'Asses the success of the Liberals from 1906-1914 in dealing with their domestic problems.'

February 7 2005 Anna Carlisle

‘Asses the success of the Liberals from 1906-1914 in dealing with their domestic problems.’

The liberals winning the 1906 landslide election certainly signified a dramatic change for the working class people of Britain, as compared with the traditional ‘lassiez Faire’ and ‘self help’ policies that Conservative leaders such as Gladstone advocated, the Liberals symbolised ‘freedom’ for the people. However, despite this image, in order to assess the success of the party’s dealing with their problems, the real impact on ordinary ‘domestic’ life needs to be taken into consideration. Indeed, the Liberal’s dealings had essentially unprecedented effects and made a dramatic difference to general political views and some citizens’ lives. Their revolutionary reforms and their handling of The House of Lords could be considered as their greatest successes as in the long-term, their actions helped improve welfare and gave working class interests more of an opportunity of passing through Parliament. However, the Liberals were very slow and inefficient in their dealings with the suffragettes and industrial militancy as these issues were simply not a priority for them. Although their actions could be viewed as quite radical for the time, ultimately, their main concern seemed to be the Constitutional Crisis, which was successful in improving democracy but considering the party advocated the need to ‘free’ the people, the Liberals could have done more to address the causes of industrial unrest and ensured that more people were covered by the social reforms.

The major concerns the Liberals had to deal with at this time included anxiety over poverty, a rise in industrial militancy, campaigns of the Suffragettes and the reducing the power of the House of Lords, all of which the party dealt with in different ways, having both positive and negative effect on the ordinary citizens. Their dealings with Britain’s Welfare certainly challenged the traditional Victorian attitude towards state intervention with the introduction of various social reforms including Pensions, National Insurance and Unemployment Acts. In terms of changing long-standing Government policies, the Liberal’s dealings with poverty can arguably be considered their greatest success as the resourcefulness and resolution used by the government in establishing its reforms helped to lay the foundations of the Welfare State in place today. Furthermore, the introduction of the Parliament Act of 1911 allowed them to push for reforms that helped the working class, without this, the Liberals would have found it difficult to deal with their problems as many reforms would have been rejected by the Conservative-based House. However, although the Parliament Act did improve the overall democratic situation in Britain, it had little real effect on the ordinary, industrial worker, suggesting that the Liberals were less concerned with domestic life and really wanted the Parliament Act passed to pursue the Home Rule bill for Ireland. Also, many of the social reforms were restrictive and although they may have appeared to be successful, in reality they failed to recognise the needs of a large number of citizens. For example, MP Philip Snowden argued at the time that the age set to receive a pension was so high that a large a majority of people would not live to benefit from it.

In terms of the Industrial Militancy and the Suffragettes, the Liberals struggled to control this widespread unrest, with days lost escalating to 41 million, in 1914 and the Suffragettes continuing with their violent protests. Actions such as ‘The Cat and Mouse Act’ and force-feeding were a shrewd way of dealing with the Suffragettes but could be seen as inhumane towards the women. In fact, The Suffragists were so frustrated, they began supporting the Labour party, showing that the Liberals could have been more sensitive when managing this issue and could have paid more attention to the campaigners concerns.

...

This is a preview of the whole essay

However, despite the view that the Liberals could have been more committed to the welfare of citizens, there were many Liberal legislations which could easily be viewed as their most successful achievements during this period. Regarding their dealings with poverty, early reforms concerning children such as the School Meals Act of 1906 and the 1907 Education Act seemed to have real benefits and meant that by 1914, fourteen million free school meals were being provided with most schools supplying some medical treatment. The pensions act of 1908 is also viewed as one of the Liberal’s most dramatic policies and led to 1909, 650,000 citizens claiming pensions, showing that there were genuine widespread effects. Taking into consideration the fact that on the whole, the elderly had been previously ignored, citizens really appreciated the introduction of this reform, with some even bringing flowers to the post office where they received their pensions. Indeed, these dealings with poverty did help a large amount of citizens but the restrictions placed on some of these acts did mean that some weren’t covered by the reforms. In fact, with nearly every reform introduced there seems to be a significant amount of citizens who missed out thus restricting them from being considered as entirely successful. The Pensions Act only affected people who were over seventy and was also laced with Victorian attitudes: alcoholics, people who ‘regularly’ failed to find work and anyone who had previously been in prison or claimed poor relief. Similarly, the National Insurance Act appeared to be one of the most forward-thinking ideas brought about in this century as for the first time the government was providing medical treatment, sick pay of 10 S per week (7S 6d for women) and maternity benefits. Essentially, it was an effective idea but the Act was heavily criticised by both workers and organisations such as Trade Unions because in practice, relatively few were covered by the Act. Many criticised the scheme for deducting money from already low wages and the second part of this Act was only aimed to help people affected by seasonal or cyclical unemployment. Furthermore, the Trade Boards’ act of 1907 set a minimum wage for a small number of sweated trades, many domestic workers still had few rights and no trade union. Despite these restrictions, the Liberals were successful in changing the government’s views to state intervention, thus bringing to attention the need to care for people’s welfare, which has led to an increase in social security ever since the Liberals first introduced these reforms.

