LEE KUAN YEW Liberal Party. He advocated a broad-based referendum on tariff reform to secure as much support as possible. Coming from a middle-class background, he felt that revenues raised in this manner could best be spent assisting the struggling working class and thereby negate the onset of socialism. Law’s command of economic subjects, fierce debating skills, and all-around excellence as a politician culminated in his being chosen to head the Conservative Party in November 1911 after Balfour’s resignation. However, the issue that overwhelmingly defined his conservatism was home rule for Ireland. As the son of a Presbyterian minister, he vociferously opposed any moves by the British government to grant independence to Catholic Ireland—without first securing the rights and religious freedoms of Protestant Ulster. After 1911 he utilized every conceivable parliamentary tactic to delay Liberal introduction of home rule and openly endorsed the training of Protestant militias to underscore the threat of violence. He remained an outspoken proponent of the Unionist (anti-Catholic) wing of the Conservative Party until the summer of 1914, when both parties delayed further consideration of home rule until after World War I. But Law made it clear to colleagues that he would support no less than civil war in Ireland to protect the Protestant minority there. When fighting commenced in Europe in August 1914, Law was drawn into a coalition government under HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH and served as secretary of the colonies. However, many Conservatives grew dissatisfied with Asquith’s wartime leadership, and Law conspired with his long-time nemesis, DAVID LLOYD GEORGE of the Liberals, to replace him. Accordingly, when Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916, Law acquired the portfolio of chancellor of the Exchequer. In this capacity, he capably floated numerous loans and bonds that helped finance the war. In the interest of national unity, he also supported Lloyd George’s administration in the face of attacks by fellow Conservatives. Consequently, after hostilities concluded in 1918, Law was allowed to remain in the government. Declining health required him to accept the less strenuous posting of Lord Privy Seal within months. Furthermore, by 1920 he had reversed his opposition to Irish Home Rule once Lloyd George set aside the four Protestant counties known as Northern Ireland. Law surrendered his post as leader of the Conservative Party in 1921 on the grounds of poor health.
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By October 1922 Conservative dissatisfaction with Lloyd George was rife. They left the coalition and held new elections, reinstating Law as party head and prime minister on October 23, 1922. However his tenure in office proved very brief, only six months, and he failed to accomplish any goals worthy of note. Law resigned after only 209 days in office in May 1923, fatally stricken by throat cancer. He died on October 30, 1923, eulogized as the “unknown prime minister.” Throughout his life, Law acquired the reputation of a gaunt, grave, even melancholy figure, greatly afflicted by bouts of depression. Nonetheless, his tenure as head of the Conservative Party proved crucial, for he kept them from splintering into several bickering factions. In 1922 this fate befell the Liberal Party when it split into Liberal and Labour factions. Conservatives, largely because of this leftist schism, have managed to run Great Britain for most of the 20th century: it is Law’s political legacy. He was also the first prime minister to have been born outside Great Britain. Further Reading Adams, R. J. Q. Bonar Law. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. Blake, Robert. An Incongruous Partnership: Lloyd George and Bonar Law. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1992. Goodland, Graham D. “The ‘Crisis’ of Edwardian Conservatism.” Modern History Review 9, no. 4 (1998): 10–13. Rose, Inbal A. Conservatism Foreign Policy During the Lloyd George Coalition, 1918–1922. Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 1999. Smith, Jeremy. The Tories and Ireland: Conservative Party Politics and the Home Rule Crisis, 1910–1914. Portland, Ore.: Irish Academic Press, 2000. Yearwood, Peter J., and Cameroon Hazlehurst. “‘The Affairs of a Distant Dependancy’: The Nigerian Debate and the Premiership of 1916.” Twentieth Century British History 12, no. 4 (2000): 397–431.
Lee Kuan Yew (1923– ) prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore on September 16, 1923, the son of an affluent Chinese lawyer. His native island, an enclave off the southern coast of Malaysia, was then a British Crown colony. Lee was educated at