It was also known that Balfour had few plans to help the unemployed. This was becoming a big problem within society and it needed to be addressed. An Unemployed Workmen Act was set up in 1905 to help the unemployed find work through labour exchanges with the help of the local Distress Committee. These committees needed funding but the government would not give money to them so they had to turn to private charities for funding. The unemployed soon realised that the government didn’t want to help them, and turned somewhere else for help. At the same time a new party called The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was running with the policy to stand for the working class. This meant the trade unions; workforces and the unemployed would benefit under their power and therefore people in these circumstances took their conservative vote and gave it to this new party.
It is a fact that if a country experiences a war that is unsuccessful during a politician’s reign, that their party will be unpopular in upcoming elections. This unfortunately occurred during the time just before Balfour’s cabinet came to power. Britain had gone to war with South Africa over who would control the country. The British, or the Boers, who were farmers. From the beginning many of the British public were deeply unhappy with the war and thought that British methods were immoral. Initially, however the war had been widely popular in Britain. Therefore the Prime minister, Salisbury had called an early election in 1900. The Conservative Party played on patriotism and won with a significant difference to the Liberals. However the war soon turned into an embarrassing fight as the British Pro-Boers (Pro-farmers) drew attention to the fact that Britain wanted to finish the war quickly, and the extreme measures which the British forces employed in trying to break the Boer resistance. The most notorious of which was the entrapment of civilians in concentration camps, under extremely cramped and unhygienic conditions, which led to the spread of fatal diseases. It was the effects of this war, which lead to the lack of support for the Conservative Party, and as the Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman suggested that Salisbury’s government had used “methods of barbarism,” this gained Liberal support.
Balfour’s government should have also realised their mistakes when they decided to send thousands of Chinese labourers to South Africa, as this lost them a number of valuable votes in the election. It was all down to a conservative politician wanting to rebuild the South African economy after the Boer War. The biggest Trade within South Africa at the time was in the mining of gold. However to mine for gold you need a workforce and he decided that Chinese Labour was their best answer. This action coming so soon to Britain’s humiliation in the Boer War, reminded people the methods of concentration camp ideas and showed that it was barbaric to keep any human being in such conditions, also within these conditions people worried about the morally wrong issue of homosexuality.
There were a number of different acts that were placed during the conservative power that lost them votes in the 1906 election. Education had been a let down for the country in times before and the government had seen to change it. The Education Act of 1902 was therefore set up to provide better education to fill the inadequacy in secondary school education. They proposed a number of different policies to cause a new set up for secondary education across Britain. They consisted of; abolishing the old school boards and letting Local Education Authorities, (LEA’s) have responsibilities for education, and they wanted to expand education so that more children could attend grant paid and grammar schools. Although there were many changes that were highly useful and that were still in place twenty years ago. Many of the new changes angered groups like the Non Conformists, who were a group of religious Protestants who wanted political, social and religious equality with the Anglicans and other religions. This new act had angered them, as it had meant church schools gained money in a bid to expand this type of education and they wanted it to fade away. This therefore meant a loss of their votes to the Conservative Party and more support to the liberals who promised to abolish the Education act if they came to power.
The Conservatives also lost votes from the public due to the Licensing act of 1904. The government wanted to reduce the number of public house licenses available to limit the number of public houses in Britain. However this had been held up because the magistrates concerned would not withhold the licenses for so long as it caused to the brewer involved being paid compensation. To counteract this Balfour introduced a policy that meant the brewers would be compensated through their own trade. This allowed the reduction of licenses and therefore the reduction of public houses. However the public were angered still by this and especially Non Conformists and religious believers thought that the government had not done enough to stop drinking, which lost the Conservatives vital votes again.
The subject of Tariff Reform had been argued across Britain and lost votes for the Conservatives along with everything else. At the time in Britain, home goods were becoming very expensive to purchase, Therefore people started buying goods that had been imported from other parts of the world as it was cheaper. This lead, to the lack of sales in British produce. Manufacturers demanded that Britain returned to a policy of “protection” which meant that in order to protect the domestic produce from foreign goods, the government should introduce a tariff on foreign produce, meaning they would be more expensive to purchase in Britain. However this then reintroduced a long-term battle between those who supported “protection,” and the supporters of “Free-Trade.” Which was the idea that goods flourished best with no government interference, and that putting tariffs on foreign goods only meant that these countries wouldn’t buy British as a result, and therefore it had a reverse effect. Tariff Reform was a policy associated with Joseph Chamberlain, protecting British products by restricting duties on imports unless they came from within the British Empire. The idea behind this was that it would develop the Empire. Balfour’s government adopted the idea of Tariff Reform in 1903 but few Conservatives were happy with it, this led to there being a split in the Conservative Party. However it was accepted as a means of raising the British revenue without taxation. The Liberals on the other hand exploited the fact the Conservatives were split over this idea and were able to project themselves as defenders of free trade. This meant that they gained votes that the Conservative yet again needed in the fight to win the election.
Within British communities there were problems with old age, sickness and unemployment. As regards to social reforms Balfour’s government alike Salisbury’s had very little conception of the problems and needs of the working class. Their approach was that of a Laissez Faire which means to do nothing and let them get on with it themselves. They both were great believers of “Self Help” and were not prepared to make the country responsible for these problems. The poor, elderly and sick therefore had to turn elsewhere for help, and the Liberals seemed their answer, and therefore got their vote.
So far everything that had been introduced to help the Conservative Party win the election in 1906 was letting them down, taking their valuable votes away and giving them to the Liberal or Labour parties. However this became a difficult situation as three parties competing together would mean two parties would lose in a situation called a three horse race. The other problem was that if the public, who disapproved of the Conservatives, voted a mixture of Liberal and Labour there was still a chance that the Conservatives would win the election, as they would always have a number of upper class supporters. To solve this problem, the Liberals decided to team up with Labour so that they would win the majority. Their plan worked, and they avoided the three horse race situation. Thirty out of the twenty-nine constituencies that had stood with the “Lib/Lab” alliance had won the elections. However the Liberals knew that with only fifty seats in parliament, Labour had no chance of winning the election, They only used them to get rid of the Conservative opposition and get a foothold in parliament.
To counteract all of the Conservative Failures, The Liberal party ran with the opposite to everything the Conservatives believed. They promised to oppose food taxation, to make food cheaper for the poor, Go against Tariff Reform and support Free Trade, Repeal the Education and Licensing acts which please Non Conformists, and reverse the Taff Vale judgement. This therefore gained the Liberals all the votes from the Non Conservative supporters and led to them winning the election.
The Conservative failures in the 1906 elections, had played a big part in the victory of the Liberal Party, However, This was not only the reason for their winning. The Liberals had used their initiative to counteract Conservative policies and gain opposing votes. I therefore think that this is a semi accurate reflection of the election, as it was one of the main reasons for their victory.
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