HEBEELE, Gerald Clarence, 1932- the PREDICAMENT of the BRITISH UNIONIST PARTY, 1906-1914
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This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 68-3000 HEBEELE, Gerald Clarence, 1932- THE PREDICAMENT OF THE BRITISH UNIONIST PARTY, 1906-1914. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1967 History, modem University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by Gerald Clarence Heberle 1968 THE PREDICAMENT OF THE BRITISH UNIONIST PARTY, 1906-1914 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Gerald c / Heberle, B.A., M.A, ******* The Ohio State University 1967 Approved by B k f y f ’ P c M k ^ . f Adviser Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Philip P. Poirier of the Department of History, The Ohio State University, Dr. Poirier*s invaluable advice, his unfailing patience, and his timely encouragement were of immense assistance to me in the production of this dissertation, I must acknowledge the splendid service of the staff of the British Museum Manuscripts Room, The Librarian and staff of the University of Birmingham Library made the Chamberlain Papers available to me and were most friendly and helpful. His Lordship, Viscount Chilston, and Dr, Felix Hull, Kent County Archivist, very kindly permitted me to see the Chilston Papers, I received permission to see the Asquith Papers from Mr, Mark Bonham Carter, and the Papers were made available to me by the staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, To all of these people I am indebted, I am especially grateful to Mr, Geoffrey D,M, Block and to Miss Anne Allason of the Conservative Research Department Library, Their cooperation made possible my work in the Conservative Party's publications, and their extreme kindness made it most enjoyable. ii VITA 4 November 1932 Born - Dayton, Ohio 1 9 5 4 ........ B.A., University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 1 9 5 5 ........ M.A., University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 1958-1961 .... Graduate Assistant, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1961-1962 .... University Fellow, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1962-1964 .... Pulbright Scholar, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England 1964-1965 . 1" 1' Instructor, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1965-1967 .... Instructor, Department of History, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Renaissance and Reformation. Professor Harold J. Grimm Tudor and Stuart Britain. Professor Clayton R. Roberts Modern Britain. Professor Philip P. Poirier Colonial America. Professor Eugene H. Roseboom Emergence of Modern America. Professor Francis P. Weisenburger 3.X1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................... il VITA .................................................... ill Chapter I. THE ELECTION OF I9 0 6 ............................ 1 II. 1906; THE LORDS IN CONTROL ............... 34 III. 1907: MARKING T I M E ............................... 73 IV. THE CONFEDERATES VERSUS THE C E C I L S ................ 104 V. THE BUDGET V E T O .................................. 123 VI. THE JANUARY ELECTION AND THE CONFERENCE............ 155 VII, THE VETO ELECTION AND THE PARLIAMENT ACT .......... 186 VIII. HOME RULE OR CIVIL W A R ........................... 221 IX. THE TRIUMPH OF THE DIE-HARDS ...................... 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................. 268 IV CHAPTER I THE ELECTION OF I906 The Unionist Party dominated British politics for twenty years after its victory in 1886, The Liberal Unionist partnership with the Conservative Party in opposition to Irish Home Rule gradually trans formed itself into a relatively complete political union. Although each section of the Unionist Party retained its name and a degree of organizational integrity, the authority of the Party Leader and his Whips knit the Unionist Party into an effective political unit. Even vrtien in opposition from 1892 to 1895 the Unionist majority in the House of Lords gave the Party the power to decide all crucial issues as it wanted. The Unionists tended to regard their years of control as the normal state of British politics. They equated the party relations of this period with the basic premises of the British constitution. The condition of the Liberal Party, which seemed to be in a state of near-disintegration for at least fifteen years after the catastrophe of 1886, puffed up the pride of the Unionists in their Party* s excellence. They contrasted their unity with the fragmen tation of the Liberals, They compared the apparent feebleness of the Liberal leaders. Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman with the apparent strength of their own Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, They contemptuously dismissed the Liberal dependence on 1 2 Irish, Welsh, and Scottish votes as evidence of factional weakness. The Unionists rather paradoxically took pride in their Englishness while claiming to be the only party representative of the broad national interests of Great Britain, The real condition of the Unionist Party on the eve of the 1906 election, however, bore little resemblance to its ideal image of itself. The Party was rent in divisions over issues of policy and leadership. These divisions did not necessarily follow identical lines, Joseph Chamberlain's crusade to unite the Empire by a selec tive reform of the tariff system had created a massive upheaval within the Party since 1903, The Unionist free traders, though the weakest section of the Party, posed a very serious threat to the unity of the Party, Their fiscal policy was identical with that of the Liberals, If they transferred their allegiance to the Liberal Party a political revolution comparable to that of 1886 might develop. On the other extreme the Chamberlainite tariff reformers, though not so numerous as they claimed, had the advantage of having seized the initiative, thus maneuvering the controversy onto ground of their own choosing. They partially dissipated this advantage by wavering among a variety of objectives such as Imperial Union, the protection of British indus try, the creation of employment opportunities, the broadening of the basis of taxation, and the financing of social reform programs. They claimed that all these objects could be combined in a single program, but the multiplicity of emphases confused the issue and gave a perfect opportunity to the middle Unionist group, the Balfourian moderates. 3 Arthur J, Balfour, the Leader of the Party, was the nephew of Lord Salisbury and succeeded him as Prime Minister. Balfour was a tough, wily, opportunistic politician who concealed his hard work behind an appearance of philosophic detachment and social languor. A master of parliamentary maneuvering, he dominated the House of Commons by the intellectual dexterity of his debating speeches. As Leader of the Unionist Party he largely controlled the official policy of the Party, and the Chamberlainites found him a doubtful asset in the fight for tariff reform. With a seemingly limitless variety of fiscal policies Balfour skipped through tariff reform plans with bewildering agility, touching everything lightly and holding firm only to his tenure as Unionist Leader. Like most (if not all) Unionist Leaders he gave his primary loyalty to party unity, to which he was ready to sacrifice any single item or principle in the party program. He held the Party together during the critical years from 1903 to I906 by his cryptic pronouncements on fiscal policy, by cabinet readjustments, and by skillful, if somewhat humiliating, parliamentary maneuvers. Flawed as it was, the relative unity of the Party in the I906 election was a remarkable achievement, but Balfour had paid a heavy price for it. Balfour’s mystifying fiscal pronouncements and intricate par liamentary maneuvering greatly increased his already substantial reputation for clever dialectical trickery. By eliminating factional leaders from his cabinet he had left himself with a remarkably thin, unimpressive government. In a Party which prided itself on strength, decisiveness, and common sense Balfour's supple dialectics seemed dangerously insubstantial, and only his vast parliamentary prestige, his Brahmin social heritage, and the habitual subservience of the Unionist Party to its Leader preserved his position. His famous philosophical speculations both lifted him above the brawls of his colleagues and gave him camouflage for his more tiresome political toil. In the most discouraging days of his government he remarked to a friend who asked why he went on, "I am like a man with a chronic cold who knows that the slightest fresh cold will kill him. But I go on because I find Joe [Chamberlain] such an interesting psychological study. The tariff reform movement, at first sight a remarkably radical movement for a conservative party, was by no means united. On the one hand it expressed the frustration of certain men with the sense of aim less drift in a Britain steadily declining in industry and prestige relative to the newer industrial powers. It was a veiled protest against the survival in British society and politics of outdated values of aristocratic grace and gentility, hopelessly irrelevant to the later industrial revolution. In the eyes of men like Joseph Cham berlain and Alfred Milner the tariff reform movement was an attempt to revitalize both Britain and the Ehpire by placing the primary emphasis in politics on the value of national unity,