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The Unionist Social Reform Committee, 1911–1914: Wets Before the Deluge*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Jane Ridley
Jane Ridley
Affiliation:
University of Buckingham
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Extract

‘So Arthur Balfour is really leader – and Tory Democracy, the genuine article, at an end!’ Conventional historical wisdom has endorsed Randolph Churchill's judgement of 1891, attributing the demise of tory democracy partly to Balfour himself and partly to the inexorable forces of class division. Balfour's tactical ingenuity secured the defeat of Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform, a valiant bid to revive tory democracy and turn back the tide of class politics; thereafter the Liberals, anxious to retain their working-class support, made the running on social reform, while the Unionists fell back on ‘negative’ policies and the middle-class vote. Yet perhaps historians have become the prisoners of their own orthodoxy. Though the ideology, the policies and the electoral bases of the new Liberalism have been extensively explored, the Unionists have been relatively neglected. Because it is assumed that before 1914 the Conservative party was devoid of proposals for social reform, one of the most obvious sources for such proposals has been overlooked: the Unionist Social Reform Committee of 1911 to 1914.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 391 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

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97 Ibid. p. 585.

98 Ibid. pp. 377–8; Hayes Fisher to Law, 1 Aug. 1913, Bonar Law papers, 30/1/1. The Committee's report on Industrial unrest was published in June 1914 after the Campaign guide; The health of the people did not come out until 1917.

99 John Murray to Turnor, 23 Sept. 1913, Tumor papers, 4 Tumor 5/3. For the press campaign, which was carefully planned by Turnor and Lloyd-Greame, see Lloyd-Greame to Turnor, 2 Sept. [1913], ibid. 4 Turnor 3/2.

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104 Astor, W. J. Ashley, Baldwin, Bathurst, Bentinck, Hills, Lloyd-Greame, Malmesbury, L. Scott, Strutt, Thynne, Turnor, Ware, Wood and Woods to Bonar Law, 8 Nov. 1913, Bonar Law papers, 30/4/12.

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107 Lloyd-Greame to Tumor, 7 Apr. 1914, Tumor papers, 4 Tumor 3/2. Compare Sanders's account of a conversation with Law in December 1913: ‘On the wages question he says he advocates local inquiries in each district and if conditions are very bad he is ready to go for some compulsory means of improving them’ (Ramsden, (ed.), Bayford diaries, p. 67Google Scholar).

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116 In Tory democracy (1918) Bentinck, Henry attacked the George, Lloyd plutocracy and called for the revival of rural life with leadership from an invigorated landed class – a class now bereft of ‘the easy-going extravagance, the fox-hunting, the huge slaughter of pheasants, the 60-horse power motors, the incessant golf of pre-War days’ (pp. 1–3, 125–36)Google Scholar. Edward Wood and George Lloyd pointed to the ‘responsibility of service’ engendered by the war, which afforded The great opportunity to break with the class conflict of politics before 1914, when ‘the holders of wealth and property, resentful of taunts and insults, were tempted to grow careless of the duties inseparable from ownership’. ‘Lazarus is lying at the gate’ and every Lazarus now had the vote (The great opportunity (London, 1918), pp. 1–4, 11–15, 100Google Scholar). See Cowling, Maurice, The impact of Labour 1920–1924 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 67–8, 87–90Google Scholar.