Liberalism and National Identity the Victorian Achievement

‘The Liberal Party is a house of many mansions’, Sir William Harcourt once observed. At the time it was not altogether a compliment. From the perspective of late-Victorian party management, the sheer variety of in social and intellectual terms added considerably to the complications of keeping a parliamentary majority intact during what was notionally a seven-year term. On n its heyday from the 1850s to in integrating the various elements 1914 the Liberal Party enjoyed into the system and giving them the other hand, as the Isignificant support in England, a sense of Britishness that seems Wales, Scotland and Ireland; it increasingly elusive today. foundation for building included High Anglicans, Noncon- This was no small achievement, a coherent and inclusive formists, secular Radicals and Jews; for at the start of the nineteenth it mobilised agricultural labourers century Britain was a society sense of national and aristocratic landowners, trade experiencing great social and unionists and major employers, economic upheaval while being identity Liberalism monarchists and Republicans, dedi- run by a largely closed aristocratic looked a much more cated teetotallers and successful elite comprising just a few hundred brewers. This rainbow coalition not families. As John Vincent observed serviceable vehicle. By only reflected British society in all some years ago, the Liberal Party its inconsistency and exuberance, offered an answer to the question Martin Pugh. it also proved to be instrumental of who was to govern the nation

20 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 Liberalism and National Identity the Victorian Achievement

after the landed aristocracy ceased involved never imprisoning men was a narrow movement too closely to be able to do so by themselves.1 without bringing them to trial, not linked to the Anglican establish- In effect the solution lay in levying taxes without parliamen- ment and the maintenance of privi- gradually curtailing, though not tary approval, and maintaining a lege generally. The 1846 split over overthrowing, aristocratic rule free press and freedom to criticise the repeal of the left the and supplementing it by drawing the highest in the land. Although party more dependent on its rural in talent from outside its ranks and the basis for this system was far and landed interests and reluctant eventually engaging comparatively from democratic – only 2.6 per cent to adjust to industrial-urban Brit- poor and powerless people in the of the population enjoyed a vote ain. After the expansion of the elec- political process. before the 1832 Reform Act – Lib- torate in 1867 and 1885 it retained To this end, nineteenth-century erals believed they had found the very little representation in Wales, Liberals developed what today means of steadily extending popu- and not much more in Scotland would be called a narrative designed lar participation without recourse until the Liberal split over home to explain the nation’s past and to the violence and revolutionary rule in 1886 boosted the party with its present. At the constitutional upheaval experienced by Conti- Liberal Unionist recruits. Above level this drew on the notion of a nental Europe in 1789–1815, in 1830, all, Conservatives were alienated rough-and-ready democracy dat- in 1848, in 1870 and at intervals from the Irish by virtue of their ing back to Anglo-Saxon England in Tsarist Russia. By contrast the links with the Anglo-Irish land- that had been subverted by the British had a genius for step-by- owners and the maintenance of Norman Conquest; in this analy- step reform. Although the ‘Whig’ the Anglican establishment over a sis, parliamentary reform could interpretation of gradual, managed Catholic population. Defence of be seen as patriotic and British. In political change tends to be dispar- The role of the Union with Ireland made the time the British had overthrown aged more than respected today, Conservative appeal more negative the absolutism of the Stuart Kings, it exercised a powerful influence Victorian and divisive than ever. In a reac- replacing it with a parliamentary on British thinking and on British tionary speech in 1886, Lord Salis- monarchy and a balanced system of politicians right up to the time of Liberals in bury deliberately polarised opinion government in which three institu- Clement Attlee. by disparaging the Irish for being tions, King, Lords and Commons, The role of Victorian Liberals in building a as unsuited to self-government as checked each other’s exercise of building a coherent idea of British- the Hottentots; he advised them to power. The Liberal philosopher, ness is the more obvious by com- coherent emigrate to Manitoba, a suggestion John Locke, argued that men placed parison with their Conservative almost as insulting to the Canadi- themselves under society on the rivals. No