Chapter Vii (p. 143)

POLITICAL PARTIES

I. PARLIAMENTARISM AND THE PARTY SYSTEM

*150. Government by Party.*--Intimately connected with the parliamentary scheme of government which has been described is the characteristic British system of government by party. Indeed, not merely is there between the two an intimate connection; they are but different aspects of the same working arrangement. The public affairs of the kingdom at any given time, as has appeared, are managed by the body of ministers, acting with and through a supporting majority in the House of Commons. These ministers belong to one or the other of the two great political parties, with only occasional and incidental representation of minor affiliated political groups. Their supporters in the Commons are, in the main, their fellow-partisans, and their tenure of power is dependent upon the fortunes of their party in Parliament and throughout the country. They are at once the working executive, the guiding agency in legislation, and the leaders and spokesmen of this party. Confronting them constantly is the Opposition, consisting of influential exponents of the contrary political faith who, in turn, lead the rank and file of their party organization; and if at any time the ministers in power lose their supporting majority in the Commons, whether through adverse results of a national election or otherwise, they retire and the Opposition assumes office. The parliamentary system and the party system are thus inextricably related, the one being, indeed, historically the product of the other. It was principally through the agency of party spirit, party contest, and party unity that there was established by degrees that single and collective responsibility of ministers which lies at the root of parliamentary government; and, but for the coherence and stability with which political activity is invested by party organization, the operation of the parliamentary system would be an impossibility. The law of the British constitution does not demand the existence of parties; on the contrary, it affords them no recognition or place. The conventions, however, both assume and require them.

*151. Two-Party Organization.*--The relationship which subsists (p. 144) between parliamentarism and party government is to be accounted for in no small measure by the fact that the number of great parties in the United Kingdom is but two. Certain continental nations, notably France and Italy, possess the forms of parliamentary government, adopted within times comparatively recent and taken over largely from Great Britain. In these countries, however, the multiplicity of parties effectually prevents the operation of the parliamentary system in the fashion in which that system operates across the Channel. Ministries must be made up invariably of representatives of a number of essentially independent groups. They are apt to be in-harmonious, to be able to execute but indifferently the composite will of the Government coalition in the popular chamber, and, accordingly, to be short-lived. Despite the rise in recent decades of the Irish Nationalist and Labor groups, it is still true in Great Britain, as it has been since political parties first made their appearance there, that two leading party affiliations divide between themselves the allegiance of the mass of the nation. The defeat of one means the triumph of the other, and either alone is competent normally to govern independently if elevated to power. This means, on the one hand, a much more thoroughgoing predominance of the governing party than can be acquired by a single party in France or Italy and, on the other hand, a unique concentration of responsibility and, in turn, an increased responsiveness to the public will. The leaders of the one party for the time in the ascendancy govern the nation, by reason of the fact that, being the leaders of this party, they are selected without doubt or equivocation to fill the principal offices of state.

II. PARTIES IN THE LATER EIGHTEENTH AND EARLIER NINETEENTH (p. 145) CENTURIES

*152. Whigs and Tories.*--The seventeenth-century origins of political parties in England, the development of Whigs and Tories following the Revolution of 1688-1689, and the prolonged Whig supremacy during the reigns of George I. and George II., have been alluded to in another place. During the eighteenth century the parliamentary system was but slowly coming into its own, and again and again party lines all but disappeared. The recurring rivalry of Whig and Tory elements, however, brought about gradually a habitual recognition of the responsibility of ministers, and this responsibility, in turn, reacted to accentuate party demarcation. The efforts of George III. to revive the royal prerogative had the effect of calling into existence a body of new Tories, not Jacobite, but Hanoverian, who supported the king in his purpose, and at the same time, of driving the forces of opposition to a closer union and more constant vigilance. Throughout the century the tone of party politics was continuously low. Bribery and other forms of corruption were rife, and the powers of government, both national and local, were in the hands regularly of an aristocratic minority which ruled in its own interest. The high-water mark of intrigue was reached in 1783 when the old Tories, led by Lord North, allied themselves with the old Whigs, led by Charles James Fox, to retain power and to curtail the influence of the king. The coalition was unsuccessful, and the defeat of Fox's India Bill, in December, 1783, became the occasion of the younger Pitt's elevation to the premiership, followed within three months by a national election which precipitated an end of the seventy years of Whig ascendancy.

*153. The Tory Ascendancy, 1783-1830.*--Throughout the ensuing forty-six years, or until 1830, the new Tory party continued almost uninterruptedly in power, although it is to be observed that after 1790 the composition and character of this party underwent important modification. The first decade of the period covered by the Pitt ministry (1784-1801) was a time of incipient but active propaganda in behalf of constitutional, financial, and social reform, and the government was not disinclined to favor a number of the changes which were projected. The outbreak and progress of the Revolution in (p. 146) France, however, completely altered the situation. The great landowners, who constituted the dominating element in the Whig party, detested the principles of the Revolution and were insistent in season and out upon war with France. They secured the support of the parliamentary classes generally, and Pitt and his colleagues were forced to surrender to the apprehensions and demands of these elements. The war was declared by France, but it was provoked mainly by the hostile attitude of the English people and government. At home all reform propaganda was stamped out, and Tories and Whigs alike throughout the quarter-century of international conflict pointed habitually to the abuses by which the upheaval in France was accompanied as indicative of what might be expected in England, or anywhere, when once the way was thrown open for unrestrained innovation.

