The Peace Ballot of 1935 was a nationwide questionnaire of five questions attempting to discover the British public's attitude to the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 and collective security

Collective security

Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, regional or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace...

.

The Ballot was largely organised by the League of Nations Union

League of Nations Union

The League of Nations Union was an organization formed in the United Kingdom to promote international justice, collective security and a permanent peace between nations based upon the ideals of the League of Nations. The League of Nations was established by the Great Powers as part of the Paris...

 and spearheaded by the LNU's president, Lord Robert Cecil. It was not an official referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

, although millions of people voted in it.

According to Dame Adelaide Livingstone

Adelaide Livingstone

Dame Adelaide Stickney Lord Livingstone, DBE was responsible for organising the Peace Ballot in 1934-35 to gauge the British public's sentiment in the winds of upcoming war with a rearming and aggressive Germany led by Adolf Hitler....

 who wrote the official history of the ballot, the first objective of the Peace Ballot from the outset, even before the questions had been posed, was to prove that the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 public supported a policy of the League of Nations as the central determining factor of British foreign policy.

Half-a-million supporters asked all those registered to vote in parliamentary elections. From February 1935 onwards through to May there was a rapid rise in the numbers of people voting in the Ballot. The poll was completed in June 1935 and the final results were announced on 28 June 1935. The total number who voted was approximately 11,000,000. By contrast 20,991,488 of people voted in the general election

United Kingdom general election, 1935

The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

 five months later.

The first question of the Ballot was: Should Great Britain remain a Member of the League of Nations?. Yes, 11,090,387. No, 355,883.

The second question was: Are you in favour of all-round reduction of armaments by international agreement?. Yes, 10,470,489. No, 862,775.

The third question was: Are you in favour of an all-round abolition of national military and naval aircraft by international agreement?. Yes, 9,533,558. No, 1,689,786.

The fourth question was: Should the manufacture and sale of armaments for private profit be prohibited by international agreement?. Yes, 10,417,329. No, 775,415.

The fifth and last question was: Do you consider that, if a nation insists on attacking another, the other nations should combine to compel it to stop—

(a) by economic and non-military measures: Yes, 10,027,608. No, 635,074.

(b) if necessary, military measures: Yes, 6,784,368. No, 2,351,981.

The Ballot has been criticised by historians for being apparently amateurish and unscientific in attempting to gauge the public's mood and for the questions being apparently loaded and designed to get the response wanted. It has also been criticised for not asking the public if Britain should re-arm if other countries continued to re-arm.

The Peace Ballot's supporters included the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, the Liberal Party

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

, the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, the Archbishop of York

Archbishop of York

The Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...

 (and more than fifty bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

s), the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The Moderator of the General Assembly of Church of Scotland is a Minister, Elder or Deacon of the Church of Scotland chosen to "moderate" the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week in Edinburgh every May....

, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, the President of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, the General Secretary of the Baptist Union, the Moderator of the English Presbyterian Church, the Chief Rabbi

Chief Rabbi

Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...

, Anglican Canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 Richard Sheppard

Hugh Richard Lawrie Sheppard

Hugh Richard Lawrie "Dick" Sheppard was an English Anglican priest, Dean of Canterbury and pacifist....

, Sir Cedric Hardwicke

Cedric Hardwicke

Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was a noted English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years...

, Sybil Thorndike

Sybil Thorndike

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...

, Miles Malleson

Miles Malleson

William Miles Malleson was an English actor and dramatist, particularly known for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in The Brides of Dracula as the...

, Jack Hobbs

Jack Hobbs

Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....

, Diana Wynyard

Diana Wynyard

Diana Wynyard, CBE , whose birth name was Dorothy Isobel Cox, was an English stage and film actress.-Life and career:...

, St John Ervine, E. M. Delderfield, A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne

Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...

, Rose Macaulay

Rose Macaulay

Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE was an English writer. She published thirty-five books, mostly novels but also biographies and travel writing....

, Professor J. B. S. Haldane

J. B. S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...

, Dr. A. D. Lindsay (the Master of Balliol

Balliol

Balliol may refer to:* The Balliol family, Lords of Baliol, and their fief* their ancestral seat in Northern France, known usually as Bailleul* Balliol College, Oxford* King John of Scotland , often known as John Balliol...

), Lady Rhondda, Sir Arthur Salter, Sir Norman Angell

Norman Angell

Sir Ralph Norman Angell was an English lecturer, journalist, author, and Member of Parliament for the Labour Party.Angell was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control...

 and H. A. L. Fisher plus sixty-one prominent surgeons and physicians.