Assess the reasons why Gladstone lost the election of 1874.

Another important factor leading to the Liberal defeat was the alienation of important groups within the liberal party as well as important sections of the electorate.  For example the National Education League was disappointed with the Forster education Act and put up candidates against official Liberal candidates in the election.  The United Kingdom Alliance was disappointed with the Licensing Act and the New Model Unions were campaigning against a repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.  The trade union legislation although legalising union acitivty was a step forward the limitations placed on the right to strike were a blow to working people.  The reforms passed by the Liberlas had also upset important groups who could influence the outcome of the election.  Landowners were suspicious of the possible impact on property rights of the Irish Land Act.  They were able to persuade their tenants to vote conservative.  The Church of England was dismayed by the Irish Chruch Act and University Test Act and the officer class and landowners by the attacks on privilege, in particular the abolition of the purchase of commissions.  According to Gladstone the brewing interest also had an influence on the election, he claimed that the party jad been ‘borne down in a torrent of gin and beer’, and although he was right to pinpoint the unpopulatiry of the Licensing Act the mass desertion of brewers and their funds to the conservative side has been exaggerated.  The loss of the trade union sympathy did not help and probably provoked some abstentation or pro-conservative voting, and poor organisation magnified its extent.  

Also adding to the reasons for defeat was the unpopularity of some policies- one important area of electoral discontent being Gladstone’s imperial and foreign policy which was decidedly unpopular.  The Liberals were vunerable to attacks on their patriotism, and accusations of a weak and spineless foreign policy and of ‘selling short on British interests’ did not help.  Disraeli exploited disquiet over the ‘Alabama’ affair and there were also fears about indirect taxation after in 1871 Robert Lowe unsuccessfully attempted to place an indirect tax of 1/2d on a packet of matches.  The most significant problem however was the Irish Universities Bill of 1873, which created such an outcry that it temporarily led to the removal of Gladstone from office and from this crisis the Ministry never really recovered.

Along with all of this Gladstone’s skills of party management seem to have deserted him, it was only his personality and his powers of persuasion which kept it together.  However the strai of office was beginning to show in his own performance which lacked its former vigour.  By-election defeats had begun in 1870 and increased in number year by year.  Despite the promise of a reduction in income tax and of its eventual complete abolition, he was defeated and the liberals went into opposition.

So the reason for Gladstone’s defeat in the 1874 election was the combination of a number of reasons, namely, the alienation of important groupd within the liberal party and of important sections of the electorate, the unpopularity of some policies, and, perhaps most importantly, Disraeli’s leadership of the Conservative party.