The Tories were in power during most of the war period and in 1815 their position was seemingly impregnable. During the years covered by the ministry of Lord Liverpool (1812-1827), however, their hold was gradually relaxed. They sought to secure for themselves the support of the masses and talked much of the aristocratic exclusiveness of the Whigs, yet they made it their first concern to maintain absolutely intact the constitution of the kingdom and the political and social order by which it was buttressed. As long as England was engaged in a life and death contest with Napoleon the staying of innovation was easy, but after 1815 the task became one of rapidly increasing difficulty. In the reign of George IV. (1820-1830) the more progressive of the Tory leaders, notably Canning, Huskisson, and Peel, recognized that the demands of the nation would have to be met at some points, and a number of liberalizing measures were suffered to be carried through Parliament, though none which touched directly the most serious problems of the day. In 1830 the resignation of the ministry of the Duke of Wellington marked the end of the prolonged Tory ascendancy, and with a ministry presided over by Earl Grey the Whigs returned to power. With the exception of a few brief intervals they and their successors, the Liberals, held office thereafter until 1874.

III. THE SECOND ERA OF WHIG [LIBERAL] ASCENDANCY, 1830-1874 (p. 147)

*154. The Liberals and Reform.*--The political history of this second great era of Whig ascendancy falls into some four or five stages. The first, extending from the accession of the Grey ministry in 1830 to the parliamentary elections of 1841, was an epoch of notable reforms, undertaken and carried through mainly by the Whigs, with the co-operation of various radical elements and of discontented Tories. This was the period of the first Reform Act (1832), the emancipation of slaves in the British colonies (1833), the beginning of parliamentary appropriations for public education (1833), the Factory Act of 1833, the New Poor Law (1834), the Municipal Corporations Act (1835), and a number of other measures designed to meet urgent demands of humanity and of public interest. This was the time, furthermore, at which the party nomenclature of later days was brought into use. The name Whig was superseded altogether by that of Liberal, while the name Tory, though not wholly discontinued in everyday usage, was replaced largely by the term Conservative. The Liberals were in these years peculiarly the party of reform, but it must not be inferred that the Conservatives resisted all change or withheld support from all measures of amelioration.

*155. From Peel to Palmerston.*--The second stage of the period under survey was that comprised by the Conservative ministry of Sir Robert Peel, 1841-1846, established in consequence of the decisive defeat of the Whigs at the elections of 1841. The memorable achievement of the Peel government was the repeal of the Corn Laws and the casting off of substantially the whole of the protective system; but the tariff policy of the premier divided the Conservative party into the protectionists or old Conservatives, led by Disraeli and Lord Derby, and the free trade or liberal Conservatives, led by Aberdeen and (p. 148) Gladstone, and the breach enabled the Liberals, under Lord John Russell, to recover office in 1847. A third stage of the period, i.e., 1847 to 1859, was one of ministerial instability. Disputes between Russell and Palmerston, the foreign minister, undermined the Liberal position, and in 1852 the Conservatives, under the leadership of Derby, returned to power. In 1853, however, the free trade Conservatives joined the Liberals, overthrew Derby, and placed in office a coalition ministry under Aberdeen. This government maintained itself until 1855, when, by reason of discontent aroused by his management of England's part in the Crimean War, Aberdeen resigned and was succeeded by Palmerston, at the head of another Liberal ministry. Foreign difficulties drove Palmerston from office early in 1858, and the establishment of a second Derby ministry marked a brief return of the Conservatives to control. Defeated, however, on a resolution censuring the Government for the inadequacy of the reform bill introduced by it in 1859, and also for the failure of Lord Derby to prevent the war between France and Austria, the ministry resigned, in April, 1859, and Lord Palmerston returned to power, with Gladstone and Lord John Russell as colleagues. Gladstone's acceptance of office under Palmerston marked the final severance of the Peelites from the Conservative party and the abandonment of all hope of the reconstruction for which both Gladstone and Derby had labored.

*156. Party Regeneration.*--A fourth, and final, stage of the Liberal period covered the years 1859 to 1874. Its importance arises not merely from the fact that the culmination of the power of the Liberals during the nineteenth century was attained at this point, but from the further fact that it was during these years that the Liberal party was transformed and popularized so as to be made for the first time really worthy of the name which it bears. As long as Palmerston lived the Liberals of the old school, men who disliked radicalism and were content with the reform of 1832, were in the ascendancy, but after the premier's death, October 18, 1865, new ideas and influences asserted themselves and a new Liberal party came rapidly to the fore. This regenerated party, whose leader was Gladstone, rejected definitely the ideal of laissez-faire, took over numerous principles of the Radicals, and, with the watchwords of "peace, retrenchment, and reform," began to insist upon a broader parliamentary franchise and upon fresh legislation for the protection and general betterment of the masses. The new liberalism was paralleled, however, by a new conservatism, whose principal exponent was Disraeli. The new Conservatives likewise advocated franchise reform and legislation for the people, although they put more emphasis upon the latter than upon the former; and they especially favored a firm foreign policy, (p. 149) an extension of British interests in all parts of the world, and the adoption of a scheme of colonial federation. They appeared, at least, to have less regard for peace and for economy than had the Liberals.

