Tony Little examines the meaining of terms in the political spectrum in the Victorian era. VICTORIAN LIBERALISM By today’s standards, Victorian politics were extraordinarily fluid. Lord Derby, the leader who led the Tories back from their Corn Law wilderness, began ministerial life as a Whig. Lord Palmerston, the first Liberal premier, served for more than two decades in Tory governments and the dominant Victorian Liberal, William Gladstone, was initially hailed as ‘the rising hope of those stern unbending Tories’. To complete the circle, the leaders of two clashing schools of Liberalism, Joe Chamberlain and the Duke of Devonshire, were serving in Salisbury’s Conservative Cabinet when Victoria died.

8 Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM et, despite the frayed Tories and Whigs, leavened by and at the acute risk of oversim- edges and personal groups of Radicals and inde- plification, Radical and Whig journeys, participants pendents. As a further complica- will be used in this broader in the political process tion, there were around  Irish sense. could place themselves MPs in Westminster sometimes Ysecurely within it and clearly labelled Whig, Tory and Radical. recognise friend and foe. As W. S. But while the Irish Tories con- From right to left Gilbert put it: sorted easily with mainland Con- Examining the perceptions of servatives, the other Irish groups extreme left and right at the … every boy and every gal, were likely to put tenant, nation- beginning of the Victorian period That’s born into the world alist or religious beliefs before lifts some of the fog from the alive, party allegiance. battles which the parties fought Is either a little Liberal Under Peel, the Tories and also helps an understanding Or else a little assumed the name Conserva- of how the Liberal factions were Conservative! tive and the parties represent- perceived. ing the respectable left gradually The extreme right – ultra- Central party organisation might adopted the Liberal label, even Tories – defended an aristocratic, have operated out of the back before the famous  meeting Protestant state. The established, room of a Pall Mall club but, in in Willis’s Rooms which for- national – Anglican – Church the constituencies, election cam- mally brought together Whigs, was the anchor of national unity paigns were fought with more Radicals and Peelites. However, linking the four kingdoms, pro- expense, more vigour and more the terms Whig and Radical did viding a moral basis for law and antagonism than is commonly not fall out of use. order and lending a ‘patina of found today. In a narrow sense, ‘Whig’ sanctity’ to institutions such as Division was not limited to the describes the descendants of the universities, the monarchy two parties. Factions competed the aristocratic families who and the electoral system, which for the spirit of Liberalism giv- backed the Glorious Revolution justified resistance to change. ing identifiable, if fluid, left and of  and their adherents. To Secondly, ‘Land was a source of right wings. The origins of this those in the more ‘advanced’ or nationhood, stability, hierarchy, article lie in an editorial sugges- ‘independent’ sections of Liber- order and traditional values.’ This tion that Richard Cobden should His Favourite Part: alism, Whig described a Liberal justified the power and participa- be included as an exemplar of the ‘Mr Gladstone to their political right. Similarly, tion in politics of the aristocracy, right within the Liberal Party. is ever happy to the term ‘Radical’ could be con- whose wealth derived from land, Since the Victorian establishment appear in the fined to those who professed and warranted a protected posi- regarded Cobden as a dangerous character of Benthamite Utilitarian beliefs. tion for agriculture. But these a Scotsman.’ Radical and since The Orange – Letter from However, any advanced Liberal privileges also obliged the ruling  Book has created a debate on the the Premier’s could adopt Radical as a badge group to care for the deserving ideological roots of the Liberal Secretary. (Punch, of honour, while more timid poor and to use the power of gov- Democrats, the spectrum of nine- 2 December Liberals used Radical as a term ernment to intervene against the teenth-century Liberal opinion is 1871) – the of notoriety for those to their abuses flowing from the industrial two claymores  worth further exploration. are inscribed left. Since the terms left and revolution. Before the  Reform Act, ‘Radicalism’ and right were not generally used by The extreme left, represented the dominant parties were the ‘Toryism’ nineteenth-century politicians, by the Chartists, acknowledged

Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 9 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM that power was exercised by a pale of the constitution.’ Thomas argued, ‘Reform that you may landed elite: Babington Macaulay laid great preserve’ and ‘we know of no stress on this element of Whig- great revolution which might not The aristocratical govern- Liberal philosophy: have been prevented by compro- ment under which this mise early and graciously made.’ country groans can only A great statesman might, Radicals embraced the Utili- be subdued and changed by judicious and timely tarian aphorism that ‘the great- by constant and vigorous reformations, by reconcil- est happiness of the greatest efforts on the part of the ing the two great branches number is the foundation of people. Unless the control- of the natural aristoc- morals and legislation’. From ling power of the State shall racy, the capitalists and this they concluded that ‘if we be speedily rendered decid- the landowners, and by so desire the people to be well gov- edly popular, there is lit- widening the base of the erned, we must allow them to tle hope that property can government as to interest govern themselves’, which led be made secure, industry in its defence the whole of inevitably towards democracy. A free, and labour protected the middle class, that brave, narrowly based government reg- against the aggressions of honest, and sound-hearted ulated the economy primarily the powerful. class, which is as anxious for the benefit of the elite and for the maintenance of government expenditure was The Six Points demanded by order and the security of undertaken for the same pur- the Chartists were the vote for property, as it is hostile to pose, John Bright claimed when all adult males, a secret ballot, corruption and oppression, he described foreign policy as annual parliaments, payment for succeed in averting a strug- ‘a gigantic system of out-door MPs, elimination of property gle to which no rational relief for the aristocracy’. By qualifications for candidates and friend of liberty or of law attacking on the three fronts of equal-sized electoral districts can look forward without electoral reform, de-regulation – constitutional rather than eco- Liberals great apprehensions. of the economy and retrench- nomic objectives. ment of spending, Britain would were In time, this process was applied see ‘a people building up the edi- united by as successfully to the labouring fices of their liberties’. A common Liberal ideology classes as to capitalists. Whigs and Radicals shared Liberals too accepted aristocratic a belief in Liberals were united by a overlapping views of what repre- participation in government belief in progress, reform to limit sented progress sufficient to form – where else would be found progress, the power of arbitrary govern- an alliance, but the difference of men with the education and ment and the landed oligar- purpose, which showed in tactics, wealth to undertake government reform to chy, religious toleration and the priorities and the details of leg- when schooling was not univer- limit the growth of popular self-govern- islation, was crucial. Attempts to sal and MPs received no salary? ment. By this reasoning, Liberals take the party too far in a Radical The Lords exercised considerable power of promoted free trade against sec- direction were always vulnerable authority over the Commons tional economic interests, sought to a Whig revolt. Too much timid- through patronage of candidates arbitrary reform and efficiency in the ity left the leadership vulnerable at elections, the funding of cam- administration of government to Radical rebellions and mass paigns and the presence of fam- govern- or church and saw retrenchment demonstrations. Both of Rus- ily members as MPs. In ,  ment and of government expenditure as sell’s governments were brought per cent of the Liberal Party’s reducing corruption, freeing down by party revolts, three of MPs were connected to the aris- the landed individuals for self-improvement Gladstone’s administrations were tocratic and landed classes; barely and preventing military adven- destroyed by Liberal disagree- more than  per cent had been oligarchy, tures overseas. ments and Palmerston failed to involved in business. construct a stable Liberal coali- However, Liberals differed religious tion for most of the s. Riding from Tories in promoting class toleration A different purpose the Whig and Radical horses in harmony by incorporating those Whigs divided from Radicals on tandem was no easy task. raised up by the Industrial Rev- and the the question of intent rather than The following sections exam- olution. As Gladstone put it in a economic egalitarianism. The ine electoral reform and religion, debate on Reform, ‘I venture to growth of Whig ‘was willing to improve but both critical areas of friction say that every man who is not anxious to avoid reconstructing. where the Radical agenda was presumably incapacitated by some popular For him political change involved clearest; economic policy, where consideration of personal unfit- self-gov- patching-up and improvising, and agreement prevailed; and Irish ness or of political danger, is mor- this was achieved by being prag- policy, which split the party apart ally entitled to come within the ernment. matic and flexible.’ As Macaulay in the s.

