Why did the liberal government introduce social reforms 1906-1914?

There were two key event that brought the Liberals into reality and made them realize what poor health Britain's population was facing and the actual need for reform. The first reason was that of the Boer War. There was many difficulties experienced in trying to defeat the Boer's (south Africa). The reason the war was so poorly fought was because recruitment for the war, especially in cities such as London showed that many potential troops had to be turned away as they were physically too unfit to serve in the armed forces. Up to 50% of people had to be turned down. This made the liberals contemplate how Britain could battle successfully again countries such as America. Because of this there were committees set up to evaluate and analyze this to show that the physical condition males was very poor, as this was the group of people who would be defending Britain for years to come something needed to be done. If Britain would always struggle to defeat.

The other factor that made the need seem realistically more desperate was from surveys carried out indifferent places by two very different men Seebohm Rowntree and Charles Booth. The carried surveys out on all classes but were very concerned about the poor. After many years of analyzing and evaluating they calculated that a family of fives minimum necessary income per week for a family to exist at' mere physical efficiency' was 21s 8d. this minimum amount was called the poverty line. Over a third of the population of Britain were earning under this poverty line whilst another third were just meeting it. Nearly all of the unemployment was caused by ill health or just lack of work available. If the man lost his job the whole family would struggle to survive. This is when sometimes the children were sent out to work. The liberals needed to change this and New Liberalism was the way.

People were questioning the cost of the Boer war 250 million pounds was spent on a so called 'questionable conflict' whe it could have been spent on the poor of Britain that now only reforms could transform.

These new reforms was keeping with traditional Gladstonian theories. New liberalism demanded 'greater government interventions to protect the weak, poorer elements of society'

New liberalism believed in that every person should be provided with a safety net to prevent them from becoming too poor or unhealthy to survive. The Liberals therefore had to introduce new reforms to help support their people.

In 1906 there were many young and ambitious politicians who became part of the Liberal government. Two of the most important were David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Both of these men felt that the state of Britain's poor was a national disgrace. Lloyd George had big ideas about the reform after he visited Germany in 1908 and saw their welfare system

In 1906 the Liberals decided that they needed to take action on the poverty of British people. The main reason being that the Liberals were faced with so much evidence of such terrible poverty, hardship and ill health and something had to be changed to bring Britain back to its strong Empire again.