The temper and tendencies of the parties as they gradually assumed shape during the third quarter of the nineteenth century have been characterized effectively by a recent writer as follows: "The parties of which Gladstone and Disraeli were the chiefs were linked by continuous historical succession with the two great sections or factions of the aristocracy, or hereditary oligarchy, which ruled Great Britain in the eighteenth century. But each had been transformed by national changes since the Reform Bill. The Whigs had become Liberals, the Tories had become Conservatives. The Liberal party had absorbed part of the principles of the French Revolution. They stood now for individual liberty, laying especial stress on freedom of trade, freedom of contract, and freedom of competition. They had set themselves to break down the rule of the landowner and the Church, to shake off the fetters of Protection, and to establish equality before the law. Their acceptance of egalitarian principles led them to adopt democratic ideals, to advocate extension of the suffrage, and the emancipation of the working classes. Such principles, though not revolutionary, are to some extent disruptive in their tendency; and their adoption by the Liberals had forced the Tory party to range themselves in defense of the existing order of things. They professed to stand for the Crown, the Church, and the Constitution. They were compelled by the irresistible trend of events to accept democratic principles and to carry out democratic reforms. They preferred, in fact, to carry out such reforms themselves, in order that the safeguards which they considered necessary might be respected. Democratic principles having been adopted, both parties made it their object to redress grievances; but the Conservatives showed a natural predisposition to redress those grievances which arose from excessive freedom of competition, the Liberals were the more anxious to redress those which were the result of hereditary or customary privilege. The harmony of the State consists in the equilibrium between the two opposing forces of liberty and order. The Liberals laid more stress upon liberty, the Conservatives attached more importance to order and established authority."

*157. The First Gladstone Ministry.*--Upon the death of Palmerston in 1865 Lord John Russell became premier a second time, but in the course of the following year a franchise reform bill brought forward by the Government was defeated in the Commons, through the instrumentality chiefly of a group of old Liberals (the "Adullamites") who (p. 150) opposed modification of the electoral system, and by curious circumstance it fell to the purely Conservative Derby-Disraeli ministry of 1866-1868 not only to carry the first electoral reform since 1832 but to impart to that reform a degree of thoroughness upon which none save the most advanced radicals had cared to insist. The results of the doubling of the electorate were manifest in the substantial majority which the new Liberals acquired at the elections of 1868, and the Disraeli ministry (Derby had retired early in the year) gave place to a government presided over by the indubitable leader of the new Liberal forces, Gladstone. The years 1868-1874, covered by the first Gladstone ministry, were given distinction by a remarkable series of reforms, including the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland (1869), the enactment of an Irish land bill (1870), the institution of national control of elementary education (1870), and the adoption of the Australian ballot in parliamentary elections (1872). Defeated at last, however, on an Irish university bill, the ministry resigned, and when, at the elections of 1874, the country was appealed to, the Conservatives obtained a clear parliamentary majority of fifty seats. This was the first really dependable majority, indeed, which the party had possessed since 1842. Disraeli became prime minister and Derby minister for foreign affairs.

IV. THE SECOND ERA OF CONSERVATIVE ASCENDANCY, 1874-1905

*158. The Question of Irish Home Rule.*--During the five years covered by the life of the second Disraeli ministry British imperialism reached flood tide. The reforms of the Gladstone government were (p. 151) not undone, but the Conservative leaders interested themselves principally in foreign and colonial questions, and home affairs received but scant attention. The result was public discontent, and at the elections of 1880 the Liberals obtained a parliamentary majority of more than one hundred seats. It remained for the second Gladstone government, established at this point, to adjust a number of difficulties on the frontiers of the Empire; but the heart of the ministry was not in this sort of work and the way was cleared as speedily as possible for a return to the consideration of problems of a domestic nature. In 1884 the Representation of the People Act was carried, and in 1885 the Redistribution of Seats Act. But now, and throughout a decade and a half following, the question which overshadowed all others was that of Home Rule for Ireland. Upon this issue, in its variety of aspects, governments henceforth rose and fell, parties were disrupted and re-aligned. In 1885 the Parnellites, or Irish Nationalists, incensed because of Gladstone's indifference to Home Rule, and taking advantage of the ministry's unpopularity arising from the failure of its Egyptian policy, compassed the defeat of the Government on a measure relating to the taxing of beer and spirits. The Marquis of Salisbury, who after the death of Lord Beaconsfield, in 1881, had become leader of the Conservatives, made up a government; but, absolutely dependent upon the Irish Nationalist alliance and yet irrevocably committed against Home Rule, the Salisbury ministry found itself from the outset in an impossible position.

*159. The Liberal Unionists.*--The elections at the end of 1885 yielded the Conservatives 249 seats, the Irish Nationalists 86, and the Liberals 335, and January 28, 1880, the Salisbury ministry retired. Gladstone returned to power and Home Rule took its place in the formal programme of the Liberal party. Then followed, April 8, 1886, the introduction of the first of Gladstone's memorable Home Rule bills. The measure accorded the Irish a separate parliament at Dublin, cut them off from representation at Westminster, and required them to bear a proportionate share of the expenses of the Imperial Government. It was thrown out by the Commons on the second reading. The Conservatives opposed it solidly, many of the Irish Nationalists were dissatisfied with it, and upwards of a hundred Liberal members, led by Joseph Chamberlain, flatly refused to follow the majority of their fellow-partisans in voting for it. Under the name of Liberal Unionists these dissenters eventually broke entirely from their earlier affiliation; and, inclining more and more toward the position occupied by the Conservatives, they ended by losing their identity in the ranks of that party. Their accession, however, brought the Conservatives new vigor, new issues, and even a new name, for in more recent (p. 152) days the term Conservative has been supplanted very generally by that of Unionist.