10 Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM Democracy, that bare and he was born, the very soil which The right- never succeeded. Democ- level plain he has enriched with his labour racy you may have at any The Whigs intended the  and with the sweat of his brow, wing Whigs time. Night and day the Reform Act to be a lasting settle- that he is denied this right.’ gate is open that leads to ment which would enfranchise When Russell took office, feared that bare and level plain, the middle class and provide rep- after Palmerston’s death at the where every ants’ nest is a resentation for the newly industr- end of , he proposed a mod- being mountain and every thistle ialised cities but preserve the small erate extension of the vote only swamped a forest tree. borough seats which gave them to suffer a defeat at the hands of a their hold on the Commons. Whig clique, dubbed the Cave of by an The discontented Whigs reaped a For a while, Russell was known Adullam by Bright. Led by Lords poor reward from their rebellion, as ‘Finality Jack’ for refusing to Lansdowne, Grey and Grosvenor, unedu- as Russell resigned and Derby’s consider further reform. In the its spokesmen were Horsman and minority government allowed s, when he needed Radi- Robert Lowe. cated Disraeli to ‘dish the Whigs’ by cal support, Russell regained The right-wing Whigs feared work- carrying, in , a bill more his enthusiasm, but his bills for being swamped by an unedu- radical than anything Russell extending the franchise met cated working class unable to ing class planned. The case against democ- with a poor response in  and distinguish their partisan inter- racy was lost. In  Lord Hart- , while an  Tory bill was ests from the interests of the unable to ington, a Whig, introduced the defeated on a motion proposed nation, and the loss of Whig secret ballot, to protect the new by Russell, paving the way to the seats that might follow a redis- distinguish voters from bribery and intimida- first Liberal ministry. Despite a tribution to reflect an enlarged their parti- tion and, in , the anomalies Liberal majority, for the next six electorate. They were willing to in Disraeli’s Act were eliminated years, Palmerston avoided bring- contemplate an extension of the san inter- in another large-scale increase in ing the issue to the test. As Cob- franchise only provided that it the electorate. Chastened by their den explained in : was accompanied by ‘cumulative ests from experience of Tory duplicity in voting schemes, life memberships , the  reform act passed I rather think there is quite of the House of Lords, indirect the inter- without further revolt by right- as much agitation about election procedures, and other ests of the wing Liberals. parliamentary reform in mechanical devices designed to the House of Commons preserve the ascendancy of the nation. as in the country. It has got minority’. As Lowe maintained The greatest blessing into the House of Com- in a Times editorial: In Victorian Britain, the estab- mons, and they don’t know lished Church enjoyed privileges what to do with it. It is We had a dream of an Eng- for which members of other bandied from side to side, land made up of a society denominations paid, through and all parties are professing rising by distinct and well- tithes, while some professional to be reformers; everybody marked gradations from posts required adherence to the is in favour of an extension its base to its summit, each Anglican Church. Before , of the suffrage; and, upon part discharging its destined Catholics were unable to vote; my honour, I think in my functions without envy and it was  before Jews could sit heart no one likes it much, without discontent, with in the House of Commons and a and they don’t care much absolute personal freedom, non-believer, Charles Bradlaugh, about it. under an equal law, divided fought for more than five years to between thinkers and work- take the seat he won as a Radical Frustrated by this lack of progress, ers, between owners and in . Bright, Cobden’s closest parlia- producers of wealth, with Whigs broadly supported mentary ally, organised a cam- all that inequality between the established Church, though paign to demonstrate the popular man and man which is the assigning it a more subordinate demand for the vote, ‘the question result of unrestricted free- position than the Tories, and the that will not sleep’. Speaking at dom. great Whig families enjoyed the Birmingham in , he claimed patronage of Anglican church liv- that ‘England is the mother of Later, in the Commons, he wound ings at a time when its vicars were parliaments’, before arguing that up a speech against Russell’s bill an important part of the local ‘An Englishman, if he goes to the by declaiming: power and educational structures. Cape, can vote; if he goes fur- Palmerston helped to reconcile ther, to Australia, to the nascent We are about to barter nonconformists to his govern- empires of the New World, he maxims and traditions that ment by appointing evangelical can vote … It is only in his own have never failed, for theo- bishops and was also concerned country, on his own soil, where ries and doctrines that have to conciliate Irish Catholics. As

Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 11 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM he wrote to Russell, ‘To raise manifesto of . In , pri- The politi- a neutral umbrella university to and improve the condition of mary education was largely in the which both Catholic and Prot- the Catholic clergy is an object hands of the Anglican Church cally active estant colleges could affiliate which all rational men must con- but, even with some government though controversial subjects, cur in thinking desirable.’ funding, only . million out of noncon- including theology, philosophy The politically active noncon- . million children attended and modern history, were not to formists tended to be associated adequate schools. W. E. Forster formists be taught. with the Radicals, campaigning introduced a bill to create elected tended to To Lord Hartington, a leading for a ‘free trade’ in religion by boards to fund schools from local Whig and Chief Secretary for Ire- removing all the special privi- taxation but preserving ‘anything be asso- land, the proposals appeared tanta- leges enjoyed by the Anglican of the existing system which was mount to robbery of Trinity and its Church. It was the Radicals good’. Nonconformists and ciated Fellows of their funds. Horsman, who pressed for the abolition of Radicals pushed hard for such one of the Adullamites, thought tithes, disestablishment and the state schools to be secular, or at with the that the University Bill would abolition of religious tests for least undenominational. Radical Radicals, hand education to the Catholic university posts. The noncon- and Unitarian, Joe Chamberlain priests and ‘aimed a deadly blow’ formist Radicals wanted to end led a deputation to Downing campaign- at ‘the greatest blessing that the state funding for church schools Street comprising forty-six MPs British Legislature ever conferred and backed the tighter control of and  members of the National ing for a upon Ireland’. In contrast, non- alcohol licensing. Education League, declaiming conformists thought it acceptable, After the splits and failures of that: ‘free trade’ with Osborne Morgan stating the  Reform Bill, Gladstone in religion it combined ‘concession to the reunited the party and won the The Dissenters object to Roman Catholics with the strict-  general election with calls this measure, which they by remov- est maintenance of the secular for the disestablishment of the conceive will hand over the principle in State education’. Church of Ireland (which repre- education of this country ing all the This view was backed by nei- sented no more than  per cent to the Church of England ther the Conservatives nor the of the Irish population). Disestab- – entirely in many parts of special Catholic hierarchy. Ten ‘English lishment righted an injustice to the Kingdom, especially in privileges and Scotch’ and thirty-five Irish Irish Catholics ( per cent of agricultural districts … Any Liberals voted against the bill, the population) in a manner that Conscience Clause will be enjoyed with a further twenty-two Irish reunited the Liberal Party – the absolutely unsatisfactory. Liberals abstaining. The Univer- nonconformists welcomed the by the sity Bill was lost by three votes. weakening of Anglicanism and Ultimately the bill, one of the the Whigs averted the provision great achievements of Glad- Anglican of state funding for Catholi- stone’s government, was pushed Church. The monster monopoly cism. Optimistically, Gladstone through with Conservative sup- The key economic achievement believed disestablishment would port despite  Liberal MPs vot- of the left in the Victorian period renew the Church of Ireland’s ing against the leadership in one was free trade. The Anti-Corn missionary vocation. The accom- division and  abstaining. The Law League did not repeat the panying disendowment of church dual system of voluntary aided Chartists’ mistakes of using mass funds provided for the relief of church schools and state schools demonstrations to intimidate Irish poverty. with non-denominational reli- Parliament and threatening pub- The comparative ease with gious education still survives but lic order. Cobden and Bright, its which the Irish Church was