doubt also idea of Brit- ans as it was to the Irish!2 The most basis that the state guaranteed to mobilised a wide range of support the Conservatives achieved was to safeguard their lives and property, when forced to do so by the expan- ishness is win sixteen to seventeen seats in with the clear implication that sion of the electorate. Later in the the more , in the context of a hundred failure to do so gave them a legiti- century, under Disraeli and Salis- for Ireland as a whole, by exploiting mate reason for rebellion against bury, it promoted its claim as the obvious by the fears of the Protestant minority. authority. patriotic, imperial and monarchist In effect Conservatism became In this way emerged the char- party as a challenge to Liberalism as comparison the English party, as it is today, acteristic liberal belief that liberty the national party; but in the pro- rather than the British party. Con- was integral to Britishness and Brit- cess Conservatism confirmed itself with their servatives even struggled to come ain the most free society on earth, as a much more exclusive force, reli- to terms with provincial England a view widely endorsed by Conti- ant on exploiting fears and antago- Conservative and its leaders, apart from the Glas- nental observers by the nineteenth nisms about external factors. For wegian Andrew , were century. Among other things this much of the century Conservatism rivals. essentially English. Admittedly

Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 21 liberalism and national identity: the victorian achievement

Arthur Balfour had a home in the excluded the church courts from While Con- to the emergence of the Liberal Scottish Borders but his mental the process of divorce in 1857.4 It Party in the mid-Victorian period outlook was entirely dominated by was also responsible for disestab- servatism than his more equivocal views on metropolitan society, London clu- lishing the church in Ireland in 1869 domestic reform, for he was instru- bland and Hertfordshire. Visits to and in Wales in 1920. In 1858 Liber- increasingly mental in popularising a Liberal the provinces left Balfour feeling als helped remove the disability that narrative based on the steady pro- queasy. ‘Public meetings in great excluded Jews as non-Christians took its stand motion of reform and self-deter- towns have attendant horrors in from sitting as MPs. These reforms mination against autocracy and the way of subsidiary luncheons would have attracted condemna- on defence the abuse of power by emperors and dinner’, he complained to Lord tion from the Daily Mail as being and Catholic regimes all over the Salisbury, ‘which are fatal to one’s anti-Christian, politically correct of the Angli- Continent. temper at the moment and to one’s and multicultural, though fortu- can estab- For Liberals this cause went digestion afterwards.’3 He was not nately it did not come unto exist- hand in hand with the other key altogether sorry to be defeated at ence until the end of the century. lishment, vehicle of progress: the implemen- Manchester East in 1906! Even so, reforms of this kind were tation and extension of . Today, with British national not achieved without some politi- Liberalism The rationale was both material identity unravelling fast, the cal cost, though they gradually had and moral. Free trade raised the liv- apparently secure Britishness of the effect of fostering the inclusive managed ing standards of the growing urban Victorian society seems remark- society of the pre-1914 era. population, kept down the costs able, rooted as it was in pride in Rather less complicated, though to be more of the manufacturers and boosted economic success, parliamentary even more efficacious, was the both direct exports and indirect government, imperial expan- association of Victorian Liberal- inclusive. earnings from investment, ship- sion and popular monarchism, not ism with the British success story ping and insurance. Free trade least because Britain comprised in the shape of Britain’s role as a This was created the confidence that an ever- four distinct nationalities and suf- pre-eminent manufacturing and expanding industry would eventu- fered from divisions of all kinds. commercial power. Mid-Victorian symbol- ally create work for everyone who Religion, for example, gener- Liberals were imbued with an opti- was capable and thereby eliminate ated political controversy right mistic belief in the inevitability of ised by W. E. poverty from British society. But up to 1914. But while Conserva- progress that distinguishes their Liberals also invested free trade tism increasingly took its stand on society from ours. The mood was Gladstone, with moral implications in that by defence of the Anglican establish- typically expressed by the histo- drawing other countries into a sys- ment, Liberalism managed to be rian, H. T. Buckle, in his History who was tem of