*160. Second Salisbury and Fourth Gladstone Ministries.*--The defeat of Home Rule was followed by a national election, the result of which was the return of 316 Conservatives, 78 Liberal Unionists, 191 Gladstonian Liberals, and 85 Irish Nationalists. The combined unionists had a majority of 118, and July 26, 1886, the short-lived third Gladstone government was succeeded by a second ministry presided over by the Marquis of Salisbury. Home Rule, however, was not dead. During the years of the Salisbury ministry (1886-1892) the authorities were obliged to devote much attention to Irish affairs, and in 1892 the Liberals were returned to office on a platform which stipulated expressly Home Rule for Ireland. The Conservative appeal to the country at this time was made on the ground, first, that Home Rule should be resisted, and, second, that the Government's achievements in reform and constructive legislation entitled the party to continuance in power; but in the new parliament there was an adverse majority of forty, and August 18 Gladstone, for the fourth time, was requested to form a ministry. The elections of 1892 are of interest by reason of the fact that they marked the first appearance of independent labor representatives in Parliament. Miners' delegates and an agricultural laborer had been elected before, but they had identified themselves in all instances with the radical wing of the Liberals. There were now returned, however, four members, including John Burns and Keir Hardie, who chose to hold aloof and, as they expressed it, "to sit in opposition until they should cross the house to form a labor government." The Home Rule bill which Gladstone introduced February 13, 1893, differed from its predecessor of 1886 principally in not excluding the Irish from representation at Westminster. It was passed in the House of Commons, although by an ultimate majority of but thirty-four, but in the Lords it was rejected by a vote of 419 to 41. In the face of an obstacle so formidable as that imposed by the adverse majority in the upper chamber it appeared useless to press the issue. The Lords, whose power in legislation became at this point greater than at any time since 1832, systematically balked the Government at every turn, and March 3, 1894, Gladstone, aged and (p. 153) weary of parliamentary strife, retired from office. His last speech in the Commons comprised a sharp arraignment of the House of Lords, with a forecast of the clash which eventually would lead (and, in point of fact, has led) to the reconstitution of that chamber.

*161. Third and Fourth Salisbury Ministries.*--For the time the Earl of Rosebery, who had been foreign secretary, assumed the premiership and there was no break in the Government's policy. In June, 1895, however, the ministry suffered a defeat on the floor of the Commons, and the Marquis of Salisbury was a third time invited to form a government. The retirement of Gladstone brought to light numerous rifts within the Liberal party, and when the new ministry, in July, appealed to the country, with Home Rule as a preponderating issue, its supporters secured in the Commons a majority of 152 seats over the Liberals and Nationalists combined. The Liberal Unionists returned 71 members, and to cement yet more closely the Conservative-Unionist alliance Lord Salisbury made up a ministry in which the Unionist elements were ably represented by Joseph Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary, Viscount Goschen as First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Duke of Devonshire as President of the Council. The premier himself returned to the post of Foreign Secretary, and his nephew, Arthur J. Balfour, now become again Government leader in the Commons, to that of First Lord of the Treasury. The accession of the third Salisbury ministry marked the beginning of a Unionist ascendancy which lasted uninterruptedly a full decade. In 1902 Lord Salisbury, whose fourth ministry, dating from the elections of 1900, was continuous with his third, retired from public life, but he was succeeded in the premiership by Mr. Balfour, and the personnel and policies of the Government continued otherwise unchanged.

*162. Unionist Imperialism: the Elections of 1900.*--During the larger part of this Unionist decade the Liberal party, rent by factional disputes and personal rivalries, afforded but ineffective opposition. The Home Rule question fell into the background; and although (p. 154) the Unionists carried through a considerable amount of social and industrial legislation, the interests of the period center largely in the Government's policies and achievements within the domain of foreign and colonial affairs. The most hotly contested issue of the decade was imperialism; the most commanding public figure was Joseph Chamberlain; the most notable enterprise undertaken was the war in South Africa. In 1900 it was resolved by the ministerial leaders to take advantage of the public spirit engendered by the war to procure for the Unionists a fresh lease of power. Parliament was dissolved and, on the eve of the announcement of the annexation of the Transvaal, a general election was held. The Liberals, led since early in 1899 by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, charged the Unionists with neglect of social and industrial matters, pledged themselves to educational, housing, and temperance reform, and sought especially to convince the electorate that they might be intrusted with safety to defend the legitimate interests of the Empire. The Government forced the fight upon the issue of South African policy almost exclusively, and, representing the opposition as "Little-Englanders," went before the people with the argument that from the course that had been entered upon in South Africa there could be no turning back, and that the present ministry was entitled to an opportunity to carry to completion the work that it had begun. The appeal was altogether successful. The Conservatives obtained 334 seats and the Liberal Unionists 68--a total of 402; while the Liberals and Laborites carried but 186 and the Nationalists 82--a total of 268. The Government majority in the new parliament was thus 134, almost precisely that of 1895.