the disappointment of the Radi- Radical leaders, worked through disestablished gave a misleading cal nonconformists contributed Parliament to persuade the gov- sense of Liberal religious accord. to the  Liberal defeat and ernment to remove the duties on Gladstone never contemplated undermined Forster’s chance of imported grain. In , Russell disestablishment of the English becoming leader in . announced that the Whigs had Church and campaigns for the Chastened but undeterred accepted Cobden’s argument. disestablishment of the Welsh by the Radical mutiny over The Radical case for free trade, and Scottish Churches became elementary schools, Gladstone supported by the Whigs and increasingly significant as Lib- upset the other wing of the more liberal Conservatives, was eralism relied more heavily on party, in , by tackling the that indirect taxes on the neces- Welsh and Scottish MPs after the even more complex problem of sities of life, such as bread, tea and split of . Irish university education. Trin- sugar, weighed most heavily on The religious disharmony was ity College, Dublin, was well the poorest, for whom the cost more publicly exposed in squab- funded but Protestant, while the of food consumed the highest bles over education, the other Catholic equivalent was poorly proportion of income. Free trade issue hinted at in Gladstone’s endowed. Gladstone proposed was redistributive, particularly

12 Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM as government revenue became and protection for their funds in Lord Chancellor, opposed factory more dependent on income tax, the case of strikes, but left Disrae- legislation. paid only by the better off. li’s Conservative government to For the Radicals, Fielden More importantly, the cam- establish the legality of peaceful worked to limit the hours of paign leaders aimed to broaden picketing. women and children to ten a the distribution of power and The early union leaders, such day but Bright countered that, undermine privilege. As Cobden as George Howell, first Parlia- while ten hours a day was ‘quite argued in : mentary Secretary of the TUC, long enough’, he differed ‘on were Liberals. Henry Broad- the point whether a reduction A band of men united hurst, who succeeded Howell, in time ought to be carried by together – the selfish oli- and Thomas Burt, the miners’ the Legislature or by a regula- garchy of the sugar-hogs- leader, were among the first tion between the masters and the head and the flour-sack … working-class members of par- operatives themselves.’ Even forty have got together in the liament, as Liberals. Their views years later, he wrote: ‘I still hold House of Commons, and would not be considered left- the opinion that to limit by law by their own Acts of Parlia- wing today; as Joseph Arch, the time during which adults may ment have appropriated to founder of a successful agricul- work is unwise and in many cases their own classes the very tural workers’ union and him- oppressive.’ This voluntarist case privileges, the self-same self later an MP, proclaimed, ‘I proved misguided but at a time of monopolies, or monopolies do not believe in State Aid and limited wages and no social secu- as injurious in every respect land nationalisation … Self-help rity, when restricted hours risked to the interests of the peo- and liberty, order and progress reducing pay below subsistence ple, as those monopolies – these are what I advocate.’ levels, not inevitably so. were which our forefathers In the s, the socialist Social In the early s, Chamber- abolished two centuries and Democratic Federation gained lain, as Mayor of Birmingham, a half ago … We advocate a foothold in the union move- used municipal ownership of the abolition of the Corn ment but no more than a foot- the gas and water supply to pro- Law, because we believe hold. It was more in frustration vide funding for the redevelop- that to be the foster-parent at the Liberal Party’s refusal to ment and slum clearance of the of all other monopolies; and give them an adequate role than city. Although happy to see this if we destroy that – the par- from ideological differences that described as socialism, Cham- ent, the monster monopoly men like Keir Hardie, Hender- berlain’s schemes reflected more – it will save us the trouble son and MacDonald founded an his skills as a profit-generating of devouring all the rest. independent Labour Party. entrepreneur. Chamberlain’s The regulation of employment break with the Liberal Party The repeal of the Corn Laws divided both Whigs and Radicals. came before he had the oppor- by Peel, in , split the Tories Led initially by Tory evangelical tunity to apply entrepreneurial rather than the Liberals, effec- Lord Shaftesbury, between  