Samuel, Herbert Louis

Childhood and Youth

Herbert Louis Samuel was born at the end of 1870 in the family of Edwin (Menachem) and Clara Samuel. His father and uncle led one of the largest British financial companies Samuel and Montegu and were relatives of the Barons of the Rothschilds ^[1] . Shortly after the birth of Herbert, a family of five in total moved to London , where Herbert grew up with wealthy British Jews. When he was seven years old, his father died, and his mother, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was engaged in raising the boy. Later, his uncle Samuel Montague, also a believing Jew, but much less rigid, and an activist of the Liberal Party, began to influence Herbert's views. Studying at Balliol College, Oxford University , completed in 1893 , finally shaped the views of young Samuel as a left-wing liberal with little interest in religion, but with significant political ambitions. At the age of 18 he became a member of the Liberal Party.

Since the mid-1890s, Herbert Samuel has been actively involved in politics. In 1895 and 1900, he ran for the House of Commons from South Oxfordshire , but lost the election twice in a row. Between the campaigns in 1897, he married Beatrice Franklin, another member of a closed society of influential British Jews.

In 1902, Samuel's book Liberalism was published, where he tried to formulate the main ideas of his party. In particular, he wrote:

The state is obliged to provide all its citizens and all whose lives it can influence, the maximum opportunities for a better life ^[1] .

Original text

It is the duty of the State to secure to all its members, and all others whom it can influence, the fullest possible opportunity to lead the best life

Samuel's theoretical work did not go unnoticed by the leaders of the British liberals. With the support of the Liberal Party, he won the 1902 election and became a member of Parliament from Cleveland County, where miners and factory workers were his main electorate.

Political career ahead of and during World War I

Soon after being elected to Parliament, Samuel established himself as a talented speaker. Although not charismatic, he possessed the gift of persuasion, was able to substantiate his position logically and was distinguished by attention to details ^[1] . These abilities became for him a pass to administrative positions in the governments formed by the Liberal Party.

In 1905, Samuel was appointed deputy secretary of the interior . His area of ​​activity was the preparation of social reforms, and in particular he was responsible for bills on helping children in need, protecting the rights of workers, regulating immigration, and reforming the prison system for juvenile delinquents (the so-called Children's Law). In 1908, Samuel was included in the Privy Council ^[2] , and in 1909 became a member of Asquith’s cabinet, having received one of the least important posts of the ministerial level - the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster . This appointment made him the first ever member of the UK government cabinet of Jewish religion ^{[1] [3]} . In 1910, he received a more responsible ministerial appointment, becoming the General Postmaster . During Samuel’s tenure, he carried out a series of postal reforms aimed at increasing his efficiency. During this period, airmail first appeared in the UK and nationalized telephone communications, which came under the jurisdiction of the post office. In 1913, his name was at the center of a corruption scandal after he, along with a number of other leading politicians (including Attorney General Rufus Isaacs), acquired shares of Marconi on the eve of receiving a profitable government order and after some time sold them profitably. As a result of the ensuing trial, all charges against him were dropped ^[4] .

In 1914, Samuel was appointed secretary of the Local Government Council; He was in charge of taxation, social law and health. In this post, he met the World War II , during which he was also first returned to the post of General Postmaster, and later headed the Home Office . Among the projects carried out by him during this period was the creation of a system for receiving and adapting refugees . The beginning of his fascination with the ideas of Zionism dates back to the same time. He raised the question of creating a Jewish state in Palestine, first to David Lloyd George , and then to Foreign Minister Gray , receiving positive feedback from both. In 1915, Samuel circulated a memorandum among cabinet members proposing the introduction of a British protectorate over Palestine, whose goal would be to encourage the Jewish settlement of the region, the formation of a Jewish majority among its population, and ultimately the establishment of Jewish self-government under the auspices of Great Britain. The project at this stage was rejected due to the opposition of Prime Minister Asquith ^[3] . The efforts of Samuel and other prominent Zionist figures nevertheless led in 1917 to the creation of a document known as the Balfour Declaration expressing the British Government’s positive attitude towards the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine ^[1] .

As High Commissioner of Palestine

After the liberals were defeated in the next election, Samuel lost his ministerial post, but continued to occupy important posts in the post office and home office until 1920 . In 1920, he was elevated to the knighthood, becoming a knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire , and was appointed the first High Commissioner of Palestine , responsible for managing the territory to which Britain received a mandate from the League of Nations . An ardent supporter of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and a personal friend of the chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann , Samuel was at the same time a decisive opponent of violence, including against the Arab population of Palestine, and a convinced apologist for resolving friction through negotiations.

