Boer war & Chinese Slavery
The Boer war began in 1899 and ended in 1901. The war was over gold. In an area called Transvaal gold was discovered. The British owned the land around where the gold was discovered therefore Britain invaded the area where the gold was to take advantage over it. However the South African people went to fight the British army for the gold they though belonged to them. The Boer army soon out numbered the British army which was incompetent. The war cost the British £200 million and they lost 20,000 soldiers. The war ended up costing them more than they would have originally got out of the gold. By fighting war the Conservatives were discredited for destroying the Boer way of life. So therefore they received a lot of criticism. The Liberals used this to their advantage by exploiting this as a Conservative weakness.
In consequence of the Boer War there was a major lack of workers in South Africa. In order to resolve this problem the British High Commissioner decided to import around 50,000 Chinese workers on low wage. The Liberals were outraged by this and caused controversy. The Liberals said that this was Chinese slavery due to the fact that the Chinese had poor living and working conditions. This caused humanitarian concerns, and people felt that potential emigration routes would be closed. Also trade unionist felt that Chinese slavery could spread to Britain. The Liberal Party used this as an advantage to expose the Conservative Party as an insensitive one.
Taff Vale 1901
The Taff Vale judgement occurred in 1901. The workers at the Taff Vale Railway Company went on strike. This was due to the fact that they wanted a rise in wages for the reason that the company had an increase in profits. In consequence of the strike the Taff Vale Company sued the unions for damages to compensate for loss of revenue during the strike. The government did not intervene or reverse the Taff Vale decision and therefore the Conservative Party lost a lot of supporters. The reason they lost a lot of support was as the trade union was sued this meant that every time the trade unions went on strike the company could sue for what ever reasons. Furthermore if the company was to sue every time the trade unions went on strike it would mean that there would be a very slim chance of working conditions, etc improving for the working class. Due to that the LRC felt that it was important for them to oppose the Conservatives by making alliance with the Liberals “Lib-Lab Pact” 1903. This lead to the trade unions and their supporters voting for the Liberal Party in place of the Conservative Party. This meant the majority of the working class were backing the Liberals; the working class made up a large number of the population.
Education Act 1902
The Education Act 1902 angered non-conformist due to the fact that the terms of the act meant that they the local tax payers had to pay rates for the Church of England schools. The reason this angered them was because they were protestant and not believers of the Church f England school. The second thing which infuriated them about the act was that it abolished school boards. As the non-conformist were annoyed by the Conservative Party for publishing such an act, their vote turned to the Liberal Party.
Tariff Reform May, 1903
One may say that the electoral fortunes for the Liberals began in May 1903; when the tariff reform campaign was launched. The Conservative Party split over tariff protection which was advocated by Joseph Chamberlain. The tariff protection provoked great controversy within the party and with the every day people. Joseph Chamberlain believed that the only way forward for Briton was by abandoning free trade and replacing it with “preferential tariffs”. The Conservative Party lost a lot of its ascendancies. Therefore the Liberal Party used this as an opportunity to unite with the conservative ascendancies on familiar issues of free trade. Only 1/3 of the Conservative Party agreed with the “preferential tariffs”. The Liberal Party went to the polls united behind the traditional issues such as free trade. Therefore they gained a lot of support not only from ex-conservative mps but from the people. The reason the people backed the Liberals was because they felt that free trade kept the prices of food and other accessories low ; but with imposition of tariffs they thought that food prices and etc would rise.
Other Factors
Other factors which lead to the Conservative Party losing votes and the Liberals gaining them were, the way in which the Conservatives dealt with factors such as unemployment. The main issue about unemployment was that the Conservatives were not dealing with it the way in which the public wanted it to be dealt with. So, therefore they went on to lose more support.
Another problem which let the Conservative Party down was the “first past the post” system.
Lack of Conservative Party organisation was also an issue as this meant that for every mistake they made they could not clear it up or even convince the public that what they were doing was for the benefit for the people. An example of this was when Chamberlain thought that it was a good idea for Britain to implement “tariff protection” he should have explained clearly how it would be beneficial to the Britons in the future.