skills to national government, tively keeping them out of power and  a series of acts were but even the most radical ideas for nearly three decades. Peel’s passed restricting the minimum in his Unauthorised Programme chief supporters were slowly age at which children could work of  – compulsory purchase absorbed into the Liberal Party. in factories, specifying that chil- powers to create allotments The Peelite William Gladstone, dren should receive an educa- in rural communities and the as Chancellor of the Exchequer tion and limiting the hours that funding of free primary educa- under Aberdeen and Palmerston, women and children could work. tion from graduated income tax completed the free trade reforms, Between  and  legisla- – were only modest forerunners as Cobden foretold. tion began to regulate health and of twentieth-century New Liber- Similarly, union recognition The key safety at work. alism. Similarly, in the Newcastle posed little Liberal division. In Among Whigs, Macaulay Programme of , formulated the s, unions of skilled work- economic argued, as the left would today, after the supposed ‘drag’ of the ers which provided membership ‘that, where the health is con- Whigs had been removed by the benefits in addition to agitation achieve- cerned, and where morality is Home Rule split, the most that for higher wages began sustained concerned, the state is justified in Liberals proposed by way of eco- growth. The Trades Union Con- ment of the interfering with the contracts of nomic intervention was to limit gress held its first meeting in left in the individuals … Can any man who the hours of adult male work- . Gladstone recognised, in the remembers his own sensations ers and to extend the liability of new unions, sound working men Victorian when he was young, doubt that employers for industrial injuries. seeking legitimate self-improve- twelve hours a day of labour in a The theoretical underpinnings ment. His  Trade Union Act period was factory is too much for a lad of of the constructive use of state  gave the unions legal recognition free trade. thirteen?’ Brougham, a former power were in development at

Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 13 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM the end of the century, but their return for co-operation with the any concession, or appear- practical application had to wait Land Act. In addition to property, ance of concession, in this for Gladstone’s departure. Gladstone seemed to be sacrific- direction would be mis- ing law and order. chievous in its effects to These discontents form the the prosperity of Ireland as Mischievous in its effects background to Gladstone’s  well as that of England and The  University Bill defeat Home Rule proposals. The  Scotland, I have consistently magnified Gladstone’s Irish dif- general election produced a hung opposed it in office and in ficulties, as Liberal representation parliament. Ireland had returned opposition and I shall con- in Ireland sank from sixty-five no Liberals but eighty-five Home tinue to oppose it. MPs in  to twelve in , Rule MPs. The minority Con- when an independent Home servative government was ousted Gordon Goodman’s article on Rule grouping of fifty-eight on a demand for ‘three acres and a the Liberal Unionists gives a was elected. After , under cow’ – allotments for agricultural broader explanation. The Whigs the leadership of Parnell, these labourers – and Gladstone began feared that Home Rule was only nationalists perfected parliamen- formulating proposals for ‘the a step towards full independence. tary obstruction and capital- establishment of a legislative body Ireland’s example would be the ised on violent rural discontent in Dublin for the management signal for similar agitation within through the Irish Land League. of affairs specifically and exclu- the Empire, and end in imperial Britain traditionally dealt with sively Irish’. The establishment disintegration. Moderate opinion such Irish problems by a combi- of a religion would be excluded. was shocked by the virulence of nation of ‘coercion’ and compas- ‘Matters of defence, foreign the nationalist movement, which sion. Normal legal procedures policy, and international trade’ included barn burning, attacks on were suspended to allow agri- were reserved to the imperial livestock, and the murder of Fred- cultural protesters to be locked parliament in London. The Irish erick Cavendish, the Chief Secre- up when local juries refused to parliament would include a sec- tary for Ireland and Hartington’s convict. After order was restored, ond chamber to offer protec- brother. Home Rule would be a ameliorative measures were tion to Protestants and a land bill craven