economic cooperation and more inclusive. This was symbol- of Civilisation in England (1857–61) a staunch interdependence they felt it would ised by W. E. Gladstone, who was – like other contemporaries he inexorably erode the causes of war. a staunch Anglican so immersed in was inclined to equate civilisa- Anglican One by-product of this confi- Christian theology that he might tion with England! In his explana- dence in material progress was to have made a career as a bishop, but tion for national characteristics and … but also make the British, though robustly also enjoyed huge credibility as the successes, Buckle put much of the patriotic, more relaxed about exponent of what came to be called emphasis on material factors such enjoyed huge expressing their nationalism than the ‘Nonconformist Conscience’ in as the gloomy climate and Britain’s other peoples. As British national late-Victorian Britain. In effect the island position. He thought that credibility as identity could virtually be taken role of Liberalism lay in curtailing freedom from invasion had resulted for granted there seemed less need some of the least defensible advan- in the English being especially the exponent to assert it. Consequently the Brit- tages of Anglicanism and incor- attached to liberty and less willing ish neglected some of the obvious porating non-Anglicans into the to accept authoritarian rule than of what came expressions of national identity system. This was essential because the peoples of Continental Europe. used in other countries. For exam- although the Church of England Such sentiments were robustly to be called ple they had no day of national cel- enjoyed the legal status of an estab- voiced by Lord Palmerston, who ebration until Lord Meath dreamed lished church, it fell well short of enjoyed a strong, and typically Lib- the ‘Non- up the idea of ‘Empire Day’. Signifi- being an effective national church. eral, sense of the superiority of the cantly, no one was very interested, By 1800 it claimed only 46 per cent English government and constitu- conformist and when the House of Commons of active church-goers compared tion. As , Palm- debated Empire Day in 1908 mem- with 43 per cent for the Noncon- erston welcomed the growing Conscience’ bers rejected the idea by a majority formist churches and 10 per cent for ascendancy of Liberal principles in in late-Victo- of sixty-eight. Eventually Empire the Catholics. Although the Liberal Europe and cheerfully associated Day was adopted in 1916, a sign that Party included many Anglicans in himself with reform movements rian Britain. British self-confidence was now its parliamentary leadership, it har- even when, as in 1848, they took slipping. nessed the support of the Noncon- the form of revolutions; he argued Empire provoked a good deal formists, by tackling the disabilities with some reason that this reflected of controversy between the two that had excluded them from par- public opinion. Thus, when accused parties, especially later in the cen- ticipation in national life, so effec- of promoting and aiding rebel- tury, which may appear to sig- tively that in the 1906 parliament lion by sanctioning the dispatch of nify their different approach to 177 Nonconformists sat as Liberal arms to the Sicilians in the 1840s, he this element in national identity. MPs. It ended the church monopoly brushed aside his critics. Arguably However, the differences were less on marriage through the introduc- Palmerston’s foreign policy proved than they appeared. Both Liberal tion of civil marriage in 1838, and to be a more formative contribution and Conservative administrations

22 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 liberalism and national identity: the victorian achievement presided over dramatic exten- Yet, though ostensibly the Raj party. On the mainland Irish com- sions of colonial territory; yet this offered a system of alien, autocratic munities remained distinctive but was rarely the result of a deliberate rule much appreciated by Lord were steadily absorbed into the policy, rather the consequence of Salisbury and those Tories who political and social mainstream. initiatives taken locally by ambi- disliked the trend towards partici- They were mobilised by political tious governors general and mili- patory democracy at home, India parties, joined trade unions, and tary commanders in defiance of was never the unqualified autoc- gave a welcome boost to the Catho- London. Home governments fre- racy it appeared to be. Liberal Vice- lic Church and Catholic schools. quently despaired about being roys like Lord Ripon took pains to Despite the popular prejudice dragged into costly new campaigns maintain a free press in India, in the against the Irish for causing pres- designed to rescue British colonists face of Tory opposition, thereby sure on housing, employment and from conflicts with native peoples. keeping open the