924

Upon Ramsay MacDonald's appointment as Prime Minister in January 1924 Snowden was appointed as the Labour Party's first ever Chancellor of the Exchequer^[7] and sworn of the Privy Council.^[8]

In his budget Snowden lowered the duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, chicory and sugar; reduced spending on armaments; provided money for council housing but did not implement the capital levy. Snowden claimed that because of the lowering of duties on foodstuffs consumed by the working class that the budget went "far to realize the cherished radical idea of a free breakfast table".^[9] A. J. P. Taylor has written that this budget "would have delighted the heart of Gladstone".^[10]

Opposition: 1924–1929

Snowden resigned from the ILP in 1927 because he believed it was "drifting more and more away from...evolutionary socialism into revolutionary socialism". He was also opposed to the new Keynesian economic ideas and criticised its expression in the Liberals' manifesto for the 1929 election, titled We can Conquer Unemployment.^[2]

Chancellor of the Exchequer: 1929–1931

Snowden was again appointed Chancellor after Labour formed a government in 1929 after emerging as the largest party in the general election.^[11] His economic philosophy was one of strict Gladstonian Liberalism rather than socialism. His official biographer wrote that "He was raised in an atmosphere which regarded borrowing as an evil and free trade as an essential ingredient of prosperity".

He was considered by many at the time and since as being the principal opposition to the government following any radical economic policy to tackle the Great Depression as well as blocking proposals to introduce protectionist tariffs. The government eventually collapsed over arguments about a budget deficit amidst refusals by a significant minority of ministers to enact cuts in unemployment benefit.

Snowden retained the position of Chancellor during the National Government of 1931. As a consequence he was expelled from the party, along with MacDonald and Jimmy Thomas. In a BBC radio broadcast on 16 October 1931 he called Labour's policies "Bolshevism run mad" and contrasted them unfavourably with his own "sane and evolutionary Socialism". Snowden decided not to stand for parliament in the election of November 1931.

Later life: 1931–1934

He was instead raised to the peerage as Viscount Snowden, of Ickornshaw in the West Riding of the County of York,^[12] and served as Lord Privy Seal from 1931^[13] to 1932 when he resigned in protest at the enactment of a full scheme of Imperial Preference and protectionist tariffs. In 1932 Snowden said there was never a greater mistake than to say that Cobdenism was dead: "Cobdenism was never more alive throughout the world than it was to-day...To-day the ideas of Cobden were in revolt against selfish nationalism. The need for the breaking down of trade restrictions, which took various forms, was universally recognized even by those who were unable to throw off those shackles".^[14]

He subsequently wrote his Autobiography in which he strongly attacked MacDonald. In the 1935 general election, Snowden supported the Keynesian economic programme proposed by Lloyd George ("Lloyd George's New Deal"), despite it being a complete repudiation of Snowden's own record. Snowden claimed that he was returning to long-held economic views but that these had been "temporarily inadvisable" during the crisis of 1931 when "national necessity" demanded cutting public expenditure.^[2]

Lord Snowden died on 15 May 1937, aged 72. The viscountcy died with him. Lady Snowden died in February 1951, aged 69.

Notes

References

• Philip, Viscount Snowden, An Autobiography. Volume One. 1864-1919 (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934).
• Philip, Viscount Snowden, An Autobiography. Volume Two. 1919-1934 (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934).
• Duncan Tanner, ‘Snowden, Philip, Viscount Snowden (1864–1937)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011, accessed 1 July 2011.

Further reading

• Colin Cross, Philip Snowden (Barrie & Jenkins, 1966).
• Keith Laybourn and David James (eds.), Philip Snowden. The First Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer (Bradford Arts, Museums and Libraries Service, 1987).
• Keith Laybourn, Philip Snowden. A Biography, 1864–1937 (Dartmouth Publishing, 1988).

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Philip Snowden
• Philip Snowden - Blackburn Labour Party