Conservative Governments of 1922-24

After the fall of Lloyd George, Law formed a Conservative government. He faced two major problems. First, few of the former Coalition ministers would serve under him, Lord Curzon, who remained Foreign Secretary, being the only one of note. The brighter stars of the Coalition remained outside, and the new government had a rather undistinguished appearance. Baldwin became Chancellor of the Exchequer largely by default.

General Election

The second problem was the general election, which Law called as soon as he had formed his government. It was held on  15 November. The Conservatives were almost certain to win, given the weaknesses and/or divisions of their opponents; and Law, seeing that only the unpopularity of protection might stand in the way of victory, pledged that the government would not introduce general protection before a further election had been held.

• The 115 Liberals were divided almost equally between Asquithians and Lloyd Georgeite National Liberals.
• Labour, for its part, called for a significant extension of state control of industry, and a capital levy (wealth tax) to pay off the national debt. Nevertheless, Labour increased its representation dramatically, to 142 MPs, with a shade under 30% of the votes. Many of the party's leaders, who had been defeated in 1918, now returned, most notably MacDonald and Snowden. MacDonald was elected leader of the party immediately after the election.
• The Conservatives managed to take only 38.5% of the votes cast, but the divided opposition they faced meant that they emerged with 344 seats and an overall majority of about 70.

General Election, 15 November 1922:

Seats

Percentage of vote

Conservative

344

38.5

National Liberal

53

9.9

Liberal

62

18.9

Labour

142

29.7

Others

14

3.0

Policies

After the election, Law moved away from Lloyd George's presidential style of leadership. Again in contrast with the Coalition, Law's government was largely content to wait on events. The main international crisis, the French occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, was handled reasonably competently by Curzon and the Foreign Office. There was dissent from Law himself against the terms agreed by Baldwin with the Americans for the repayment of Britain's war debt, but the agreement stuck none the less. Otherwise, the government…