In Source C Seebohm Rowntree developed a poverty line which tells us when a person is more likely to find themselves in poverty. He shows us that children, women who begin giving birth and elderly people were the people who found themselves below the poverty line.
In my opinion I don’t think one source is more reliable than the other. I think source C is more objective because Rowntree has a collected data which he has asked more than one person while source B is only describing one family living in poverty but it is more descriptive and makes you understand how it was for a family living in poverty but it is just as reliable as source C.
3. Study Sources D and E
How far do these sources differ in their attitude to old age pension?
In Source D Will Crooks talks about how every man and women over seventy should be entitled to an old age pension no matter what background they have and how a man nothing in the world would will use the 5 shillings well. Source E is a picture of two men one who is well off and one who looks a bit poor. They both have dogs which represent old age pension.
The well off man has a large dog which means he has a large pension while the quite poor man has a small dog which represents him having a small pension. The well off man says to the quite poor man that he wouldn’t want to have a pension like his but the quite poor man says it might be little but it does him a great comfort, which means that the old age pension might not be a lot to some people but for the poor it does them a great deal which is exactly what Will Crooks is saying. So I don’t think they really differ that much.
4. Study source F
Why was this poster issued in 1911?
In 1911 the liberal government made a social reform which was called the national insurance act. This act was to prevent poverty resulting from illness. Workers had to insure themselves and then they could take out money from the scheme if they fell ill therefore they would not be able to work.
The poster in source F is of Lloyd George comforting a sick man and with a national insurance bill in his pocket. This poster was made to gain support from the public. The public were unsure about giving their money to the government. The working- class people didn’t have a lot of money and so they did not want to give the little money they have to the government and were rich weren’t so sure about paying money because there money will be going straight to the poor and if they were ill they wouldn’t have to worry about going into poverty. So the government needed a way of getting people to put some money into their new scheme. So that is way this poster was issued in 1911.
5. Study source G and H.
How far does Source G support source H?
In Source H there is a picture of two men one looks rich because of the hat and clothes he is wearing and the other looks a bit poor. The rich man is carrying a bag which say on it ‘old liberalism’ the other man is carrying a bat which say ‘socialism’ the rich man represents the Liberal party while the poor man represents the Labour party.
The cartoon is called ‘forced fellowship’ which implies the Liberal and Labour party are forced to work together. The man representing the Labour party says ‘any objection to my company, guv’nor? I’m going your way and further’
Since the rise of the labour party the liberal party have been making some socialist reforms. They have been trying to help people in poverty by making new acts and providing for the poor and making the government a welfare state. All these reforms the liberal party have been making are exactly what the labour party wanted to do to some extent. So liberal and labour party have found themselves going in the same path and the same direction, so in some way it is a forced fellowship.
The man representing the labour party also say although they may be going in the same direction the labour party are going even further which implies that even though they are working for the same things the labour party is going a lot much further than the liberal party.
There are two graphs In Source G. The first graph is to show how many MP’s were elected in the general elections. For the liberal party there were a lot of MP’s elected but it started to drop in 1910 then it stays stationary and further more drops by 1918 drops. For the labour party there were only two labour MP’s in 1900 but they slowly stared to rise up and by 1918 there were 57 Labour MP’s elected. This graphs supports source H when the labour man is saying the labour party will go further than the liberal party, the graph shows although are still more liberals being elected the labour party are slowly rising up and maybe in some years be there will be more Labour MP’s than there are Liberal MP’s.
Graph two is basically showing the same thing in graph one. The graph is showing the percentage of votes won by the labour and liberal party. The liberal parties percentage is still higher than the labour party by far but by 1918 their percentage drops while the labour parties percentage were low but gradually increasing and by 1918 they was a large increase in their votes and it was nearly the same percentage as the liberals party percent.
So I think that source the two sources are saying the same thing so in my opinion they do support each other.
6. ‘The liberal government introduced welfare reforms only because they were afraid of the labour party’ explain whether or not you agree with this interpretation.
The liberal government introduced a lot of new socialist reforms. They started to take care of the poor children. They even came up with a Children’s Act which protected a child from their parents abusing them, there were school clinics set up and children could have free school meal. There was new labour exchange which helped the unemployed to find jobs. They were new acts written up like the national insurance act which helped people who couldn’t work because they had an illness. Right before the liberal government started to make all these changes there was a new party coming up they were a group of socialist in Britain who came together to form the labour party. The labour party wanted to improve the living and working conditions for the working class people. This would obviously make the liberal party feel threatened and so they had to think of something fast before the labour party stole all their votes.
It was really getting hard for the poor, they were living badly and they needed help. And so it was a really good time for the liberal party to make some changes for the good.
The labour party were rising up quickly there were more labour MP’s begin elected and the percentage of votes won by the labour party were increasing, so the labour party were proving themselves real competition.
So in my opinion I do think the liberal were making all these welfare reforms because they were afraid of the rise of the labour party. But no matter the reasons of why they made all their reforms it was good step for Britain.