After the elections dissension within the Liberal ranks broke out afresh. The Rosebery wing maintained that, the South African war having been begun, it was the duty of all Englishmen to support it, and that the Unionist government should be attacked only on the ground of mismanagement. In July, 1901, Campbell-Bannerman, impelled by the weakness of his position, demanded of his fellow-partisans that they either ratify or repudiate his leadership of the party in the (p. 155) Commons. Approval was accorded, but no progress was realized toward an agreement upon policies. To careful observers it became clear that there could be no effective revival of Liberalism until the war in South Africa should have been terminated and the larger imperial problems involved in it solved. For a time the only clear-cut parliamentary opposition offered the Government was that of the frankly pro-Boer Nationalists.

V. THE LIBERAL REVIVAL

*163. The Issue of Tariff Reform.*--The rehabilitation of the Liberal party came during the years 1902-1905. It was foreshadowed by the famous Chesterfield speech of Lord Rosebery, delivered December 16, 1901, although the immediate effect of that effort was but to accentuate party cleavages, and it was made possible by a reversion of the national mind from the war to domestic questions and interests. More specifically, it was the product of opposition to the Government's Education Act of 1902, of public disapproval of what seemed to be the growing arrogance of the Unionist majority in the House of Lords, and, above all, of the demoralization which was wrought within the ranks of Unionism by the rise of the issue of preferential tariffs. In a speech to his constituents at Birmingham, May 15, 1903, Mr. Chamberlain, but lately returned from a visit to South Africa and now at the height of his prestige, startled the nation by declaring that the time had come for Great Britain to abandon the free trade doctrines of the Manchester school and to knit the Empire more closely together, and at the same time to promote the economic interests of both the colonies and the mother country, by the adoption of a system of preferential duties on imported foodstuffs. Later in the year the gifted exponent of this revolutionary programme entered upon a vigorous speaking campaign in defense of his proposals, and there was set up a large and representative tariff commission which was charged with the task of framing, after due investigation, a tariff system which would meet the needs alleged to exist. Among the Unionist leaders there arose forthwith a division of opinion which portended open rupture. The rank and file of the party was (p. 156) nonplussed and undecided, and throughout many months the subject engrossed attention to the exclusion of very nearly everything else.

In this situation the Liberals found their opportunity. All but unanimously opposed to the suggested departure, they assumed with avidity the role of defenders of England's "sacred principle of free trade" and utilized to the utmost the appeal which could now be made to the working classes in behalf of cheap bread. Mr. Chamberlain denied that his scheme meant a wholesale reversal of the economic policy of the nation, but in the judgment of most men the issue was joined squarely between the general principle of free trade and that of protection. Throughout 1904 and 1905 the Government found itself increasingly embarrassed by the fiscal question, as well as by difficulties attending the administration of the Education Act, the regulation of Chinese labor in South Africa, and a number of other urgent tasks, and the by-elections resulted so uniformly in Unionist defeats as to presage clearly the eventual return of the Liberals to power.

*164. The Liberals in Office: the Elections of 1906.*--Hesitating long, but at the last bowing somewhat abruptly before the gathering storm, Mr. Balfour tendered his resignation December 4, 1905. The Government had in the Commons a working majority of seventy-six, and the Parliament elected in 1900 had still another year of life. In the Lords the Unionists outnumbered their opponents ten to one. The administration, however, had fallen off enormously in popularity, and the obstacles imposed by the fiscal cleavage appeared insuperable. Unable wholly to follow Mr. Chamberlain in his projects, the premier had grown weary of the attempt to balance himself on the tight rope of ambiguity between the free trade and protectionist wings of his party. Not caring, however, to give his opponents the advantage which would accrue from an immediate dissolution of Parliament and the ordering of an election which should turn on clear issues raised by the record of the ten years of Unionist rule, he chose simply to resign and so to compel the formation of a new government which itself should be (p. 157) immediately on trial when the inevitable elections should come.

On the day of Mr. Balfour's resignation the king designated as premier the Liberal leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who forthwith made up a cabinet of rather exceptional strength in which the premier himself occupied the post of First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Edward Grey that of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Herbert H. Asquith that of the Exchequer, Mr. Richard B. Haldane that of War, Lord Tweedmouth that of the Navy, Mr. David Lloyd-George that of President of the Board of Trade, Mr. John Burns that of President of the Local Government Board, Mr. Augustine Birrell that of President of the Board of Education, and Mr. James Bryce that of Chief Secretary for Ireland. January 8, 1906, the "Khaki Parliament" was dissolved, a general election was ordered, and the new parliament was fixed to meet at the earliest legal date, February 13. The campaign that followed was the most animated, except that of 1910, in recent British history. The Unionists, being themselves divided beyond repair on the question of the tariff, pinned their hope to a disruption of the Liberal forces on the issue of Home Rule. The Liberal leaders, however, steadfastly refused to allow the Irish question to be brought into the foreground. Recognizing that Home Rule in the immediate future was an impossibility, but pledging themselves to a policy contemplating its establishment by degrees, they contrived to force the battle principally upon the issue of free trade versus protection and, in general, to direct their most telling attack upon the fiscal record and fiscal policies of their opponents. The result was an overwhelming Liberal triumph. In a total of 6,555,301 votes, 4,026,704 were cast for Liberal, Nationalist, and Labor candidates, and only 2,528,597 for Conservatives and Unionists. There were returned to the House of Commons 374 Liberals, 84 Nationalists, 54 Laborites, 131 Conservatives, and 27 Liberal Unionists, assuring the Liberals and their allies a clear preponderance of 354. Prior to the elections careful observers believed the return of the Liberals to power inevitable, but a victory of such proportions was not dreamed of by the most ardent of the party's well-wishers.

