The Boer War also raised questions at home. The rejection rate of volunteers (34.6%) raised questions regarding the health of the nation. In Manchester, 8,000 of 11,000 volunteers failed the initial training and so were rejected from fighting in the Cape. Although these rejections only reflected the state of health of those men who had volunteered, it did raise major implications regarding the state of the male youth in general, and whether, in a time of national crisis, this youth would be able to answer their country’s call. Indeed Britain’s imperial dominance made the likelihood of a war with another major power even more likely (as recently as 1898 war had very nearly broken out with France over an imperial clash in the Sudan), so making even more acute this problem of the state of the nation’s youth.
Such statistics were made worse by the fact that they coincided with social surveys conducted by Booth in London and Rowntree in York. Both showed quite clearly that some 30% of the nation lived below the poverty line. Given that there was no safety net to aid the poor, and given that it was easier to slide down the social ladder rather than climb it, it is clear that the number of people living in poverty or just above it must have been much higher. Again this raised questions regarding Britain’s national security, but above all it began to highlight incompetence on the part of the Tories. Such levels of poverty suggested that the policy of laissez-faire was fundamentally unsound and suggested that the Tory government, in pursuing its imperial dream, had neglected its own people during the previous two decades. Lloyd George’s criticism of the government’s willingness to spend vast amounts of money on the Boer War and yet ignore the poor in England had fallen on deaf ears at the time he made the comment. However, the rejection rates, the social surveys and the literature of the time (Horrible London, In Darkest England) saw the Tory opponents adopt this line of criticism. The 1904 report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration merely served to underline this neglect on the part of the Tories.
The country’s plight, and the poor reflection this had on the party of power, first raised by the Boer War, was brought to the fore again by the apparent economic decline Britain was experiencing at the turn of the century. An economic league table of the top 12 most advanced countries saw Britain come ninth in terms of economic growth and tenth in terms of productivity. For a country that prided itself on its economic strength, such statistics were unacceptable, and again the Conservatives were found to be wanting. Germany’s rate of steel production, furthermore, had far outstripped Britain’s by 1900, and given the importance of steel to military development, and given Germany’s interest in developing an empire, this was clearly unacceptable. The Boer War demonstrated how dangerous such an economic decline could prove to be.
However, the culpability of the Conservative Party went deeper than this. Germany’s rate of steel production increased at a greater rate than Britain’s from as early as 1880, and would suggest that Britain had been outstripped as early as the early 1890s if not the late 1880s. Clearly the British government would have been aware of this. That they created the Bluewater Rule in 1889, by which the British government made it law that the British navy should be the same size as the next two navies in the world would suggest that as early as 1889 the Conservative government was aware of Britain’s precarious position. The Bluewater Rule was couched in terms of securing Splendid Isolation. But given that Britain had a massive empire that she could only patrol by sea, it would seem that such a law should have been totally unnecessary. What made the Conservative government most culpable, however, was the fact that she was clearly aware of Britain’s precarious position, yet had done little about it. The Boer War served to bring this negligence on the part of the Conservatives to the attention of the electorate.
The Conservatives did try to deal with the problems raised by the Boer War. However, the reforms they introduced upset key sections of British society, adding to the general bad feeling felt towards the Conservative government. Key sections of society were upset by the varied reforms. The Military Reform Act, for example, was considered as achieving too little too late, and was seen more as an admission of guilt on the part of the government for their previous incompetence. It in no way appeased the loss experienced by the families of the 22,000 dead British soldiers.
The non-conformists were upset by two Tory reforms. The Education Act upset them as it saw Church schools receiving assistance from rates. Given that non-conformists would not send their children to Anglican schools, this use of part of their rates was highly upsetting. 70,000 ratepayers were prosecuted for non-payment of rates, many of whom were disgruntled non-conformists who refused to pay their rates on a matter of principle. Such anger stirred the non-conformist voters who had remained dormant in the 1900 election (an apathy felt at the overwhelming inevitability of a Tory success) into action. The Sevenoaks by-election of September 1902 witnessed such action and demonstrated how powerful motivated non-conformists could be at the polls. A Conservative strong-hold, the Tory majority was cut from 5,000 to 1,000 votes in the by-election.
Non-conformists were also angered by the Licensing Act of 1904, because they felt that in only closing supernumerary pubs the act did not go far enough. Non-conformists wished to see all pubs closed down. That the pubs which were closed down received compensation was merely seen as adding salt to an already opened wound. This act also upset the workers, but for the opposite reasons – they were upset at the fact that their pubs were being closed. Traditionally loyal to the Tories because they were not anti-drink, and because the Liberals were temperate, workers identified this attack on pubs as a direct attack on one of the worker’s few privileges. Their anger was deepened by the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905. Although this Act proved constructive in trying to provide unemployed workers with employment by creating labour exchanges, workers identified the act as merely recognising the problem but not providing the solution. Workers were more concerned with how they were meant to survive whilst unemployed rather than with whether they would be re-employed. That the Conservatives failed to provide some form of financial assistance alongside the creation of labour exchanges merely underlined the insensitivity of the Tories in the eyes of the worker.
