Britain had a large Empire and had been the first country to experience the Industrial Revolution, putting it in first place technologically. Britain was said to “rule the waves”, and was confident in this statement. By the beginning of the 20th century, however, there seemed to be competition coming from a country nearby, whose strong economy, increasing industry and strengthening navy posed as a threat to Britain, the country being Germany.
The Liberals, even before the general election held in 1906, had a greater force of unity than the Conservatives. This was a result of the introduction of an idea by Joseph Chamberlain in 1903, tariff reform. Before then, since the 1880, the Liberal party had been divided in two, the Home Rulers and the Liberal Unionists. It seemed unlikely that either of these parties would get into power. In 1903, however, the party was united in its campaign against tariff reform, which it would use in its electoral campaign. The Conservative party, however, was split into two groups by the idea of tariff reform.
The Liberal party, as said before, used tariff reform as its main topic in the electoral campaign. The result of this campaign was a landslide victory for the Liberals. The idea of free trade being so popular, that even in 1933, when the Liberal party had lost almost all power in the House of Commons, the party got 34% of the vote, which showed that the people still wanted free trade. This shows that the Liberals did not have to create any reforms, when tariff reform had won them the election. Any reforms created would have been out of actual want to change the situation in Britain.
Once in power, the Liberals began to try and change the situation almost immediately. On the 9th April 1906, the Government brought in an Education Bill designed to reverse the 1902 Education Act, as the Liberals had made it known that they were a party of non-conformists. This was when the party met with a significant obstacle, the House of Lords. The House of Lords had the power to block any decisions made by the government and was made up of mainly Conservatives. This severely stemmed the power that the new government had.
The government managed, however, to pass some reforms including the School Meals Act, the Trades Disputes Act, which reversed the Taff Vale case and the Medical Health Act, which were created in a continuous stream after 1906. The Medical Health Act was started in 1907 and it meant that there should be compulsory medical inspections of children in school. Once launched it became the most important single measure of preventive medicine ever undertaken, although it took some time for it to be set up. Also in1907 the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act was set up, which called thousands of troops overseas back, to save money for the country. It also trained the army and equipped them with new, better artillery. All these acts were long term and were a way of saving more money for the country. The acts also proved to be a sustained effort, from which many people benefited. It was said that the lives saved with the Medical Health Act saved more lives than were ever lost in our national wars, a considerable amount.
In 1908, an act was passed, which previously had been thought of as only a rumour, the Old Age Pensions Act. These pensions would allow old people to leave their jobs, not causing their families to fall into poverty. L.C.B.Seamen called the pensions a “major breach in the Victorian doctrine of self-help” and in its first year alone 650,000 pensions were claimed. It was in the next year, however, that the Liberals would face one of their main problems, the House of Lords.
In 1909, David Lloyd George drew up the War Budget, the first budget to be drawn in a long time, declaring that with it he was declaring a “war on poverty”. The budget would pay for the new reforms by increasing death duties, income taxes and liquor taxes. He also introduced a super tax, which would tax those who earned more than £3000 per year. The well to do saw this budget as a wage of war on them. The House of Lords, which was made up of mainly rich and conservative immediately objected to this budget and rejected it.
The budget had, however, planned to spend most of the money earned through the taxes on the building of eight Dreadnought ships, which would be the opposition to Germany. The army had been a very Conservative area, before this budget was introduced, and it was hoped that even though they may object to the acts set up, preferring a laissez-faire approach to politics, the House of Lords would let it through because of the main bulk of the money going towards the building of the Dreadnoughts. It seemed hard to justify the rejection of this budget also because of the huge majority that the Liberals had in the House of Commons as voted for by the people. The bill was rejected, though, and this caused a constitutional crisis.
Following the refusal of the budget, the Liberals were so angry and went to such lengths, so that their budget may be passed as well as other acts in the future that for it to have been an only an attempt to get more votes seems unlikely. With all their acts, the Liberal party went to great efforts so that they were passed and were successful, that their true intentions seemed to be for the good of the country, to improve the lives, even if only slightly, for the poor.
In the party were some personalities, such as Lloyd George, who had first hand experiences of poverty. Lloyd George had grown up in Wales to a widowed and poverty stricken family. He knew what it was like to try and escape poverty and would have been able to relate to those living in poverty, but he would also have wanted to improve their lives, having experienced the same things as them. His intentions would have been for the good of the people and not to get more votes.
All in all, the Liberals had enough votes after their massive victory in 1906 to feel confident in themselves, that they didn’t have to go to any super efforts to keep those votes, or to get more. The personalities of the members of the Liberal party also meant that their intentions would have been for the good of the poor, seeing as some members had first hand experience of growing up with poverty. Their reforms benefited the poor but also meant that the Conservatives were appeased with the building of eight dreadnoughts, and some acts made massive differences to the lives of the poor and were made so that they were kept in for a long time, not just a quick idea, which would gain votes in the short term. It is because of all these points that I do not agree that the Liberal reforms were nothing more than an electioneering tactic.