VI. THE RULE OF THE LIBERALS, 1906-1912 (p. 158)

*165. The Liberal Mandate.*--The Liberal ascendancy, made thus secure by the elections of 1906, has continued uninterruptedly to the date of writing (1912), and the years covered by it have been in many respects the most important in the political history of modern Britain. The significance of the period arises principally from the vast amount of social and economic legislation that has been attempted within it. A considerable portion of this legislation has been successfully carried through and is now in effect. Some important portions, however, have failed of eventual adoption, chiefly in consequence of the opposition of the Unionist majority in the Lords; and a direct outcome of the series of clashes between the Liberals and the Lords has been the important constitutional readjustments comprised within the Parliament Act of 1911 already described. Speaking broadly, the Liberals were restored to power in 1906 because the nation desired the doing of certain things which the Unionists seemed unable or disinclined to do. Most important among these things were: (1) the reduction of public expenditures and the curbing of national extravagance; (2) the remission of taxation imposed during the South African war; (3) the reform of the army; and (4) the undertaking of an extended programme of social reform, embracing the establishment of old age pensions, the remedying of unemployment, the regulation of the liquor traffic, and the liberation of education from ecclesiastical domination. The nation was solicitous, too, that the system of free trade be maintained without impairment. To all of these policies, and more, the Liberals were committed without reserve when they entered office.

*166. The Party's Performance.*--During the years intervening between the elections of 1906 and those of 1910 the Liberal governments presided over successively by Mr. Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Asquith made honest effort to redeem the election pledges of the party. They stopped the alarming increase of the national debt and made provision for debt reduction at a rate equalled at but two brief periods since the middle of the nineteenth century. They repealed approximately half of the war taxes which were still operative when they assumed office. In the matter of national expenditures they accomplished a momentary reduction, although the normal increase (p. 159) of civil outlays, the adoption of old age pensions, and, above all, the demand of the propertied interests for the maintenance of a two-power naval standard brought about eventually an increase rather than a diminution of the sums carried by the annual budget. In accordance with a scheme worked out by Mr. Haldane they remodelled the army. They maintained free trade. They made no headway toward Home Rule, but they enacted, in 1909, an Irish Universities bill and an Irish Land Purchase bill which were regarded as highly favorable to Irish interests. Above all, they labored to meet the demand of the nation for social legislation. The prevalence of unemployment, the misery occasioned by widespread poverty, the recurrence of strikes and other industrial disorders, the growing volume of emigration, and other related aspects of England's present social unsettlement, have served to fix unshakably in the public mind the idea that the state must plan, undertake, and bear the cost of huge projects of social and industrial amelioration and of democratization and reform. In the realization of those portions of their programme which relate to these matters the Liberals have been only partially successful. They enacted important labor legislation, including an eight-hour working day in mines, a Labor Exchanges act, and a Trades Disputes act, and they established, by act of 1908, an elaborate system of old age pensions. By reason of the opposition of the House of Lords, however, they failed to enact the bill of 1906 for the abolition of plural voting, the hotly contested measure of 1906 providing for the undenominationalizing of the schools, the Aliens Bill of 1906, the Land Values Bill of 1907, the Licensing Bill of 1908, the London Elections Bill of 1909, and, finally, the Finance Bill of 1909, whose rejection by the Lords precipitated a dissolution of Parliament and the ordering of the elections of January, 1910.

*167. The Liberals Versus the Lords: the Elections of January, 1910.*--Four years of conflict with the overpowering Opposition in the upper chamber brought the Liberals to a place from which they neither could nor would go on until certain fundamentals were settled. The first was the assurance of revenues adequate to meet the growing demands upon the treasury. The second was the alteration of the status of the Lords to make certain the predominance of the popular branch of Parliament in finance and legislation. During the two years (1909-1911) while these great issues were pending the nation was stirred to the depths and party conflict was unprecedented in intensity. On the side of finance, Unionists and Liberals were in substantial agreement upon the policies--especially old age pensions and naval aggrandizement--which rendered larger outlays inevitable; they differed, rather, upon the means by which the necessary funds (p. 160) should be obtained. The solution offered in the Lloyd-George budget of 1909 was the imposition of new taxes on land and the increase of liquor license duties and of the taxes on incomes and inheritances. The new burdens were contrived to fall almost wholly upon the propertied, especially the landholding, classes. To this plan the Unionists offered the alternative of Tariff Reform, urging that the needed revenues should be derived from duties laid principally upon imported foodstuffs, although the free trade members of the party could not with consistency lend this proposal their support. The rejection of the Finance Bill by the Lords, November 30, 1909, sweeping aside as it did three centuries of unbroken precedent, brought to a crisis the question of the mending or ending of the Lords, and although the electoral contest of January, 1910, was fought immediately upon the issue of the Government's finance proposals, the question of the Lords could by no means be kept in the background. The results of this election were disappointing to all parties save the Nationalists. The final returns gave the Liberals 274 seats, the Unionists 273, the Nationalists 82, and the Laborites 41. The Asquith government found itself still in power, but absolutely dependent upon the co-operation of the Labor and Nationalist groups. Upon the great issues involved there was no very clear pronouncement, but it was a foregone conclusion that the tax proposals would be enacted, that some reconstitution of the House of Lords would be undertaken, and that free trade would not yet be in any measure abandoned.