door for Indian the poor law, for Liberal Britain For example, the reckless seizure of participation in public debate. it remained a matter of pride and several princely states by Dalhou- Gradually a university system patriotism to admit both economic sie helped to provoke the Indian was created, in the process foster- migrants and those fleeing politi- revolt of 1857. Gladstone notori- ing a class of Indians familiar with cal persecution abroad. Challenged ously became entangled in 1880 Western liberal ideas about law and by a deputation of trade unionists when General Gordon, who had government. It is usually forgot- in 1895 complaining about immi- been sent to withdraw troops from ten that the Indian Civil Service grants, the , H. H. the Sudan, flagrantly disobeyed was also open, via the examination Asquith, simply rebuked them: orders and was killed by the rebels system, and although only a hand- ‘who has gained most among the as a result. Despite the contro- ful of Indians had joined the I.C.S. nations of the world from the versy over Gordon, imperial policy by 1900, the numbers steadily grew free circulation and competition was usually bi-partisan. Several – for example, by the 1930s half the of labour? … who would suffer forward moves by the post-1874 officers in the Bombay Presidency most from the exclusion of foreign Conservative government were Despite the were Indians. Although these poli- labour? Again, the English.’5 In fact, actually continuations of policies cies were disparaged by Conserva- by the 1850s it had become essential initiated by the previous Liberal popular tives as subversive, for Liberals they to the British self-image as a nation administration. gave tangible form to the belief that of liberty-lovers to offer refuge On the other hand, by the late- prejudice the ultimate justification for British to anyone, but especially to those Victorian period the two par- rule lay in leading Indians towards oppressed by Catholic regimes and ties did increasingly diverge over against the self-government. In this sense Lib- by authoritarian governments in imperial questions partly because eralism incorporated its thinking Italy, France, Russia and Germany. Disraeli, who had previously dis- Irish for caus- about empire into its wider view of As a result London became notori- paraged colonies as ‘millstones ing pressure Britishness. ous as the centre for violent oppo- around our neck’, accused Glad- Indeed, Victorian Liberal atti- nents of Continental regimes, who stone of wanting to dismember the on housing, tudes towards empire and free usually went unpunished for their empire following his withdrawal of trade were characterised by a com- activities. troops from New Zealand. In the employment bination of idealism and hard- Liberal attitudes towards immi- Midlothian campaigns of 1878–80 headedness. One consequence was gration were tested by the new Gladstone famously attacked Dis- and the poor what, by today’s standards, was a influx of Jewish refugees in the raeli for reckless aggrandisement remarkably relaxed view of the free 1890s mostly fleeing persecution over the wars in Afghanistan and law, for Lib- trade in people. Until interrupted under the Tsarist regime. By 1900 South Africa, though as usual they by war in 1914 Britain routinely around 160,000 Jews lived in Brit- were largely the result of local ini- eral Britain experienced massive emigration, ain and by 1914 around 300,000. The tiatives. Liberals also criticised Dis- immigration and internal migra- new arrivals seemed to pose a chal- raeli for his decision to make Queen it remained tion. By far the majority of inter- lenge to Britishness because they Victoria Empress of India, which nal migrants were the Irish, forced followed a different religion, many seemed alien to the British tradi- a matter of out initially by the famine in the spoke no English and they were tion: imperial titles smacked of the 1840s. Seen from the perspective of regarded as a burden. The Conserv- Continental autocracies of Russia, pride and an inclusive national identity, the atives exploited popular anti-Sem- Austria and Germany. Irish presented challenges simi- itism in the East End, where they Moreover, by the 1880s many patriotism to lar to those thought to be posed by won several seats, and passed the Liberals saw the empire as a moral Catholics during the seventeenth Aliens Restriction Act in 1905 with issue; they argued that colonial rule admit both and eighteenth centuries and by a view to checking Jewish immigra- was justified in so far as it enabled economic Muslims in the late twentieth. That tion. In fact the 1905 Act had little Britain to extend the advantages is to say they were widely demon- effect, perhaps because after 1906 it of efficient government and eco- migrants and ised as a subversive element, lack- was implemented by Liberal Home nomic development to less devel- ing loyalty