Samuel arrived in Palestine on July 30, 1920. At this point, a decision was made at the government level to separate Transjordan from the mandate, and the High Commissioner immediately had to deal not only with border issues with the French mandate territories in Syria and Lebanon , but also ensure the stability of regimes in Transjordan and Iraq . In the very first months of his post, he also faced a shortage of funds necessary for the Jewish colonization of Palestinian lands (these funds were supposed to be replenished by donations from wealthy Jews abroad), and somewhat later, in 1921, with fierce resistance to Jewish immigration and colonization from the Palestinian Arabs. In May 1921, during the unrest that broke out in Jaffa , about a hundred Jews and Arabs died, which soon entailed a strategic decision to limit Jewish immigration, the volume of which was aligned with the country's “economic capacity”. To address the issues of coexistence of the Arab and Jewish populations, a deliberative council was created under the High Commissioner, which, in addition to ten mandatory officials, included representatives of three sectors of the population: Muslim, Christian (three people each) and Jewish (four people). After two years of work, however, Muslim representatives refused further cooperation. Samuel's Jewish support also melted away when he agreed to restrict the entry of new immigrants, and his appointment as the Jerusalem Mufti of one of the most influential nationalists - Hajj Amin al-Husseini - instead of solving the problems of confrontation, led to their deepening. Not only radical Jewish nationalists led by Jabotinsky were disappointed in the High Commissioner, but also the leadership of the Zionist socialists . At the same time, despite the tension, Samuel managed to prevent the repetition of Jaffa pogroms before the transfer of authority in 1925 , and the Jewish population of Palestine grew from 55 thousand people in 1919 to 108 thousand in 1925. The British authorities officially recognized a number of Jewish structures in Palestine - in particular, the High Rabbi , - and Hebrew became one of the three official languages ​​of the Mandatory Palestine. Significant successes were also achieved in the judicial sphere, education and healthcare, in the work of sanitary services and communications ^[3] .

Further career

Returning to his homeland, Samuel hoped to devote his time to philosophy and creativity, but circumstances forced him to immediately engage in the political process as an intermediary between coal workers, mine owners and the government. In July 1926, he was elevated to the rank of knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath for his role in resolving the crisis in the coal industry and ending the general strike ^[5] .

Maintaining close contacts with the Labor leadership (in particular, Beatrice and Sydney Webb ^[6] ), at the end of the decade, Samuel nevertheless returned to parliament as a deputy from the Liberal Party. Over the next decade, he remained one of the party leaders, holding a number of government posts along the way (in particular, the post of Minister of the Interior in 1931 - 1932 in the office of J. R. MacDonald , from which he resigned due to disagreement with the protectionist line of the government ^{[6 ]} ). Prior to the defeat in the 1935 election , without holding ministerial posts, he remained the leader of the liberal faction in the House of Commons. In 1937 he was granted the title of Viscount , and in 1944 - 1955 he was the leader of the thinned liberal faction in the House of Lords .

In addition to government and parliamentary posts, Samuel held a number of high public posts. In particular, while remaining a supporter of Zionism, in 1936 he was appointed chairman of the Palestinian Electric Company , a member of the board of trustees of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem . After leaving active politics, he wrote several philosophical works:

• "Practical Ethics" (1935)
• Everyday Philosophy: Persuasion and Action (1937)
• The Creator Man (1949)
• “Physical Essays” (1951)
• “In Search of Reality” (1957)

In 1945, his memoirs were also published. Herbert Samuel died in London in February 1963 , at the age of 93. The title of Viscount Samuel was inherited by his eldest son Edwin.

Samuel, a controversial politician who tried to combine British imperial interests, liberalism and sympathy for Zionism, was marked during his lifetime with high British awards, including the Order of the Bath and the Order of Merit . At the same time, researchers of the activities of this ideologist and the practice of “new liberalism” after death honor him with quite different assessments, mostly not so enthusiastic. So, his social policy in the metropolis received from one of the commentators in the Sunday Times this assessment:

If he is remembered today, it is only thanks to a heap of reformatory parliamentary bills, ... in which he never managed to raise his eyes much higher than the level of social engineering. He lacked the indispensable attribute of a successful radical politician - feelings of indignation ^[2] .

Original text

If he is remembered at all today, it is probably for leaving behind him a pile of reforming acts of parliament ... never quite able to raise his eyes above the level of being a social engineer. He lacked the one attribute necessary to any successful radical politician, a sense of outrage.

In traditional Zionist historiography, Samuel’s cautious policy in Palestine is seen as a departure from the principles of the Balfour Declaration and a curse in front of radical Arab elements. At the same time, in the works of Israeli " new historians " and Arab studies on the British mandate in Palestine, he is portrayed as a radical Zionist who consistently supported the Jews and infringed on the interests of the Arab population, flirting with its leaders for a look. In fact, as the biographer of Samuel Bernard Wasserstein writes, neither side presents a complete picture in their publications and does not reflect political and ideological contradictions in the activities of the first High Commissioner of Palestine ^[7] .

• Keith Laybourn. Samuel, sir Herbert // British Political Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary . - Santa-Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001 .-- P. 291-293. - ISBN 1-57607-570-2 .
• McTague, John J. Modern History and Politics: Plowing Sand: British Rule in Palestine 1917-1948 // The Middle East Journal. - Vol. 55, No. 1 .
• Bernard Wasserstein. Herbert Samuel: A Political Life. - Clarendon Press, 1992 .-- 444 p. - ISBN 978-0-19-822648-2 .

• Samuel Herbert Louis - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• Herbert Louis Samuel (unopened) (link unavailable) . Middle East Conflict Reference Library (January 1, 2006). Date of treatment October 29, 2012. Archived November 14, 2018.
• Sir Herbert Louis Samuel at FamilySearch.org