*168. The Liberal Triumph: the Elections of December, 1910.*--The developments of the ensuing year and a half have been sketched elsewhere. They comprised, in the main: (1) the re-introduction and the enactment of the Finance Bill of 1909: (2) the bringing forward by Mr. Asquith of the Government's proposals relative to (p. 161) the alteration of relations between the two houses of Parliament; (3) the adoption by the House of Lords of the principle of Lord Rosebery's projected scheme of upper chamber reform; (4) the interruption and postponement of the contest by reason of the death of Edward VII.; (5) the failure of the Constitutional Conference in the summer of 1910; (6) the adoption by the second chamber of the reform resolutions of Lord Lansdowne; (7) the dissolution of Parliament, after an existence of but ten months, to afford an opportunity for a fresh appeal to the country on the specific issue of second chamber reform; (8) the elections of December, 1910, and the assembling of the new parliament in January, 1911; and (9) the re-introduction and the final enactment, in the summer of 1911, of the Government's momentous Parliament Bill. At the December elections the contending forces were so solidly entrenched that the party quotas in the House of Commons remained all but unchanged. Following the elections they stood as follows: Liberals, 272; Unionists, 272; Nationalists, 76; Independent Nationalists (followers of William O'Brien), 8; and Laborites, 42. The Unionists gained substantially in Lancashire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, but lost ground in London and in several boroughs throughout the country. Still dependent upon the good-will of the minor parties, the Government addressed itself afresh to the limitation of the veto power of the Lords and to the programme of social amelioration which during the recent months of excitement had been accorded meager attention. Effort in the one direction bore fruit in the Parliament Act, approved by the crown August 18, 1911; while upon the other side substantial results were achieved in the enactment, December 16, 1911, of a far-reaching measure instituting a national system of insurance against both sickness and unemployment.

VII. THE PARTIES OF TO-DAY (p. 162)

*169. Significance of "Liberal" and "Conservative."*--Of the four political parties of Great Britain to-day one, the Irish Nationalist, is localized in Ireland and has for its essential purpose the attainment of the single end of Irish Home Rule; another, the Labor party, is composed all but exclusively of workingmen, mainly members of trade-unions, and exists to promote the interests of the laboring masses; while the two older and more powerful ones, the Liberal and the Conservative or Unionist, are broadly national in their constituencies and well-nigh universal in the range of their principles and policies. It is essential to observe, however, that while the programme of the Nationalists is, at least to a certain point, perfectly precise, and that of the Laborites is hardly less so, there is no longer, despite the heat of recurring electoral and parliamentary combats, much that is fundamental or permanent in the demarcation which sets off the two major parties the one against the other. Even the names "Liberal" and "Conservative" denote in reality much less than might be supposed. During the generation which began with the Reform Act of 1832 the Liberals, indeed, extended the franchise to the middle classes, reformed the poor law, overhauled the criminal law, introduced a new and more satisfactory scheme of municipal administration, instituted public provision for elementary education, enacted statutes to safeguard the public health, removed the disabilities of dissenters, and assisted in the overthrow of the protective system. But if the Conservatives of the period 1830-1870 played, in general, the role implied by their party designation, their attitude none the less was by no means always that of obstructionists, and in the days of the Disraelian leadership they became scarcely less a party of reform than were their opponents. Beginning with the Reform Act of 1867, a long list of progressive and even revolutionizing measures must be credited to them, and in late years they and the Liberals have vied in advocating old age pensions, factory legislation, accident insurance, housing laws, and other sorts of advanced and remedial governmental action. The differences which separate the two parties are not so much those of principle or of (p. 163) political dogma as those of policy respecting immediate and particular measures, and especially those of attitude toward certain important organizations and interests. The Liberals assert themselves to be more trustful of the people and more concerned about the popular welfare, but the Conservatives enter a denial which possesses plausibility. It is probably true that the Liberals have fostered peace and economy with more resoluteness than have their rivals, yet so far as expenditures go the Liberal administration to-day is laying out more money than was ever laid out by a Conservative government in time of peace. The Liberals are seemingly more regardful of the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, but the difference is not so large as is sometimes supposed.

