My Paper on Edwardian Liberalism-funny the correlations you can make to the turn of this century.

The Edwardian British Liberal was a person in almost complete antagonism to himself, seeming to be in opposition even to the very progressive ideals he held tight. A collection of progressing ideologies existed in England during this time of post Victorian liberalism and they struggled with a philosophy of liberation, traditional British aristocratic values and socialist ideals born of the Industrial Revolution. With the near-universal embrace of early liberal principles such as free trade and increased voter franchise the entirety of the British political system was ultimately converted to an essentially progressive organism by the end of Victorian Industrialization. In a time of monarchical transition punctuated by new social tensions, there was not only nostalgia for the stability of Victoria, but trepidation about a possibly frightening future. It was in this climate at the turn of the 20th century the British Liberal Party found itself buoyed by the forces of intellectual and working class ideologies, administering both the national interests of Britain and the super-national interests of Her Empire. Standing firmly in contrarian opposition, as they had been for nearly a generation and a half, were conservative imperialists, Irish Unionists, the old landed elite and a new elite empowered by Victorian commercial and industrial prowess. Conservative opposition, though disparate, was strengthened by its defense of the established order, thereby giving it a single voice against the forces of Irish Home Rule, socialism and labor issues, whose progressive momentum drove them all individually in their own directions more frequently than not. The Edwardian Liberal Party therefore, was the personification of a sort of bland moderation that was the culmination of this forty-year long ideological and social struggle, and as such, is a compelling narrative of the pitfalls of liberalism in general.
By the 19th century the economic and political power structures of Britain were firmly controlled by a landed aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution, however, brought this landed gentry face to face with a largely middle and lower class society moving expeditiously away from the land, in the world’s first fully industrialized nation. Such juxtaposition of privilege and progress was brought to its apex in the mid 19th century and it forced more progressive minded people into an anti-elitist stance. These “radicals” formed a web of isolated and yet interconnected interests so disparate that they were unable to form a cohesive enough group to obtain power in Parliament. Relegation to the minority put these reformists in debt to the larger politically forward-thinking population of Whigs. The Whigs, though largely committed to liberal principles such as “constitutional liberty” and a more focused community sentiment, were fundamentally still attached to the aristocratic landlord principles which England’s economy was founded on. Radical progressives were therefore put into a relatively permanent coalition with the kind of liberal ideology they were actually distasteful of. From this anti-elitist stance taken by the early radicals was born an almost century-long struggle against what Searle considered to be a lingering “Feudalism.” The polarization between the progressive and conservative factions of British politics was stretched to the very edges of the empire, with technical advances made by the Industrial Revolution.
Steam and railroads had effectively shrunk the world, and the liberal heart of the British Empire was clashing with the Imperial culture of subjugation of native peoples in the non-white colonies. One effect of such shrinking was a solidification of administrative formality throughout the empire and with this shift there was a more effective use of British military force throughout the world. Formalization of government brought with it accepted liberal ideas, especially economic theories, which were being tested across the globe in areas of the colonies that had yet to experience the Industrial Revolution. Steam powered gun ships were being used throughout the Empire to enforce so-called free trade, eventually turning the military into what Ferguson calls “insurance…against international protectionism.” This wasn’t the only clash that this liberalizing progress brought to the super-national government of the Empire; notions of equality, firmly entrenched in liberal thinking since the revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, were questioned and challenged constantly by predominantly racially prejudiced elites governing the many territorial holdings of the Empire, and British armies were being used to promote nationalist sentiments throughout Europe. The success of the United States post revolution however, made the idea of nationalism patently unfriendly towards imperialists and so there was a policy shift towards responsible government in the white colonies of Canada and Australia, but quite tellingly not in Ireland, or the non-white colonies.
While still supporting liberal causes like land reform and education at home, the international policy of William Gladstone’s first government shifted away from the embrace of Nationalism in favor of a more super-national viewpoint. Coalition with radical imperialists like Joseph Chamberlain put the Liberal Party firmly standing against independence in both the Transvaal, and Egypt. During the early 19th century however, the issue of Home Rule for Ireland steeped into a prophetically divisive issue between English landowners, Unionists and Home Rulers and Gladstone needed the Irish to maintain control by his largely moderate coalition.
The coalition Gladstone put together in the 1860’s was not only considered to be the first Liberal Party government, it was the heir apparent of the ideological schism created by the inner conflicts of Victorian liberalization. Without enough votes from the newly formed Liberal Party, Gladstone was required to ally with not only Chamberlains imperialists, but the Irish nationalists as well in order to stay firmly in power. This shaky pact with Socialists, imperialists and Irish Home Rulers created generation long ideological rift with conservatives over the rights and power of the landed aristocracy, and invariably all party decisions on both sides ran on fairly strict partisan lines.
