Why Did The Peace Ballot Have?

1162 Words5 Pages
B. Appeasement and Public Opinion The Oxford Union "King and Country" debate in 1933 In 1933 the Oxford Union, the university undergraduate debating society, passed a famous motion that "This House would not in any circumstances fight for King and Country". Churchill called the vote "abject, squalid, shameless" and "nauseating", and it is even said to have misled Hitler into thinking the British had lost the will to fight. The debate cannot be taken as evidence of what people of all classes were thinking. Oxford undergraduates were hardly typical of the population as a whole. They came largely from wealthy upper- or middle-class families; they were highly literate and well-read; and they were more prepared than most people…show more content…
(70 per cent said Yes) What impact did the Peace Ballot have? The ballot got rather overtaken by events. Hitler launched his famous "Night of the Long Knives" putsch and Mussolini launched his invasion of Abyssinia. Lord Robert Cecil said that Baldwin, the Prime Minister, told him the ballot had been "of very great value", and Cecil added, "I have no doubt it influenced their [ministers'] policy for the time, but not permanently or, from my point of view, sufficiently". Baldwin's biographer points out that, while Baldwin could not possibly ignore what eleven million voters were telling him, he could still put his own spin on the ballot result. Baldwin's own favourite newspaper, the Birmingham Post, pointed out that "the answers given to questions 5a and 5b are most significant peace-loving as this nation is, it still believes in a need to resort to arms". Moreover, while people might favour sanctions, Baldwin knew that applying sanctions would mean taking physical action, including blockading aggressor nations' ports, and he was not prepared to do that until he knew what American policy was likely to be. So we might say that the ballot confirmed Baldwin in his already cautious foreign…show more content…
They can only speak to their readership, which may be small or unrepresentative of the country as a whole. Most newspapers have a fairly well-established general stance, usually left- or right-wing, though some newspapers reflect a religious viewpoint. People usually read the newspaper that chimes in with their own views and seldom bother glancing at those that don't. This means that newspapers get good at telling their readers what they know their readers want to hear. This doesn't mean that newspapers are bad sources, but it does mean that the historian has to decide, "Is this newspaper reflecting public opinion, or is it telling its readers what to
Open Document