*170. Present-day Issues.*--Aside from the tariff question (and the Conservatives are far from united upon the Chamberlain programme), the principal issues which separate the two leading parties to-day are those which arise from the Conservative attitude of friendliness toward the House of Lords, the Established Church, the landowners, and the publicans. Most of the political contests of recent years have been waged upon questions pertaining to the constitution of the upper chamber, denominational control of education, disestablishment, the taxation of land, and the regulation of the liquor traffic, and in all of these matters the Liberals have been insisting upon changes which their opponents either disapprove entirely or desire to confine within narrower bounds than those proposed. In the carrying through of the Parliament Bill of 1911, providing a means by which measures may be enacted into law over the protest of the Conservative majority in the Lords, the Liberals achieved their greatest triumph since 1832. The party stands committed to-day to a large number of far-reaching projects, including the extension of social insurance, the revision of the electoral system, the establishment of Home Rule, and, ultimately, a reconstitution of the second chamber as promised in the preamble of the Parliament Act. At the date of writing (October, 1912) there are pending in Parliament a momentous measure for the granting of Home Rule to Ireland and another for the overhauling of the electoral system, an important bill for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a measure virtually annulling the principle involved in the Osborne Decision, and several minor Government proposals. The recent victories of the Liberals have been won with the aid of Labor and Irish Nationalist votes, and the concessions which have been, (p. 164) and are being, made to the interests of these auxiliary parties may be expected to affect profoundly the course of legislation during the continuance of the Liberal ascendancy. There are, it may be said, indications that the Liberals possess less strength throughout the country than they exhibited during the critical years 1910-1911. At thirty-eight by-elections contested by the Unionists since December, 1910, the Liberals have suffered a net loss of eight seats; and one of the contests lost was that in Midlothian, long the constituency represented by Gladstone, which returned, in September, 1912, a Conservative member for the first time in thirty-eight years. There is a tradition that when a Liberal government is defeated in Midlothian the end of that government is not far distant. Prophecy in such matters, however, is futile. Meanwhile the Unionists continue to be divided upon the tariff, but in the main they are united in opposition to the overturning of the ancient constitutional system, although they no longer generally oppose a moderate reform of the House of Lords. In a speech delivered at Leeds, November 16, 1911, the new parliamentary leader of the party, Mr. Bonar Law, enumerated as the immediate Unionist purposes (1) to oppose the Government's Welsh Disestablishment scheme, (2) to resist Home Rule, (3) to labor for tariff reform as the only practicable means of solving the problem of unemployment, and (4) to defend at all costs the unity of the Empire.

*171. Party Composition.*--Both of the great parties as constituted to-day possess substantial strength in all portions of the kingdom save Ireland, the Liberals being in the preponderance in Scotland, Wales, and northern England, and the Conservatives in the south and southwest. Within the Conservative ranks are found much the greater portion of the people of title, wealth, and social position; nearly all of the clergy of the Established Church, and some of the Dissenters; a majority of the graduates of the universities and of members of the bar; most of the prosperous merchants, manufacturers, and financiers; a majority of clerks and approximately half of the tradesmen and shopkeepers; and a very considerable mass, though not in these days half, of the workingmen. During the second half of the nineteenth century the well-to-do and aristocratic (p. 165) Whig element in the Liberal party was drawn over, in the main, to the ranks of the Conservatives, and to this day the Liberal party contains but a small proportion of the rank and wealth of the kingdom. It is pre-eminently an organization of the middle and popular classes.

*172. The Independent Labor Party.*--The Labor party of the present day is the product largely of the twin agencies of socialism and trade-unionism. As early as 1868 two persons sought seats in Parliament as representatives of labor, and at the elections of 1874 there were no fewer than thirteen labor candidates, two of whom were successful. Great industrial upheavals of succeeding years, notably the strike of the London dock laborers in 1889, together with the rise of new organizations composed of unskilled labor and pronouncedly infected with socialism, created demand for the interference of the state for the improvement of labor conditions and led eventually to the organization of the Independent Labor Party in 1893. The aim of this party as set forth in its constitution and rules is essentially socialistic, namely, "the establishment of collective ownership and control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange"; and the working programme as originally announced includes (1) a universal eight-hour day, (2) the abolition of over-time, piece-work, and the employment of children under fourteen, (3) state provision for the ill, the invalid, and the aged, (4) free, non-sectarian education of all grades, (5) the extinction by taxation of unearned incomes, and (6) universal disarmament. To this programme has been added woman's suffrage, a second ballot in parliamentary elections, municipal control of the liquor traffic and of hospitals, and a number of other proposed innovations. At the elections of 1895 the party named twenty-eight candidates, but no one of them was successful and Keir Hardie, founder and president, lost the seat which he had occupied since 1892. In 1900 it attained, in the re-election of Hardie, its first parliamentary victory, and in 1906 when the tide of radicalism was running high seven of its candidates and sixteen of its members were elected to the House of Commons.

*173. The Labor Party To-day.*--The Independent Labor Party has been throughout its history avowedly socialistic. It has sought and obtained the adherence of thousands of laboring men, some of whom are, and some of whom are not, socialists. But its character is too radical to attract the mass of trade-union members and alongside it there has grown up a larger and broader organization known simply as the Labor Party. A trade-union congress held at London in September, 1899, (p. 166) caused to be brought together an assemblage of representatives of all co-operative, trade-union, socialist, and working-class organizations which were willing to share in an effort to increase the representation of labor in Parliament. This body held its first meeting at London in February, 1900, and an organization was formed in which the ruling forces were the politically inclined but non-socialistic trade-unions. The object of the affiliation was asserted to be "to establish a distinct labor group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their own policy, which must embrace a readiness to co-operate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labor." The growth of the organization was rapid, and in 1906 the name which had been employed, i.e., Labor Representation Committee, gave place to that of Labor Party. At the elections of 1906 twenty-nine of the fifty-one candidates of this party were chosen to the House of Commons. Taking into account eleven members connected with miners' organizations and fourteen others who were Independent Laborites or Liberal Laborites ("Lib.-Labs."), the parliament chosen in 1906 contained a labor contingent aggregating fifty-four members. Since 1908 there has been in progress a consolidation of the labor forces represented at Westminster and, although at the elections of 1910 some seats were lost, there are in the House of Commons to-day forty-two labor representatives. The entire group is independent of, but friendly toward, the Liberal Government; and since the Liberals stand in constant need of Labor support, its power in legislation is altogether disproportioned to its numbers.