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Radical Conservatism: the Electoral Genesis of Tariff Reform*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. H. H. Green
E. H. H. Green
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge
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Extract

For historians of the Edwardian Conservative party one problem in particular continues to present severe difficulties. This problem in the history of the Conservative party was first outlined by Lord Blake in his study of the party from Peel to Churchill, namely how to explain the feet that Conservative politics came to be so dominated by the issue of Tariff Reform in the decade preceding the Great War. Indeed, to Lord Blake it seemed scarcely credible that the Conservatives should have even considered, let alone shackled themselves to, a policy which was apparently so disastrous both for the party's unity and its electoral prospects. Such incredulity is, in many ways, hardly surprising for, as all the studies of Tariff Reform have agreed, there were enormous difficulties involved in the adoption of this policy – and two problems in particular were clearly almost insurmountable. Firstly, the core of the Tariff Reform policy, that is to say the securing of the imperial markets for British producers through a system of preferential tariff agreements with the colonies, was severely handicapped by the fact that the self-governing colonies, the only worthwhile markets, were very lukewarm about the whole idea. This difficulty stemmed from the fact that the colonies had begun to develop their own fledgling industries and were thus none too keen to have them swamped by a flood of imported British manufactures. Secondly, the only agreement in which the colonies were interested entailed the Conservatives advocating duties on imported foreign grain and agricultural goods. This, of course, led to the Conservatives being labelled the party of ‘dear food’ and there seems little room for doubt that these ‘food taxes’ did the Conservatives a great deal of electoral damage, especially amongst the working-class electorate.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1985 , pp. 667 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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2 There is some room for doubt as to how damaging ‘dear food’ was in the general elections of 1910. The evidence for this can be seen in ch. VI of my unpublished thesis, ‘Radical Conservatism in Britain 1900–1914’, Cambridge University thesis (1985Google Scholar, forthcoming).

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8 At this point a brief definition of terms is appropriate. A full exposition of the concept of ‘Radical Conservatism’ can be found in ch.VII of my unpublished thesis. In brief, however, the term is used to describe a grouping which advocates or employs radical means to secure Conservative ends. In the specific context of this paper the crucial factor is that radical Conservatism appears as an attempt to mobilize the support of the masses from the political Right through a specific appeal to the working-class electorate.

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101 Ibid. The electoral successes referred to here are undoubtedly those of the by-elections in Mid-Devon and S. Hereford in Jan. 1908. The Radical Conservative press certainly made much of these elections. The Outlook declared that ‘at these elections the cause of reform was presented boldly and intelligently to the voters. There was nothing of the old apologetic timidity which was perhaps the best election-loser ever invented’, The Outlook, 15 Feb. 1908, 223. Similarly the National Review saw the preaching of a psoitive policy as the secret of these successes, ‘Episodes of the month’, National Review, no. 301, Mar. 1908, 29–31. The Morning Post was even more unequivocal, declaring that ‘given unhesitating leadership…no…constituency can any longer be held against Tariff Reform’, Morning Post, 20 Jan. 1908, 10.

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