to Britain and outside Secretaries. , oped societies. As the territories of those flee- the values and institutions of the who occupied the Home Office in white settlement were now becom- host country. In reality things 1910–11, robustly defended ‘the old ing self-governing Dominions they ing political were more complicated, for while tolerant practice of free entry and envisaged that other parts of the the late-Victorian Irish national- asylum to which this country has so empire would eventually join them. persecution ists sponsored a terrorist campaign long adhered and from which it has India posed the most embarrass- in the countryside they also main- so greatly benefited.’6 The remarks ing challenge to liberal principles. abroad. tained a respectable parliamentary of Churchill and Asquith remind us

Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 23 liberalism and national identity: the victorian achievement that the inclusive Liberal version of the eighteenth century was marred Ireland he symbolised the role of Britishness in this period was effec- by outbreaks of virulent Scottopho- Liberalism as the link between the tively underpinned by confidence in bia among the English, symbolised diverse elements in Victorian soci- material success; conversely it was by some of the words in the national ety. ‘English policy has achieved to be undermined in the decades anthem – ‘rebellious Scots to crush’ no triumph so great as the Union after 1918 by economic decline. – which reflected contemporary between England and Scotland’, Moreover, the stance towards fears about repeated Jacobite revolts. he claimed. In view of Gladstone’s Jews adopted by Liberals in the late- For their part the Scots remained absorption with Ireland it is easily Victorian period built on an exist- sensitive to symptoms of metropoli- forgotten how important he was in ing policy developed in the context tan arrogance well into the nine- recognising the distinctiveness of of the smaller but long-standing Above all it teenth century. When Palmerston Welsh cultural and political views. community. As early as 1847 Lionel visited Glasgow in 1853 he was cor- As a result, under Liberalism Wales Rothschild had been elected to par- was Glad- rected by the locals for repeatedly won its first specifically Welsh leg- liament as a Liberal but was pre- stone who referring to ‘England’ and ‘the Eng- islation in the shape of the Sun- vented from taking his seat by the lish’ when he meant Britain. On day Closing Act; in 1872 a college requirement to take the oath as a bestrode a subsequent visit he took care to was established at Aberystwyth Christian; this was lifted in 1858. avoid giving offence.9 that evolved into the University of Nathan Rothschild eventually the multina- However, after 1800 Scot- Wales in 1893; the National Library became the first Jew to receive a tophobia became increasingly of Wales was founded in 1905; and a peerage after the recommendation tional British anachronistic as Scots enjoyed the Welsh Department to promote the of Gladstone who earned warm economic benefits of Union and Welsh language was set up in 1907. praise in the Jewish community for state. With became drawn into the political This record looks rather like a helping Jews to participate in main- mainstream. They took advantage successful example of Victorian stream British life.7 By1900, nine his roots in of access to the large English mar- multiculturalism, for Wales became Jews sat as MPs – mostly Liberals ket, employment opportunities in fully absorbed into the British – and three rose through the party provincial the expanding empire, and imports mainstream. By 1880 no fewer than hierarchy to ministerial posts after of cheap food and raw materi- twenty-nine of the thirty-three 1906: Rufus Isaacs, Herbert Samuel , als under the free trade system. By Welsh constituencies returned and Edwin Montagu. It was notice- this stage the Scottish aristocracy Liberal MPs. Liberals were only able that whereas before 1900 Jews his estates at had built London homes, played a little less dominant in the sev- had usually represented East End the English marriage market, sat in enty-two Scottish seats following seats where they were presumed to Hawarden in Cabinets and administered impe- the extension of the electorate in enjoy an advantage, the Edward- rial territories. In the process they 1885. Whereas previously ambi- ian candidates ventured further North Wales, demonstrated that to embrace Brit- tious Scots had often come south afield, Isaacs to Reading, Samuel to his adopted ain involved no surrender of Scot- to find a parliamentary seat, by Cleveland and Montagu to Cam- tish nationality. The Gordons of the late-Victorian and Edwardian bridgeshire. This pattern of formal Scottish Aberdeenshire are a good exam- period English Liberal carpetbag- assimilation was complemented ple of how such families advanced