Tory fall out with the electorate was further compounded by the apparent insensitivity of the government as witnessed in the Taff Vale Case and the Chinese Slavery Affair. In the former, the prosecution of the Associated Society of Railway Servants saw the effective banning of strikes. Clearly this upset the workers as it deprived them of a valuable means of protest against poor working conditions and inadequate pay. The workers, however, were dissatisfied with the government through its failure to overturn the House of Lords’ decision with a parliamentary bill. Rather Balfour merely set up a Royal Commission which was intended to investigate the matter – a response seen as wholly unsatisfactory by the workers. Indeed, Balfour’s lax approach merely confirmed worker suspicion that he had been behind the Lords’ decision in favour of the Taff Vale Railway Company. Since there was a Tory majority in the Lords, and given that Balfour was the leader of the Conservative Party, workers naturally assumed that Balfour had directed the Lords to come to their legal decision regarding the Taff Vale Case. In fact their assumption was incorrect – the Lords’ decision was a legal one acting as a court rather than a political body, and in this sense Balfour had no influence at all. However, that the workers were wrong in their assumption is inconsequential. That they believed they were right was most damaging to Balfour and his party’s reputation.
The workers were also upset by the Chinese Slavery Affair. The use of Chinese workers who were whipped and chained together at night became a major scandal. Seen as an attack on jobs for white British workers, the acceptance of such appalling working conditions by the Tories worried the workers that such conditions might be adopted in Britain. It also angered them that apparent slavery was being used in South African gold mines – confirming the suspicion that the Boer War had been over gold and money rather than Britain’s imperial mission. Non-Conformists were also angered at the suggestion that ‘nameless’ homosexual acts were being committed by the Chinese workers. However, what compounded the issue was Balfour’s apparent insensitivity to public opinion. His comments that the Chinese workers were needed to restart the South African economy, and that they were, after all, being paid fifteen times what they would be paid in China was seen as highly insensitive, and yet further evidence of how out of touch the Tories were with public opinion.
However, such growing resentment towards the Tories did not matter whilst they remained united, and the Liberals remained divided. The Tories had a large majority in the Commons, whilst their political opponents were weak and divided, and had been so for the previous twenty years. However unpopular the Tories may have become over the Boer War, Tory reforms, Taff Vale and the Chinese Slavery Affair, this would have little influence on the Tories whilst the political status quo remained as it had been for the previous twenty years. However, he introduction of Tariff Reform saw this status quo turned on its head, saw the reversal of both parties’ fortunes, and the premature collapse of the Tory majority government. Adopted as a means to provide finance for social reform and promote imperial preference, the policy was unpopular amongst the electorate and within the Tory party. Balfour’s failure to come out fully on one side or the other resulted in the Tories splitting. Whilst Churchill crossed the floor to the Liberals, Lord Hugh Cecil came out against Tariff Reform, Lord Hartington resigned from the Cabinet, and a Free Food League was set up by Conservative MPs. The split became so overwhelming that Balfour was forced to resign his government on 4th December 1905, his majority government not even being able to survive its full term in office. The issue also saw an electoral backlash against the Tories, as the non-conformists and workers, angered by the adoption of a policy which was seen as a direct attack on food prices voted Liberal. Between August 1903 and January 1906 in seventeen by-elections in Tory-held constituencies, the Tories lost all seventeen.
Tariff Reform, however, served more than simply to split the Tories. It also united the Liberals. Fervent supporters of Free Trade, but a party dogged by political splits over Ireland and imperialism, the Liberals found a cause that bound them tightly, and that proved far more cohesive than the old controversies proved divisive. Indeed one of the reasons Balfour resigned when he did was that he had heard that the Liberals were contemplating the issue of Home Rule again. Expecting them to split as they had done on two previous occasions, Balfour mistook how uniting a policy opposition to Tariff Reform was to the Liberal Party. Rather than split over the issue of Ireland, the Liberals remained united in their defence of Free Trade. Furthermore the Liberals actively worked to promote their anti-Tariff Reform line. Asquith adopted a successful ‘Big Loaf, Little Loaf’ campaign to attack Tariff Reform which proved remarkably effective in attracting votes. In the 1906 election the Liberals promoted themselves as the ‘Free Fooders’ and attacked the Tories as ‘Dear Fooders’. The consequence was that the election saw an 8% rise in turnout, whilst in the result there was a definite swing towards the Liberals. The Liberal’s anti-Tariff Reform campaign attracted the votes of former abstainers and new voters, and, in key Conservative strong-holds particularly in London, Lancashire, Yorkshire and North-East England, former Tory voters who defected to the Liberals in opposition to Tariff Reform. That the election was held over two weeks may have helped magnify the swing towards the Liberals as early Conservative losses may have influenced those voters whose constituency’s contest came in the latter half of the election period.
According to Churchill, the Tories lost the 1906 election due to their exhaustion. However, this ‘Exhausted Inheritance’ theory is clearly not the case. The reform brought through by the Tories between 1902 and 1905 is clear evidence that the Tories were not exhausted. Rather they split over Tariff Reform. At the same time, their policies were proving increasingly unpopular with the electorate. This split, and their increasing alienation from the public inspired a re-united Liberal Party which was able to promote itself as the Free Fooders. Dormant Liberal voters, new voters and alienated Tory voters moved towards the Liberal Party. The result of the election saw the re-emergence of a re-united Liberal Party that could viably (and successfully) compete with the Tory Party. As a consequence the Tory dominance of the previous twenty years, a combination of Tory strength and Liberal weakness, was ended.