surrender to malcontents offered. Coercion, tolerated by would give landowners security. and criminal anarchy. Finally, the the Whigs, some of whom were English progress would no longer spectre of Protestant Ulster sub- Irish landowners, was unwelcome be subject to Irish obstruction. Yet ject to a predominantly Catholic to Radical civil libertarians. The leading Whig Lords Hartington, parliament at Dublin was reason second Gladstone government Selborne, Derby and Northbrook enough to reject Home Rule. initially allowed the special legal could not be enticed to join the The rebels, as Hamar Bass powers to lapse and in  pro- Since ‘Mr ministry. stressed, had an alternative: ‘I was posed a Compensation for Dis- As Hartington’s biographer and still am prepared to support a turbance Bill, overriding property Gladstone conceded, ‘Liberals had for years very liberal measure of Local Self- rights to help small tenants in applied denounced the rule of men of Government for Ireland but I fail financial difficulties. one race or religion over those to see why such a measure should When this was defeated by a Liberal of another in Greece, Poland, not be equally applicable to Eng- Whig revolt in the Lords, Irish Italy, Hungary, Turkey, without land, Scotland, and Wales.’ violence rose and Forster, Chief principles admitting that these principles When the Home Rule Bill Secretary for Ireland, reintro- could be used against the gov- was put to the vote, ninety-three duced coercion, which Gladstone honestly, ernment of Catholic Irish by Liberals, the majority moderates balanced with another round of sincerely, Protestant Anglo-Saxons’. Since and Whigs but including Cham- land reform to satisfy Irish ten- ‘Mr Gladstone applied Liberal berlain and Bright, ensured its ant demands for fixity of tenure, and above principles honestly, sincerely, and defeat. Gladstonian Irish policy freedom of sale and fair rent. The above all, logically, to the case had tested Whig tolerance to bill, passed in , offered a legiti- all, logi- of Ireland’, what were the Whig destruction. In the ensuing elec- mate method of securing rent objections? Hartington had tion, the dissidents fought as Lib- reductions, undermining the Land cally, to made his opposition obvious in eral Unionists in alliance with League. Nevertheless, the Whig the case his manifesto of : the Conservatives and the split Lord Lansdowne resigned over the was never healed. In the Salisbury Compensation Bill and the Duke of Ireland’, No patriotic purpose is, in government, which followed, of Argyll over the Land Act, both my opinion, gained by the county councils were introduced concerned that interference in the what were use of the language of exag- across the UK. rights of landowners might spread geration in describing the to England. Both Irish ministers, the Whig Irish agitation for Home Forster and Lord Carlisle, resigned objec- Rule. I believe the demand Conclusions over an understanding negotiated so described to be imprac- The Victorian parties were fight- for Parnell’s release from prison in tions? ticable, and considering that ing about the distribution of

14 Journal of Liberal History 47 Summer 2005 LEFT AND RIGHT IN VICTORIAN LIBERALISM power rather than income, about success under Asquith’s leader- The Victo- , and his speech to the Commons, inequalities of privilege rather ship. From this new approach and  November . than class. In this context, fig- from the new Labour Party came  Speech at Rochdale,  August , rian par- from John Bright and J. Thorold ures such as Cobden and Bright, a redefinition of what it meant to Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of who were in the vanguard of be on the left. ties were Public Policy by Richard Cobden (). those seeking to break down the  J. Thorold Rogers (ed.), Speeches on monopoly of power and hand it Tony Little is Chair of the Liberal fighting Questions of Public Policy by John Bright over to the whole people, should Democrat Historty Group, and a MP (Kraus Reprint ), Vol. , pp. about the –. be recognised as champions of regular contributor to the Journal  James Winter, Robert Lowe (University the left rather than the right. of Liberal History, particularly on distribution of Toronto Press, ), p. . The Whigs were not opposed nineteenth-century issues.  Ibid., p. . to the direction of change, but of power  Ibid., p. . their resistance to the pace of  Thomas Babington Macaulay, Critical  James Chambers, Palmerston: ‘The Peo- ple’s Darling’ (John Murray, ), p. progress, their fear of Gladstone’s & Historical Essays (Dent,  edn.), rather than Vol. , p. . . power to arouse the masses and  Known as Lord Hartington for most income,  J. L. Garvin, The Life of Joseph Cham- their desire to retain a form of of his career. berlain (Macmillan, ), Vol. , p. paternalism suggests that figures  Sir William Schwenk Gilbert, Iolan- about . such as Lowe, Hartington and the.  