gers happily ventured north: Glad- by the leaders of the Jewish com- constitu- through Liberal politics. In 1852 stone to Midlothian, Asquith to munity who went out of their way the fourth Earl of Aberdeen led the East Fife, to East to express their loyalty, especially ency and his Whig–Liberal– coalition Lothian, John Morley to Montrose, during the Boer War and the First that formed the basis of the Victo- and Winston Churchill who rep- World War, on the basis that Brit- dedication to rian Liberal Party. In 1898 Glad- resented Dundee as a Liberal from ain had treated them fairly and that stone appointed the seventh Earl 1908 to 1922. Jews must reciprocate.8 In effect the resolving the governor general of Canada and Nor was Scotland merely a con- Jewish community had maintained first Marquess of Aberdeen. Per- venience for Liberal politicians. its own culture and traditions in grievances haps the most iconic Anglo-Scots Given their sympathy for Greeks the context of what would now be figure was Lord Rosebery. A popu- and Italians struggling to win called a multicultural society while of Ireland he lar Scottish landowner who acted national self-determination they enthusiastically embracing British as Gladstone’s impresario in the were naturally sympathetic to Scot- values, causes and institutions. symbolised Midlothian campaigns, Rosebery tish pressure, which was greatly But it was arguably in managing occupied several pivotal roles Brit- stimulated by the campaign for Britain as a multinational state that the role of ish including president of the Impe- Irish home rule, leading to the for- nineteenth-century Liberals made rial Federation League, the first mation of the Scottish Home Rule their most signal contribution to Liberalism chairman of the London County Association in 1886. But unlike the national identity. There was nothing as the link Council and briefly prime minister. Conservatives, Liberals did not see inevitable about this achievement. In this way he epitomised the com- this as a threat. In 1885 they created The original Union of England between patibility of British greatness with the Scottish Office with its own with Wales, Scotland and Ireland Scottish national pride. secretary of state. By 1906 there was owed a good deal to bullying by the diverse Above all it was Gladstone who a Liberal–Labour parliamentary the dominant power at best and to bestrode the multinational British majority in favour of establishing sheer military conquest at worst; elements state. With his roots in provincial a Scottish parliament as part of a and while it worked well for Scot- Liverpool, his estates at Hawarden wider scheme for home-rule-all- land and Wales, Ireland was never in Victorian in North Wales, his adopted Scot- round. Had this movement not effectively assimilated. After the tish constituency and his dedica- been disrupted by the outbreak of 1707 Union with Scotland, much of society. tion to resolving the grievances of war in 1914 with its concomitant

24 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 liberalism and national identity: the victorian achievement political changes it would have Liberal Unionists rebelled against It is no acci- interrupted by the Second World put multinational Britain onto a Gladstone, inflicted serious dam- War, with the result that Westmin- more secure base for the twentieth age on the role of Liberalism as the dent that the ster lost its claims to competence century. effective British national party and and the rationale for the four-coun- Of course, this Liberal achieve- enabled the Tories to undermine long-term try Union began the long process of ment must be heavily qualified the party’s standing and its electoral unravelling. by the failure in Ireland, which base. decline of ultimately resulted in the parti- On the other hand, the Irish Martin Pugh was formerly Professor of tion of 1921. Yet this outcome was national movement retained its cen- the Union Modern British History at Newcastle not inevitable. Victorian Liber- tral place in British politics, thereby University. His most recent book is a als inherited a highly dysfunc- keeping alive the prospect of and of Lib- study of the historical origins of the cur- tional system for governing Ireland resolving the Irish Question by par- eralism rent crisis of national identity: Britain: through a viceroy, a chief secretary liamentary means. While the Home Unification and Disintegration, and the hundred Irish MPs. Ini- Rule Party retained over eighty of coincided. published by Authors OnLine. tially Gladstone underestimated the hundred Irish members right the depth of Irish grievances in that up to 1914, in the English urban 1 J. R. Vincent, The Formation of the his first land reform and his dises- constituencies Irish voters were Liberal Party 1857–1868 (Constable, tablishment of the Church failed to effectively organised with a view to 1966), pp. 