The Papers of Reginald McKenna

Correspondence on McKenna's threat to resign over the Military Service Act, with correspondents including: Margot Asquith [later Lady Oxford and Asquith], reporting Herbert Asquith [Prime Minister, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith]'s view that Field Marshal 1st Lord Kitchener [Secretary of State for War] had bungled the matter and asking McKenna not to desert Asquith (2); Maurice Hankey [Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence] begging McKenna not to resign; John Whitehouse [Parliamentary Private Secretary to McKenna] on opposition to conscription, urging McKenna to resign (2); Lewis Harcourt [Secretary of State for the Colonies] on being unable to resign at that point; Edwin Montagu [Financial Secretary to the Treasury] asking McKenna to stay (2); Sir Robert Perks, urging McKenna to stay with Asquith; Leonard Hobhouse on the independent viewpoint of the Manchester Guardian in its criticism of Asquith; William Llewelyn Williams, urging McKenna to stand firm; Sir George Reid [High Commissioner for Australia] refusing to believe that McKenna would abandon the Government; Sir Norval Helme asking McKenna not to desert his post; Henry Massingham [editor of the Nation], advising him to stand firm for the sake of Liberalism; Sir Daniel Stevenson; Walter Runciman [President of the Board of Trade] on his uneasiness at being associated with the Government, the worthlessness of the War Office's undertakings in protecting the country's financial strength and the impossibility of agreeing to fund seventy divisions; Francis Hirst [editor of the Economist] urging McKenna to stand firm; the Aga Khan advising him to remain in the Cabinet for the good of the Empire.

Also includes McKenna's draft letter of resignation.