Irish Home Rule was the great conundrum of British liberalism in the 19th century. With classic liberal tendencies towards support of oppressed nationalities, the British liberal found himself keenly allied with the forces of nationalism regardless of Gladstone’s stances in Africa. Ireland however, since the 1800 Act of Union, had been largely relegated to a hotbed of National sentiment chiefly fueled by aristocratic landlords back home in England. This unusual situation of the colony being so close to the colonizer made the strain more tenable on both sides. Gladstone, following on the heels of the Canada Acts of 1840 and 1867 realized that responsible government for Ireland was the only way to assuage the rising tension between Ireland and England. This however put him at odds with the Unionists of Northern Ireland, as well as aristocratic landowners, and imperialist members of his own coalition, even the radical Chamberlain. This split of the newly formed Liberal party changed the nature of politics, leaning towards the heavy class delineations of the Edwardian period and the Home Rule issue put Conservatives standing in firm defense against any Liberal Party stance. Chamberlain’s split on the Home Rule issue, which should have been a decisive blow toward the land reform he so radically fought for, not only carried radical social awareness into the Conservative camp, but also put a defensive imperialist class in coalition with the Irish Unionists. With the Irish Home Rule issue came the Liberals new over-arching political agenda of Constitutional reform and neutering of the House of Lords and its Tory Party voice in the Commons. It can be speculated that this was the actual point of death for the Liberal party, and the next thirty years of party line battles only ensured its complete collapse in the 1920’s.
This failure of Gladstone’s Home Rule policy became the first instance since its inception where the Liberal Party fractured into its many fronts and enter a period of decline for almost 20 years. With Home Rule effectively put on the back burner by the success of the Conservative Party of Unionists and imperialists in the 1890’s, social issues were put back on the table returning the socialist and labor factions of the liberal coalition to their respective agendas. The super-national focus of conservatives like Chamberlain led to the imperialist Boer war, and a patriotically defensive stance, while simultaneously retaining the importance of social issues. The last decade of the 19th leading into the 20th century saw the focus of both parties then shift back to the social climate which was coming to be seen as a decline of British Culture.
This degradation was seen altogether differently by the two groups; Social Darwinism led conservatives for the most part to view the decline as one caused by a lacking of will and strength on the part of the poor who suffered the brunt of social ills, while liberals generally saw the decline as a symptom of a largely unsympathetic society to the needs of the least well-off. With the Conservative viewpoint steering government policy little was actually done to positively impact the lives of the lower classes, and the fractioned liberal contingency was again unable in the face of ideological opposition to form any unified front on the social issues of the day.
The Liberal Party’s death dance included one last goal however; a goal parallel to every form British Liberalism had taken since the late 18th century, the goal of Constitutional reform, eventually exemplified by the removal of power from the landed aristocracy and the House of Lords. As the Liberal government elected in 1906 unfolded, it became apparent that the mantle of this reform would be placed in the hands of Liberal Prime Minister Henry Asquith and an extraordinary coalition quite similar to Gladstone’s in the 1880’s. By 1910, it was the Liberal party who needed the votes of the newly formed and rather “radical” Labour Party, along with the next generation of Irish Nationalists. In order to keep this coalition together and stay in power long enough to push through this grand plan of Constitutional reformation, Asquith had to firmly set Irish home rule back on the table.
The Liberal party’s triumphant return to majority in 1906 was brought about the veritable disintegration of the Tory party, principally at the hands of ex-Gladstonian imperialist Joseph Chamberlain. Imperialism and its coordination with patriotism at the end of the 19th century was an effective tool of Tories like Chamberlain. Chamberlain persisted in wearing his patriotic imperialism upon his sleeve even in the midst of the immensely unpopular Boer War when he suggested a complicated tariff system to bolster the economic strength of both England and the protectionist colonies. Such insinuation that England required the colonies to maintain global economic superiority was just too much for the average British conservative to accept, sweeping the Liberal Party to power with more than a 50% majority of the electorate.
The social fabric of the turn of the century was a tapestry in shambles after the last fourteen years of liberal inactivity with the expansion of social philosophy advancing in the post industrial tumult following the death of Queen Victoria. Liberalism’s history, as exemplified by the political confusion of the post-Gladstone years, had rarely been one of unified goals. It is no surprise then that this was the case with the sheer volume of Liberal ministers elected in 1906 as all the anti-Tory movements, including Socialists, Labourites and Suffragettes all had representatives in the over 400 member majority, and so all agendas sought voice in this powerful government.
