"Why did the Conservative government lose so much support by 1906?"

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Manpreet Sambhi

“Why did the Conservative government lose so much

support by 1906?”

        The conservative government had now been in power since 1895, under the leader Marquess of Salisbury, after which, the conservatives remained in government until 1905 in which the liberal’s shockingly as it seems took over. There were many reasons as to why the conservatives lost support by 1906, reforms that didn’t appeal, backfired gambles to win over the public & electoral fatigue, these and other factors contributed to the conservative government being so unpopular by 1906.

        One reason why the conservative government lost so much support was due to the ‘Taff vale case” in 1901. This is where railway workers called a strike over the conditions they were being made to work in/by, unfortunately for the employers, a lot of money was lost by the workers not actually working and the legal fees involved however, the trade union which organised the strike, lost to the employers in court. This was seen as ‘symbolic’ because this now meant for the workers that their trade union, which was suppose to barter with the government, couldn’t and if it did it would get sued. The conservatives lost support from the working class because this case made them realise, they had no powers whatsoever! Although the middle classes were not directly related to this case, they felt pity and sympathized for the working class, so it wasn’t only the working classes that the conservatives upset, it was also the middle classes.

        A second reason why the conservatives lost support by 1906 was due to the education act of 1902. In 1902, ratepayers would pay tax, tax which was proportionate to your earnings, however, once the education act had passed, ratepayers now had to contribute a certain proportion of there tax to fund church schools. There were positives and negatives to this situation; the positive was that more people were getting educated however the negative was far more serious. The conservatives lost a considerate amount of support from the ‘non-conformists’, i.e. anyone not of the Christian church, for example, Jews and Methodists. This support was diminished for the reason that they did not want their well earned money going on education for children of other religions. The ‘non-conformists’ felt so strongly about this that some even refused to pay their taxes, this resulted to various arrests all over the country. To the ‘non-conformists’, the education act of 1902 was seen as “Rome on the rates”. As well as losing support from the ‘non-conformists’, the middle and upper classes were also affected because their children went to private schools, so they too were also irate about the change in taxes, there anger compared to the ‘non-conformists’ was to a much lesser extent though.

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        Another reason why the conservatives lost support by 1906 is due to Chinese slavery from 1903 – 04. The British sent vast amounts of Chinese slaves to South Africa to mine for gold and diamonds as well as to rebuild it. The ‘non-conformists’ and middle classes were upset at this because it was seen as ‘immoral practices’. The slaves were treated badly and they were all men, this resulted in them turning to other men for sexual gratification because they were away from there wives for so long. Although there was uproar from the ‘non-conformists’ and the middle classes, ...

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