Cylchgronau Cymru

At the eleventh hour Montgomeryshire politics were again thrown into disarray by an unexpected course of events. C. P. Williams's official adoption meeting as Liberal candidate for Montgomeryshire had been arranged for 13 October. Five days before the adoption meeting, however, Lever Brothers decided to release Davies from his commitment to retire from Parliament and permitted him to remain in political life. The decision left Davies in a predica- ment, for he had already supported Williams's candidature and had even appeared on the same political platforms. Davies consulted Hutchison who considered it essential that the integrity of the Liberal National group in the House of Commons should remain unimpaired. On 9 October Davies met Major John Lomax, the Chairman of the Montgomeryshire Conservative Associa- tion, who informed him that, since FitzHugh had been chosen before Williams, the Con- servatives intended to contest the election, but that, if Williams stood down in Davies's favour on the grounds that the latter was a supporter of the government as a Liberal National, then the Conservatives might withdraw their candidate. Hutchison then sent a telegram to Williams requesting him to stand down. He agreed. On 13 October, the Montgomeryshire Liberal Association formally adopted Davies as its candidate,46 and on the following day local Con- servatives resolved to allow him an unopposed return.47 This chain of events was extraordinary by any standards. 'Montgomeryshire has had an experience', commented the local Conservative press, 'Which has not been repeated in any other part of the country'.48 Davies, clearly embarrassed by the turn of events, resolved to convene a number of meetings in the country in order to explain his actions to his constituents. At the first such meeting at Newtown on 22 October, he argued that only the decision of the Conservatives t o oppose Williams had brought about his [Davies's] candidature, for he considered it preferable that Montgomeryshire should be represented by a Liberal supporter of the National Government than by a Conservative.49 Many 'disgruntled radicals' in the county attended these meetings with the avowed purpose of 'showing Davies up'.50 They enjoyed a fair measure of success, for it is evident that Davies was very much on the defensive in the explanations which he gave. Indeed, the events of October 1931 served to poison local political life for number of years. Even the Montgomeryshire Express, although arguing that there was 'nothing discreditable, shady or sinister' in Davies's conduct, asserted that his preliminary interview with Lomax on 9 October before informing local Liberals of Lever Brothers' change of heart was 'a tactical blunder of the first magnitude' 'a glaring indiscretion'. 52 Richard E. George of Newtown, who had served as Honorary Organizer of the County Liberal Association during the 1929 election campaign and who had played an important part in securing Davies's initial return to Parliament,53 was an outspoken critic of Davies's actions- 'The manner in which he has been elected is very far from the meaning of true Liberalism. Liberalism here will suffer very considerably in the future'.54 In its review of the events of 1931, 46Montgomeryshire Liberal Association, Newtown, Mont. Lib. Assoc. minute book, 1920-60, Executive Committee and Council minutes, 13 October 1931. 47This account of the 1931 crisis in Montgomeryshire is based on the files of the Montgomeryshire Express and the Montgomery County Times. ^Montgomery County Times, 17 October 1931. 49Montgomeryshire Express, 27 October 1931. so/bid. "Ibid., 20 October 1931. 52Ibid., 27 October 1931. 53J. Graham Jones, loc. cit., p.95. ^Montgomeryshire Express, 27 October 1931.