THE MOVEMENT IN IDEAS

With defeat in 1895, with the parliamentary party overshadowed by its internal political dissensions, the ‘crystallising’ of ‘dreams and ideals’ became a matter for the hidden party of intellectuals and journalists. Liberalism in the 1890s divided, in effect, into two halves which did not come together until after 1900, when a younger generation in closer contact with progressive ideas penetrated the parliamentary party.

If the administration of 1892 had been content to garnish a traditional emphasis with a progressive tinge, there were those sources amongst the grass-roots of the party which attempted a more basic examination of Liberalism itself, thinking to broaden its political programme and win for it the leadership of the avowed progressive elements. At Oxford, the teaching of Green and Jowett was developed by young Liberals like Herbert Samuel of Balliol and Leonard Hobhouse of Merton. They led a group of Liberals who, in connection with Mann and Tillett of the General Labourers' Union, held a series of meetings in the Home Counties (although mainly in Oxfordshire) from 1890 to 1895 on social and political reform, dealing with hours and wages and the formation of the ‘New Liberalism’; speakers included Seebohm Rowntree and Mackinnon Wood.

A second source of contact amongst Oxford University Liberals was the Russell Club, founded in 1880. Its members included, apart from Hobhouse and Samuel, C. H. Roberts and J. A. Simon (both elected in 1906), F. W. Hirst, J. Massie and J. L. Hammond.