12–13. check the nationalist tide. A cru- sustaining the majorities of Liberal 2 Speech to the National Union of cial step in the breakdown of the candidates. More widely the move- Conservative Associations, 15 May Union came at the election of 1874 ment for home rule had a radicalis- 1886; the idea was to make it impos- when the Home Rule Party won ing effect on Liberal politics, not sible for Lord Hartington to form a fifty-seven constituencies, largely simply by promoting constitutional consensual government and resolve displacing Liberals in the process. reform but by advancing the idea the home rule issue. See A. B. Cooke Gladstone then went much further of state intervention in the sphere and J. R. Vincent, The Governing Pas- in tackling the social problem with of private property, an idea capa- sion: Cabinet Government and Party the 1880 Land Act, an astonishingly ble of extension to the mainland. Politics in Britain, 1885–86 (Branch interventionist measure at the time When the Irish held the balance of Line, 1974), pp. 80–1, 422. that effectively curtailed the rights power after 1910 they forced the 3 A. J. Balfour to Lord Salisbury, 29 of private property owners through issue back onto the agenda and the Sept. 1880, in Robin Harcourt Wil- rent tribunals. During the 1870s passage of a Home Rule Bill under liams (ed.), The Salisbury–Balfour Cor- and 1880s Liberals also made efforts the Parliament Act prior to the out- respondence 1869–92 (Hertfordshire to tackle the economic grievances break of war in 1914. Ultimately Record Society, 1988). of the rural population in Ulster the parliamentary strategy for sat- 4 In the debate on the matrimonial with a view to reconciling the Prot- isfying Irish ambitions within the causes bill, 7 Aug. 1857, Gladstone estant and Catholic communities Union was not decisively derailed was the only member to argue that and thereby consolidating their until 1915 when the Irish leader, women should enjoy the same privi- loyalty to the Union. For some , unwisely declined leges as men. The bill allowed hus- years the parliamentary leadership Asquith’s invitation to participate bands to divorce their wives for in London strove to integrate the in his new coalition government. adultery alone whereas a wife was Ulster tenant farmers into the Brit- Thereby he allowed the Union- obliged to prove adultery plus one ish mainstream.10 ists to occupy positions of power, other offence. Ultimately, however, this strat- and by 1918 the Liberal–Irish alli- 5 Jewish Chronicle, 18 Jan. 1895. egy failed as opinion polarised ance had been fatally undermined 6 Quoted in Paul Addison, Churchill on between a radical Irish nationalism by reactions to the Easter Rebellion the Home Front 1900—1955 (Jonathan and a reactionary Ulster Unionism and the emergence of Sinn Fein. Cape Ltd, 1992), pp. 42–4. encouraged by the English Tories. Both parties suffered heavily in the 7 Jewish Chronicle, 26 Jan. 1885. However, Gladstone’s first Home election of 1918. 8 Jewish Chronicle, 2 Jan. 1885; 13 Mar. Rule Bill represented a realistic This represented the one great 1885; 6 Nov. 1885; 5 and 12 Jan. 1900; attempt to solve the problem. His failure of Liberalism in its work of 7 Aug. 1914. draft measure was based on a ‘Pro- sustaining the viability of the Brit- 9 David Brown, Palmerston: A Biography posed Constitution for Ireland’ ish state. It is no accident that the (Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 353, prepared by Parnell and handed long-term decline of the Union 471–2. to Gladstone in November 1886.11 and of Liberalism coincided. After 10 See Graham Greenlee, ‘Land, reform The bill satisfied Irish aspirations 1918 the rationale for the wider and community: the Liberal Party in by creating a parliament in Dub- Union was gradually undermined Ulster 1868–1885’, in Eugenio Biagini lin but also maintained the Union though this was not obvious for (ed.), Citizenship and Community: Lib- by retaining control over defence many years. In Scotland and Wales erals, and collective identities in and foreign policy at Westmin- the Liberals gave way to the two the British Isles 1865–1931 (Cambridge ster. ‘What fools we were not to rigidly pro-Unionist parties, and University Press, 1996), pp. 253–75. have accepted Gladstone’s Home the idea of devolution largely dis- 11 Eugenio Biagini, British Democracy Rule bill’, King , who appeared from politics. But as early and Irish Nationalism 1876–1906 (Cam- favoured a general policy of devo- as the 1920s long-term economic bridge University Press, 2007), p. 8. lution, told Ramsay MacDonald decline set in among the manufac- 12 Harold Nicholson, King George The in 1930.12 The rejection of the leg- turing and extractive industries of Fifth: His Life and Reign (Constable, islation 1886, when ninety-three Scotland and Wales, admittedly 1952), pp. 222–3.

Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 25