Between 1906 and 1908, Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal government continued to administer over dysfunctional factions and the government was plagued by near-constant vetoes of reform bills by a House of Lords politically motivated by the opposition Tory party. Faced with this partisan and class based hostility as well as a growing recession, Campbell-Bannerman was unable to stay afloat with his disjointed coalition and the government slowly started losing its support. Upon Campbell-Bannerman’s resignation in 1908, came the new Prime Minister Henry Asquith and a new cabinet. One radical stand out of this cabinet was David Lloyd-George, a socialist in everything but name. Economic downturn, coupled with an opposition invigorated by a plan to deal with it, forced Asquith and Lloyd-George to play the only card they had to unite the once again unraveling liberal interests: neutering of the House of Lords. Much as Gladstone required coalition to put the Liberal Party together, Asquith now needed coalition to keep it alive. Unprecedented and repeated vetoes of Lloyd-George’s reform budgets, which made direct attacks at the landed aristocracy, the only thing Asquith could do was to formulate a direct assault on the Lord’s veto power. Asquith’s Parliament Bill sought the removal of this overwhelming authority of the House of Lords leading to a veritable checkmate of the aristocracy. With the King’s seeming agreement to open new seats in the Upper Chamber, the Lords were forced to choose between a flooding of Liberal Lords were they to defeat the bill a third time, or to pass the bill and vote their strength away, Asquith and his coalition left the Lords to fight amongst themselves about how they would go out. In a bitter dispute which brought Lords to London to vote that had never stepped foot in Parliament, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Bill. Fulfillment of a generation long battle with landed privilege, this not only provided a Liberal victory for Asquith’s government but it also removed the focus which tied their coalition together, the effective nail in the coffin of the Liberal Party.
With the veto removed, and Liberals re-elected to a slim coalition based government, the constitutional struggle was finally at its end. Once through this brass ring the coalition, though still governing together, returned to its prospective agendas. Just as in Gladstone’s defeat, so with Asquith’s victory, without definitive liberal focus different factions again vied for legislature from narrow ideological stances, but Asquith saw Irish Home Rule as his most important political debt after the Parliament Bill. The Conservative party knew this and even as Liberals fought for the Parliament Bill, the Unionists of Northern Ireland were already consolidating their base and the polarized Tory opposition was siding with them in an attempt to thwart all things Liberal. So here it was, at the end of a century long period of heavy nationalization across the empires of Europe, that the conservatives were using Unionist imperialism as an antithetical political opposition to Asquith’s support of the Irish Nationalists.
It must not be forgotten at this point, much like Gladstone; Asquith was severely limited by a lingering conservatism. There was a growing tendency not to view radical assaults on the social structure as signs of a flawed society, but as a sign of an immoral condition in the people, a strange parallel to the Tory view of demoralization which fueled the imperial patriotism of people like Chamberlain. The influence of Chamberlains conservative support for imperial patriotism had taken root in British society, and the conservative and Social Darwinist view of social decline still held a strong sway, even with Liberal ministers like C.F.G. Masterman. Masterman exemplified Edwardian nostalgia for Victorian values coupled with the need and fear of social change. In this dysfunction he is the embodiment of Liberalism that struggled with unprecedented issues they did not fully understand, in an era of commercial, industrial and social concerns while the feeling of Victorian stability lay fresh in their hearts and minds.
Again this splintering led to a weakening of the Liberal coalition and ultimately to its final demise in the 1920s. The post-Parliament Bill climate was one of near complete focus on social issues such as Irish Home Rule, workers rights and the fight for woman’s suffrage, as well as worries of an impending World War I. The post-Chamberlain patriotism of the Conservative Party became the backbone of their power and opposition at a time when Asquith was again taking up the cause of nationalism with the Irish Home Rule movement. With rising instability on both sides of the north-south divide in Ireland conservative patriotism again took an imperialistic bent as it continued to side with the Ulster movement of pro-union in the north. Domestic focus of Socialists, Suffragettes, and Labourites continued undaunted support of individual programs, and provided little support to a Home Rule issue that even Gladstone could barely put his heart into because of the political divide it had opened up in the last thirty years. In a climate of impending war, the forces of progress which outnumbered conservative opposition came up short amidst concerns over possible invasion and social anxiety was shelved in a fluster of super-nationalism fueled by the conservative tool of fear.
Entrance of Britain into World War I and the patriotic war effort that went along with it led to a period of economic and social stability as industry shifted to war-time production. Women cared less for their right to vote when they had jobs in factories and intellectual socialists thought it best to put their social and labor agendas on hold in the face of such patriotic vehemence. This economic shift became a liability however; when after the war soldiers returning from the front not only had acquired a distaste of the still-elitist aristocracy willing to send them to such a dreadful war, but had not held their employment for them. Demilitarization is always a challenge in any post war period, but the Liberal social issues put on the back burner for the war combined with these new labor issues put the focus of the Liberal government squarely back on the social front. As something of a “thank you” to women for keeping industry alive a limited voting franchise was opened to them, while coordinated strikes put labor issues into forefront. This focus on working class issues, combined with conservative inference of an insidious link between Soviet style communism and the intellectual socialist movements brought a formerly small Labour contingency to the forefront, elected by a large population of disheartened workers and newly enfranchised women voters. Irish Home Rule, which had always really just been a rallying point to create Liberal coalitions, was now put aside as Gladstone’s Liberal party was summarily dismantled and replaced by one of the factions it traditionally relied upon for support, but never fully lent support to. With this diminishing of the Liberal Party came the mantle of workers rights. With the Labour Party came the next phase of liberal theory pushing through history as liberalism always has, from one uniting cause to another, constantly fighting the inertial forces of progressive ideology as well as a firm conservative opposition based on anxiety of the unknown.