Neville Chamberlain government fell within months, necessitating another general election. By a margin of only 77 votes, Chamberlain narrowly defeated Labour candidate Oswald Mosley (who later led the British Union of Fascists). Believing he would lose if he stood again in Ladywood, Chamberlain arranged to be adopted for Birmingham Edgbaston, the district of the city where he was born and which was a much safer seat which he would hold for the rest of his life. The Unionists won the election, but Chamberlain declined to serve again as Chancellor, preferring his former position as Minister of Health. Within two weeks of his
Rise of Neville Chamberlain pleasing and appropriate that Chamberlain could now promote his father's policies, and Sir Austen Chamberlain wrote to his brother in November 1931, "Father's great work will be completed in his children." The tariff issue bitterly divided the Cabinet, and threatened to end the National Government. The Cabinet accepted a proposal by Lord Hailsham, Secretary of State for War, that they agree publicly to disagree, a rare suspension of the doctrine of Cabinet collective responsibility. Chamberlain prepared his tariff bill, which exempted the Dominions pending the Ottawa Conference, set for later that year. On 4 February 1932, he laid it before