Ibid., p. , quoting from T. Wemyss Reid, Life of the Rt Hon W. E. For- Argyll should be seen as figures  Paul Marshall & David Laws (eds.), inequalities The Orange Book (Profile Books, ster, Vol. , p.  (, reprinted by of the right. To the Whigs, the ). of privilege Adams & Dart, ). rights of aristocratic property  Norman Gash suggests that by   Ibid., p. . ranked above the creation of newspapers were classifying MPs as rather than  Ibid., p. . yeoman farmers in Ireland, the Conservatives and Liberals in reports  Bernard Holland, Life of the Duke of Devonshire (Longmans, ), Vol. , p. Anglican influence over educa- of election results; Norman Gash, Aristocracy and People: Britain – class. . tion needed preservation from  (Edward Arnold, ), p. .  Quoted in J. P. Parry, Democracy and secularisation and the unity of  This paragraph and its quotations are Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal the Empire was more important derived from D. G. S. Simes, A Long Party – (Cambridge Univer- and Difficult Association: The Ultra Tories sity Press, ), p. . Parry gives than devolution. Chamberlain a detailed analysis of the religious once described Hartington as a and the ‘Great Apostate’, http://www. archives.lib.soton.ac.uk/wellington/ affiliations and problems which beset ‘drag on the wheel of progress’. pdfsforall/pol_simes_ed.pdf, pp. –. Gladstone’s first government. After Hartington had brought  Geo. Huggett, Address to the Peo-  Ibid., p. . Home Rule to a shuddering halt, ple of Lambeth, , Pro Ho  H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone – //. , p. . his strain of Whiggism faded. Its  Richard Cobden, speech of  Febru- champions were absorbed into an  T. A. Jenkins, The Liberal Ascendancy (Macmillan, ), p. . ary  , London, in Brack and Lit- alliance with Conservatism that  In the House of Commons,  May tle, Great Liberal Speeches, p. . held power for most of the next .  Joseph Arch, From Ploughtail to Parlia- two decades.  Thomas Babington Macaulay, Hallam ment (The Cresset Library, ), p. The attempt to carry Home (), reprinted in Critical & Histori- .  Thomas Babington Macaulay, Speech Rule marked the high-water cal Essays, (Everyman,  edn.), Vol , pp. –. in the House of Commons,  May mark of Gladstonian Liberalism.  Joseph Hamburger, The Whig Con- , in Speeches on Politics & Litera- The party needed a new direction. science, in Peter Marsh (ed.), The ture by Lord Macaulay (J. M. Dent, no Attempts, by Rosebery and other Conscience of the Victorian State (The date), pp. –. rightward-leaning Liberals in the Harvester Press, ), p. .  R. A. J. Walling (ed.), The Diaries of John Bright (Cassell, ), p. . s, to promote imperialism  Thomas Babington Macaulay, Speech in the House of Commons,  March  John Morley, Life of Gladstone (Mac- and national efficiency enjoyed , in Duncan Brack and Tony Lit- millan, ), Vol. , p. . only limited electoral appeal. The tle (eds.), Great Liberal Speeches (Polit-  K. Theodore Hoppen, The Mid-Vic- alternative, which proposed that ico’s, ), p. . torian Generation, – (Oxford,  Macaulay, Hallam, op. cit., p. . ), p. . Liberalism should ‘concern itself  Bernard Holland, Life of the Duke of with the liberation and utilisa-  Jeremy Bentham, The Commonplace Book (). Devonshire, – (Longmans tion of the faculties and potencies  John Roebuck, quoted in David ), Vol. , pp. –. of a nation and a municipality, as Roberts, The Utilitarian Conscience, in  Address to the electors of North- well as those of individuals and Marsh, The Conscience of the Victorian East Lancashire, The Times,  March  State, p. . . voluntary groups of citizens’,  Gordon L. Goodman, Liberal Union- proved more fruitful. The Lib-  John Bright, Speech at Birmingham,  October , in Brack and Little, ism: The Revolt of the Whigs (Victorian erals returned to government Great Liberal Speeches, p. . Studies, ). in  principally as a result of  Lord John Russell, quoted in  Hamar Bass (MP for Stafford) Elec- Tory quarrels over protectionism Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of tion Address , quoted in Edwin and this New Liberalism, which Liberal Government in Victorian Britain Goadby Dissentient Liberalism (Liberal Publication Department, ), p. . promoted the constructive use (Yale, ), p. .  See Spencer Walpole, Life of Lord John  J. A. Hobson, cited in Robert Eccle- of government intervention to Russell (Longmans, ), Vol , p. shall, British Liberalism (Longman rectify social problems, proved a ), p. .

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