Anti-war MP heckled as 1200 pack meeting
War not of men but diabolical machines, bombs, shells and gas
Liberal MP Arthur Ponsonby was loudly heckled 100 years ago this week when he returned to his Stirling constituency to address a public meeting about the war.
Around 1200 people packed the Albert Hall to hear Mr Ponsonby explain why he was going against his own party and backing the Union of Democratic Control, a grouping formed following the outbreak of war.
It claimed not to be a pacifist organisation but was against military influence on Government and believed the war was the result of secret diplomacy.
Mr Ponsonby was himself against Britain’s involvement in the war and had made his views known in speeches across the country, prompting calls for him to resign as an MP.
When he walked out in front of the audience at the Albert Hall, it was the first time he had addressed his constituents since the start of war.
He cut a lonely figure on the stage as Stirling Provost David Bayne had refused to chair the meeting and the expected entourage of area party activists were conspicuous by their absence.
A teacher from Dunfermline, Robert Hay, agreed to act as chairman and, said the Observer, the “Socialist element” was noticeable among the audience which also contained a “goodly number of ladies”. Mr Ponsonby spoke for an hour and said the war “was not of men but of diabolical machines, bombs, shells and gas”.
He said if the Germans were as evil as it was possible to imagine, force and violence and the massacre of soldiers was not going to correct them.
And if the German government was similarly bad, force and violence was “not going to put better ideas into their head”.
He said he believed from the start of the war that “moral and intellectual forces” should not be allowed to become dormant and for that reason had joined with those who wanted to see “some real action, some adequate compensation achieved from the great sacrifices of the colossal strife”.
Mr Ponsonby said his opponents wanted to punish Germany for the war, but in continuing the war they were not going to starve the Kaiser but starve old men, women and children.
The MP said if the 8500 constituents of Stirling Burghs were opposed to his views, then in time they would be able to give their verdict against him. He was sure voters who had served on the frontline as soldiers would back him.
In a series of sharp questions from the audience, Mr Ponsonby was asked why, having been elected on a Liberal ticket, he had gone against the view of the leaders of his party on the war.
Mr Turner, a commercial traveller, attacked the “dastardly” acts of the Germans during the fighting in France and Belgium and said they were “justified in killing vermin”.