The second unpopular act by the Conservatives was The Education Act (1902) which saw the abolishment of the old school boards and the birth of the newly established secondary schools. Local Authorities were given power over the schools, although the government funded them, and helped to fund struggling Church schools. Local Authorities took responsibility for secondary education. The problem with this act was that Non Conformists hated what they described as ‘Rome on the rates’, and for Catholics, this was not acceptable. The non conformists saw this act as unfair due to the fact that they felt they were paying for a school to teach beliefs that they didn’t agree with. This opposition was focused into the support of the Liberals, who united over this point and could be argued that this unity brought with it respect back from the public and the liberals started to become an opposition again, there was starting to be two party politics being played rather than one. This opposition was having a severe impact on the level of support for the Conservatives. However this Act has largely been seen as a considerable achievement among many commentators, but during the time it was introduced the non conformist opposition to the Act was a blow to Conservative support.
‘Chinese Slavery’ is quite misleading in its name, the topic isn’t about Chinese slaves but the shortage of labour in South Africa after the Boer War and what was done to solve the shortage. To resolve this the British High Commissioner agreed to allow mine owners to import around 50,000 Chinese on low wages and housed in poor conditions. When news of this got to Britain, there was outrage over Humanitarian concerns, discontent over the fact that a potential emigration rout was being closed, and more importantly, the trade unions stated in times of labour shortage in Britain the same thing may happen. Balfour publicly disapproved of what was going on in South Africa, but more importantly did in fact nothing about it. To the British public, this was seen as weak leadership on Balfour’s part, this was damaging to the Conservatives because they were being seen as having a weak leader and during this time the Prime Minister wasn’t just in control of Britain but of Britain’s Empire, which needed a strong, confident leader. The Liberals were all united over their disgust over this matter and gained support form the working class and other members of the voting public who saw the ‘Chinese Slavery’ as a cruel and exploiting measure being taken by the High Commissioner and South African mine owners. This was yet another issue that was loosing support for the Conservatives and letting the Liberals gain ever more support.
The Licensing Act (1902) gave Licensing Justices the power to refuse a Licence renewal if premises were deemed structurally unsound or unneeded in the area. These powers were extended by Balfour’s (1904) Act which made it even easier for pubs to be closed down. Existing licences became known as ‘old on licences’ and the ‘Ante 1869 beer house’ was no longer immune from the licence renewal procedure. Furthermore, when a licence was not granted the breweries could claim compensation, which was raised by taxing the pubs that got a licence, money to pay the breweries who had lost pubs to sell their beer to compensation. This was unpopular on two sided, the anti drink movement objected to the payment of any compensation, no matter where it came from, while the brewers were not happy at having, in effect, to compensate them selves. This all added to the ever growing unpopularity for the Conservative government. This Act however is widely seen as an achievement, but at the time, similarly to the Education Act 1902, the Licensing Act 1904 was unpopular at the time.
The last reason for the hugely embarrassing 1906 General Election defeat for the Conservatives was Joseph Chamberlain. He had been a Liberal pre split, and had caused the split over the ‘Home Rule’ for Ireland, he then joined the Liberal Unionists and became a member of the Conservative cabinet in 1895. However he believed in a new proposal called Tariff Reform, which was a policy to abandon the traditional 19th centaury free trade and the adoption to tariffs on non British goods being soles in Britain. The tariffs were to be lower to goods from other countries in the British Empire; this was to be known as ‘the system of imperial preference’. This proposal was an effort to combat the ever growing threat to British industrial dominance form Germany, USA, and Japan. However this topic split the Conservative right down the middle as his ‘Home Rule’ proposal had done to the Liberals. The working class and The Free Food League believed that the price of such things as bread and clothes would rise to a level at which they would not be able to afford. More importantly the Liberals re-united over this issue and believed in free trade which had helped to see the prosperity of 19th centaury Britain. To combat The Free Food League, A Tariff Reform League was set up; they held debates and posters were produced. But the long and the short of it was that this issue had split the Conservatives and the Nation but worse for the Tories it had united the Liberals. Just as the Conservatives had gained support over the unity shown in the home rule issue which had split the Liberals in two, the opposite was happening to the Tories. Finally the fact that Balfour failed to take sides on this important issue, it helped to separate the government and give support from the Tories to the Liberals due to the fact the public did not want an indecisive leader, but a strong and decisive one, something Balfour was obviously not as he had more than once demonstrated.
In conclusion it is possible to say that the Liberals were handed the 1906 General Election in the same way that the Conservatives had been in 1885. There was a number of issues which Balfour and his government lost popularity over, although all were instrumental in the Conservatives huge defeat in the 1906 General Election, there were signs that the defeat was coming, as the Tories lost by-elections all the way through Balfour’ government, but one is more instrumental than the others, the Tariff Reform issue. This split the government into two and although it is possible to blame this on Chamberlain as many historians have done, it is fare to say that the fact that Balfours’ indication over the matter was just as important. Also the fact that it re-united the Liberals made it dangerous for the government as it now had serious opposition and also, the anti Tariff Reformers had a party that they could now vote for that wasn’t a wasted vote. It was these decisions, acts and indications that led the way to the 1906 crippling defeat at the General Election.