The Liberals dealings with social reform can be considered as one of their most successful measures but this doesn’t mean they were entirely successful in dealing with all the fundamental domestic problems apparent during this time. Certainly, it could be said that the Liberals did little to address the fact that real wages weren’t rising as fast as prices during the period of high inflation 1911-1912, showing that they were not genuinely concerned with the root causes of the industrial militancy during this period. Indeed, Rowntree calculated that approximately 60% of citizens were living in poverty due to low wages, which obviously was a continuing problem. Although it could equally be said that these strikes occurred for reasons out of the Liberals control, largely due to the raising number of Trade Unions and the spreading idea of ‘syndicalism,’ the party essentially did little to combat the problem as it was only after the first National Miners strike in 1912, (when the number of days lost due to strikes was at its height of 41 million), that the Government intervened to regulate wages. Eventually, the number of strikes began to decrease but this was mainly due to the outbreak of war, when the State was forced to introduce ‘The Defence of the Realm Act’, allowing the Government could take over land, buildings and other vital industries such as munitions, railways and coal mines if they needed to. Although Lloyd George negotiated a settlement concerning the National Rail Strike of 1911 and the fact that there wasn’t a general strike shows that the Liberals must have acted efficiently enough, there was still a significant amount working days lost with no major action being taken during this period to seriously address the origins of the strikes. This therefore suggests that their activities were not completely successful in having a real impact in the domestic worker and the Liberals could have concentrated more on issues which were directly concerning the ordinary working-class.

The main criticism of the Liberal’s dealings with Industrial Unrest is that they were generally too cautious, failing to take dramatic actions when the number of strikes began to increase in 1908. This was also true in their actions concerning the Suffragettes: the Liberals were simply too afraid to allow women to have the vote during the period, largely due to the fact they were worried an extension of the vote for women would lead to an increase in the vote for men, who may be more inclined to vote for labour. The only major policy introduced to deal with the Suffragettes, (nicknamed ‘The Cat and Mouse Act’) allowed women on hunger strikes to be released from prison until they gained weight. This was successful in the sense that it combated the problem of hunger strikers but was harsh and frustrating for the women campaigners. Asquith’s actions in particular were regarded as too ruthless, as he ordered the police to raid the Suffragette newspaper and attack the women themselves. He repeatedly failed to meet with the campaigners to discuss their concerns and the Liberals even lost support form the NUWSS who began to back the Labour party. This shows that even though the more prominent Liberals were concerned with party advantage, perhaps if they had been more sensitive when dealing with the Suffragettes, they would have been less inclined to continue with such violent forms of protest, particularly in 1912 when they began damaging property, running golf courses and chaining themselves to railings outside Downing Street.

Perhaps the main reason why the Liberals didn’t fully concentrate on the issues of industrial militancy and the Suffragettes is because they were pre-occupied with the constitutional crisis of 1909-1911. After the Liberals won the landslide victory of 1906, they struggled to make changes, such as the introduction of the Peoples’ Budget in order to fund pensions because the House of Lords, which was dominated by Conservative views, rejected it. The Liberals spent a lot of time and energy trying to reduce the power of the Lords: Asquith persuaded Edward VII to create 250 Liberal peers but he died before this was passed. George V then proposed a constitutional conference but it failed in May 1910. However, the Parliament Act was eventually introduced in 1911, meaning that the Lords could only delay the passing of a Bill. This was hailed as a great success by the Liberals with the reputations of Lloyd George and Asquith becoming significantly enhanced and it certainly was a turning point in extending democracy in Britain. However, in terms of dealing with domestic problems, many citizens simply weren’t interested in the introduction of the Parliament Act as it did not directly benefit them. In fact, the 1909 peoples Budget which was eventually passed as a result of this Act angered many working class citizens as it introduced an increased duty on spirits, tobacco and petrol. The Liberals were essentially concerned with the passing of the Act in order to push the Home Rule Bill through Parliament but again, introducing Home Rule for Ireland did little to help the ordinary working class citizen. The Act also meant the Liberals lost the majority in the 1910 election, showing that although the Act did have positive long-term benefits, the majority were not concerned with the Act and even from the party’s perspective, in the short-term, it couldn’t be considered an overall success.

Taking into account the extent of the difficulties faced by the Liberals during this period, the party did make some dramatic change that certainly transformed the political and social situation. On the whole, although some Acts were restrictive, the reforms passed offered almost instantaneous benefits compared with the lack of government intervention when the Liberals first came to power. Although many workers weren’t interested in the Parliament Act, it was advantageous the working class in the long-term as it meant more reforms helping them could be passed. However, the Liberals seem less successful with their dealings of the Suffragettes and Industrial Militancy and given the relatively large amount of time and effort spent on the Constitutional Crisis, more could have been done to directly help working-class citizens involved with these issues.