Relugas Compact

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The Relugas Compact (German: Relugas Agreement ) is a political agreement between the British statesmen Herbert Henry Asquith , Richard Haldane and Sir Edward Gray from November 1905, in which the three top opposition politicians agree on their plans in the event of the Liberal Party taking over government, to which they belonged, voted and made agreements on the conditions under which they would be ready to enter a newly formed liberal government.

Formation and content of the agreement

The agreement of the liberal triumvirate, also known as the Troika, is named after the location of the fisherman's hut owned by Sir Edward Gray in the Moray administrative area in northern Scotland, where Asquith, Haldane and Gray met to conclude their agreement.

Asquith, Gray and Haldane, the leading men of the right wing of the opposition Liberal Party in 1905, reached an agreement in principle at their meeting in Grey's hut on the preconditions that their party leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, had to meet in order for them to be ready to join one enter government led by him. Since the resignation of the still incumbent Balfour government and the assumption of government responsibility by the Liberals was already foreseeable at that time, the three "right wing" ( Liberal Imperialists ) in Relugas decided by mutual agreement, vis-à-vis the "left" wing of the party Campbell-Bannerman, in the Phase of government formation and later to appear united within a common cabinet. An intention that they combined with the hope of raising greater political weight through a joint appearance and thus being able to exert more pressure on the future prime minister.

So the three agreed that each of them would have to have the following division of responsibilities: Asquith would have the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most important government post after that of the Prime Minister, Gray would have to get the post of Foreign Minister and Haldane would in turn have the post of the Lord Chancellor. The heart of the agreement, however, was that Campbell-Bannerman had to be persuaded to renounce the leadership of the Liberals in the lower house in favor of Asquith when the government was formed, to approve his own elevation to the nobility and the associated promotion to the upper house. Furthermore, the line of government should turn to the course of the imperialist wing of the party on decisive points.

A month later, when the government was actually formed, the Relugas Compact initially had no consequences: After the fall of the Balfour government, Campbell-Bannerman began to form a new government as expected, but was completely unimpressed by the - very diplomatic presented - demands of the three right-wing liberals. Instead of including the three leading men of the right wing of his party as an “indispensable” prerequisite for the formation of a government and accordingly to accept all of their demands, as hoped, he rather signaled his willingness to accept a government without Haldane, Asquith and Gray if necessary form. After Gray had delayed the formation of a government for a few days at the risk of a split, the three finally gave in and joined the new Campbell-Bannerman government on his terms. Asquith and Gray received the offices they wanted, while Haldane had to be content with the War Department. Crucially, Campbell-Bannerman retained the key position of Leader Liberals in the House of Commons to himself and blocked attempts to deport him to the House of Lords.

The Relugas Compact became relevant again for the policy of the government formed by Asquith after Campbell-Bannerman's death in 1908, since the agreements of the Compact essentially laid down the organizational basis and the content of the Asquith government from 1908 to 1914/15. After Campbell-Bannerman’s death, Asquith took over the leadership of the Liberals in the House of Commons and Haldane held the office of Lord Chancellor from 1912 to 1915, while the domestic and foreign policy concepts of the three Liberal Imperialists formulated in Relugas were of decisive importance for British government policy between 1908 and 1915 1915/16 should have.

literature

  • John Plowright: Article Relugas Compact, in: The Routledge Dictionary of Modern British history, Vol. 1, p. 221, 2006.
  • John A. Spender: “The Life of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, GCB”, New York 1969.