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 Politics and Parties from the Reform Act of 1867 to the Parliament Act of 1911

Politics and Parties from the Reform Act of 1867 to the Parliament Act of 1911

From the Reform Act of 1867 to the Home Rule Bill of 1886

We may take as our third period in our survey of politics since 1815 the nineteen years that elapsed between the passing of the second Reform Bill of 1867 and the defeat of the Home Rule Bill of 1886. The Reform Bill of 1867 opened a new era. Under that bill as finally passed, all rate-paying householders were given the vote, and lodgers who paid £10 a year in rent (Provided that they had occupied the lodgings for twelve months), whilst in the counties the occupation franchise was lowered to £12. Henceforth the artisan in the town became the arbiter in politics, and the parties had to adapt themselves to their new master. The Whigs became definitely Liberals, and the Radical element grew in­creasingly stronger in their councils. The more enterprising of the Conservatives called themselves Tory-Democrats, and wooed the working man with words as honeyed as those of their opponents, and promises hardly less lavish. Moreover, by this time the old leaders had disappeared. Lord Palmerston,, as we have seen, died in 1865. Lord John Russell retired from public life after his defeat in 1866, and Lord Derby after the passing of the Reform Bill in 1867. Lord George Bentinck had died in 1848, Sir Robert Peel in 1850, the Duke of Wellington in 1852, and Lord Aberdeen in 1860. The way was thus left open for two men, Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone.

Seldom in English history have two great statesmen living in the same age been so different as Gladstone and Disraeli. Glad­stone was of good Scottish descent, and enjoyed an education at Eton and Oxford. He made his reputa­tion originally by a book in which he advocated High Church principles with regard to Church and State, and began his political career when .barely twenty-three, being given a " pocket borough" which belonged to a Tory of the most extreme type. Subsequently, as we have seen, after being for a short time a member of Peel's Conservative ministry, he had become a Peelite when the Corn Laws were abolished. He then slowly developed into a Liberal, and the budget speeches which he made as chancellor of the exchequer, first in the coalition ministry of Lord Aberdeen and then in the Liberal ministry of Lord Palmerston, are still famous.

1886-1911, Recent Affairs

The last period in our review of domestic politics is from 1886 to 1911. The events and personalities of these twenty-five years are too near for historical judgments upon them to be crystallized; and the briefest summary of the facts must suffice. First of all, a word must be said as to the fortunes of parties. he Home Rule movement shattered for a time the Liberal party. It is true that they returned to power in 1892. Mr. Gladstone had continued to lead the party, and formed his fourth administration in that year. But he retired from office in 1894, soon after the House of Lords had thrown out his second Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became prime minister, but resigned office, after a defeat in the House of Commons, in 1895. Dissensions in the party subsequently led to the retirement of Lord Rosebery from the leadership, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman succeeded. The South African War of 1899 still further increased the disagreements of the party; and not till the war was over did a revival of Liberal fortunes take place.

Meantime, the opponents of Home Rule—who called themselves Unionists—consisted of three elements: there were the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury, the Whigs under Lord Hartington (who became Duke of Devonshire in 1891), and a Radical section under Mr. Chamberlain, the last two elements calling themselves Liberal-Unionists. At first there was only an informal co-operation between Con­servatives and Liberal-Unionists, and the latter refused to join the former in office. Consequently Lord Salisbury's administration of 1886 was, at its formation, purely Conservative; it included Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. W. H. Smith and Mr. Balfour. Lord Randolph Churchill, the chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, who had an immense hold upon the country, in consequence of the vigour of his oratory and his ideals of social reform, suddenly resigned, in 1887, because he disapproved of the additional expenditure proposed for the army and navy. His place as chancellor of the exchequer was taken by Mr. Goschen, a Liberal-Unionist of great ability, whilst Mr. W. H, Smith became leader of the house. On Mr. Smith's death, in 1891, Mr. Balfour, who had achieved a great reputation in consequence of his pacification of Ireland, succeeded him.

Chronology
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