Working-class fears that duties on food imports would raise the cost of living made this idea of tariff reforms an electoral liability. The Trade Union leadership, always more devoted to the cause of international socialism than the interests of the British working classes, opposed protection because it was a nationalist policy, and the TUC was internationalist. With devastating logic, Chamberlain pointed out the flaw in this approach “...what can be more illogical than to raise the cost of production in this country in order to promote the welfare of the working classes, and then to allow the products of other countries, which are not surrounded by any similar legislation...freely to enter our country in competition with our goods, which are hampered in the struggle?” However although Chamberlain’s ideas were all meant for the best they were largely understood with great hesitance.
The Conservatives carried forward a policy of “laissez-faire” or otherwise known as non interventionism, that ignored the social aspects and problems in the country. They believed the less government, the better, if the government stood aside from the economy as much as possible allowing individuals to pursue their own self interest, the max degree of economic prosperity would be sure to result. This with out a doubt caused great hostility within the poorer peoples as this was obviously an unfair view of how the country should prosper, it allowed all the rich to largely benefit, however the poor would need to struggle due to factors they could not control (as proved by research in years to come by people such as William Booth and Seebohm Rowntree). This policy of laissez-faire led to the loss of support of the working class as they were not benefiting from the policies that the conservative party viewed best for the social aspects.
A surge of support for the Labour Party arose once the trade union movement became hostile to the Conservatives over the Tariff vale case. The House of Lords, acting as the final court of appeal, had ordered the railway worker’s union to pay heavy damages following a strike. It was therefore made impossible for any union to hold a strike without at the same time risking bankruptcy. The failure of any action taken by Balfour’s government to reserve such a division raised much anti-conservative support and the reason for the decline in votes for the Conservatives Party in the election of 1906 was added to this by this crisis.
The Boer War raised much reaction from the public on the grounds of the ‘methods of barbarism’ in Kitchener’s concentration camps and against imperialism itself. The Boer War viewed the idea that the Conservative’s were incapable of intervening in Kitchener’s actions and decisions and the general idea that it took three whole years to defeat the simple army of the Boers. Many previous supporters of the Conservative party saw this as a great weakness, and did not believe in supporting a party that appeared to be so weak, such responses to the war led to the conservative’s loosing many supporters. It was also believed that the Boer War stimulated Joseph Chamberlain’s campaign for tariff reforms which split the Conservative Party. In addition it is argues that the Boer War led to a significant change in the liberal party leading a policy of “…no policy or fraction should be allowed to predominate” and many joined the support of this as they were after more social reform as oppose to supporting the incompetence of the military to further expand the empire. Therefore the Boer War can be seen as a significant addition as to why the number of seats/votes for the Conservatives was less.
All the above reasons including Chamberlain’s Tariff reform all led to the loss of the 1906 general election, but the many legislations and laws passed by the conservatives during their time of power caused great opposition. Primarily in 1902 Balfour’s Education Act came into play extending basic elementary education to all because it was felt that Britain’s competitors were ahead of her in the education work force. So in 1902 local authorities were told they should use ratepayer’s money to aid existing schools and to set up new schools. Non –conformists were upset from this decision as they were rate payers, but did not want to subsidise schools run by Roman Catholics and the Church of England. Non-conformists had always objected to what they saw as privileges of the Church of England and a fierce campaign was launched against the Act. Previously to this Act many non-conformists abandoned Gladstonian Liberalism over Home Rule, however over this disagreement with the Education Act many returned to the Liberals and the Conservatives therefore lost much support.
Later in 1904 came the Licensing Act that dealt with compensation for brewers when public houses were closed making Conservatives largely unpopular within the drinking men and publican/brewers. Such factors added on to the loss of support the Conservative’s attained that evidently led to the lambasting, on the part of the liberals, of the 1906 general election.
The ‘Chinese Slavery’ affair caused a great deal of political uproar. Balfour, the prime minister at the time, made a serious mistake by allowing thousands of Chinese labourers’s to be bought into the Transvaal to work in the gold mines. By the end of 1905 there were around 50,000 of them working on very low wages, not being treated as free people, and being confined in barrack-like compounds even during non working hours. Canada, Australia and New Zealand and the trade union movement was outraged at this inhumane treatment and the Liberals made the most of this. In making this decision, Balfour lost a lot of support from many people around England especially the working class as it has been said that “The Prime Minister ought to have seen is implications, but Balfour was singularly insensitive to any save the most predictable reactions of the working class”. As well as this affair of Chinese slavery and the Taff Vale the working class lost much support for the Conservative Party as they were obviously not representing their views and supporting their needs.
Although it is commonly known that Joseph Chamberlain’s Tariff Reforms played a large part in the loss of the 1906 general election, with the help on hind sight we are able to see that the campaign for Tariff reform, although it was a very big reason as to why the election of 1906 was lost, it was not the sole reason. The miscalculations on the part of Balfour, the prime minister at the time, need to be taken into account for the turnaround in electoral fortunes. Balfour was very much responsible for introducing the Education Act of 1902 because he was so closely in support of the Act. It therefore can be argued that he can be held responsible for the passing of this act and further more the loss of the many votes from the Non Conformists. Similarly it can be thought that Balfour attempted to reach middle ground with the Tariff reform as he knew that the British public would not accept it, however he was prime minister and knew that this idea was very unpopular and evidently electorally damaging, so, he should have acted decisively to prevent this happening. Balfour made many mistakes during his time as leader and alienated many members of the working class, he choose to ignore or took the view of social reform more lightly and for this the conservative party lost a lot of electoral support. The liberals made great play in the election campaign of the ‘big loaf’ which they claimed Liberal free trade policy would guarantee , while those Conservatives who stood for tariff reform on Chamberlain’s lines would give the electors a ‘small loaf’. The liberals cleverly and extremely simply campaigned for policies and ideas that the public were interested in and used the split of the weakened Conservative party to their benefit.
Factors such as Chinese Slavery, the many legislations such as the licensing Act, Taff vale Act and the Education Act played large parts in loosing support for the party. All these reasons alongside others such as the Boer War and obviously the Tariff reform, lost support and all these lack of votes piled up; eventually greatly weakening that Conservative Party. The statement is extremely general as it would not be right to say the Joseph Chamberlain’s Tariff reforms were solely to blame for the loss of the 1906 general election. This campaign of tariff reform led to greater problems and highlighted the policies that the Conservative’s were interested in which were not the best for Britain at the time. Policies such as that of laissez –faire was not favoured for the working class and the tariff reforms highlighted this as this policy seemed to ignore the reform needed at home however concentrated on imperial preference. Tariff reform further added to problems as it caused a split between the Conservative party making it hard for them to decisively, collectively and thus strongly make further decisions to help other problems in the social, economical and industrial seen in Britain at that time. The Tariff Reform campaign caused an unnecessary split and major weakness to the Conservative party and made them stray away from the true meaning of a political party; to represent what the people want. Finally because of the loss of the 1906 general election Britain was able to enter an era of social reform as oppose to laissez-faire.
