Liberal Party's Split of 1886 - Essay Example

Running Head: Liberal Party's split in 1886 How much responsibility should be attributed to W.E. Gladstone for the Liberal Party's split in 1886 [Writer's Name] [Institution's Name] How much responsibility should be attributed to W.E. Gladstone for the Liberal Party's split in 1886 It has always been a dilemma for writers when discussing the share or responsibility of W. E. Gladstone in the split of the Laberal party in 1886. However, this paper will try to give a balance undertanding of events. Gladstone was unopposed for his Midlothian seat on this occasion, and so his election campaign was directed at the electors throughout the country and it was, as might be expected, a prodigious effort. (Feuchtwanger 1975, 1-3) He explained to one audience in Liverpool how things stood: he 'went in bitterness, in the heat of the spirit, but the hand of the Lord was strong on me'. (Morley 1904, 343) Gladstone reminded his audience of his views, declared in Edinburgh in 1880, of the problems faced by all Liberals. The 'classes', by which he meant 'the dukes ... the squires ... the Established clergy ... the officers of the army, or ... a number of other bodies of very respectable people', were against the 'masses', the remainder of the population. His point was that in all matters: where the leading and determining consideration that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice, and humanity, there, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the masses against the classes. (Matthew 1999, 348-9) But Gladstone faced an uphill task for all kinds of reasons were causing many of the previously Liberal voters to abstain or even to turn out and vote against them. Memories of Gordon and anti-Catholic prejudice erupted throughout the country, while his fiery rhetoric, as in Liverpool, might have scared off as many electors as it encouraged. The main problem for Gladstone and his friends was that there were two Liberal parties to vote for in 1886. The MPs who had opposed Gladstone in the Commons made no secret of their opposition to him in public, and these 'Liberal Unionists' actually formed an electoral pact with the Conservatives; by the time the elections were over there were seventy-eight of them in the House of Commons. The Conservative Party itself did very well, securing 314 seats, while the Gladstonian Liberals trailed well behind them, being reduced to just 181 MPs. Not even Parnell's Irish Nationalists, with eighty-five seats, could make a difference to the overall balance of power in this Parliament. 'The defeat', Gladstone ruefully recorded in his diary 'is a smash'. (Matthew 1990, 585) On 30 July he tendered his resignation to the Queen. The underlying cause of this disastrous split in the Liberal Party has been long debated. (Searle 1992, 1-5) Gladstone himself believed, and historians have long maintained, that it represented a ' revolt of the Whigs'. (Magnus 1954, 245) In general terms it is fair to say that most of the aristocratic 'Whig' elements in the party deserted Gladstone at this point over the Irish question, while the majority of the middle-class Radicals stayed loyal to him in spite of it. But it has more recently been stressed that many better-off 'Whig' members of the Liberal Party had been showing signs of disillusionment with it since the time of Gladstone's first ministry. It is also true that some 'moderate' Liberals, including some of those who might be considered 'better off', remained loyal to Gladstone even at this time, while, on the other hand, one of the leaders of the revolt was Joseph Chamberlain, the personification of middle-class radicalism. In any case, it does not seem to matter very much: enough voters had deserted Gladstone to give the Conservatives an overall majority in the Commons and put Lord Salisbury back into office, even without the Liberal Unionists' support. It was the Conservatives who were to dominate British politics until the twentieth century. (Pugh 2002, 7-8) When Gladstone resigned as prime minister in 1886 he had no intention of resigning as leader of the Liberal Party, unlike in 1874: this time, he would stay on, return to office and see a Home Rule measure through. He went, with Lord Acton, on a brief visit to Bavaria in August, to see Dllinger (for the last time, as it turned out), but then he returned home and by 20 September was back once more in the Commons. At the end of the year the Liberal Party's position seemed to improve somewhat when, on 22 December, Lord Randolph Churchill, Salisbury's Chancellor of the Exchequer, resigned. On the same day Chamberlain made a speech that was taken to hold out an 'olive branch' to his former Liberal colleagues. The result of this was a 'Round Table' conference, comprising Chamberlain and Harcourt, Lord Herschell, Sir George Trevelyan and John Morley, all former members of Gladstone's cabinet, convened in an attempt to reconcile Chamberlain and his followers with the main body of the Liberal Party. Gladstone expressed his general approval of the idea but carefully kept his distance from it, allowing it a free hand, as much as he could, in case it failed. He was not too worried if it did: all Chamberlain had to do, as far as Gladstone was concerned, was to admit he was wrong and then rejoin the Party. The conference appeared to go well at first, but then Chamberlain published an article in the Baptist calling for the disestablishment of the Welsh church and accusing Gladstone of preventing this by his obsession with the primacy of Irish Home Rule over all other Liberal policies. This outright assault on the Grand Old Man appeared to the other Liberal conference members to contain arguments which contradicted what Chamberlain had been saying to them in private. The conference adjourned for two weeks, but never resumed: it seemed Chamberlain had after all decided to throw in his lot with the Conservatives. Further evidence that the Liberal Unionists were becoming more closely tied to the Conservatives was shown by the appointment of G.J. Goschen, who had been Gladstone's First Lord of the Admiralty from 1871 to 1874, as Churchill's successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer in January 1887. Chamberlain was, in fact, correct: as far as Gladstone was concerned, the main cause to dominate his last years in active politics was that of Irish Home Rule. In the period between his third and fourth ministries his speeches were dominated by the question to the exclusion of most other matters, including those like Welsh church disestablishment, which were attracting more and more attention within the Liberal Party itself. But Lord Salisbury's second ministry was also dominated to a large extent by the Home Rule question. In March 1887 the prime minister's nephew, A.J. Balfour, became Irish Secretary, and 'Bloody Balfour' began to stand firm against the demands of Irish tenants. By August 1887 Parnell had become convinced that tenant farmers in Ireland would not be able to afford their rents over the winter and so introduced a Tenants Relief Bill in Westminster to try to ease their difficulties. The government, however, refused to accept it. This was followed by the so-called 'Plan of Campaign' in Ireland, when Irish radicals William O'Brien and John Dillon called on tenants on every estate to organise and pay an agreed rent to their landlord: if he did not accept the sum offered, they should pay the money into a campaign fund instead. The government's response was a Crimes Act, steered by Balfour through the Commons and helped on the way by the use of the parliamentary 'guillotine'. This meant a time limit could be placed on the discussion of all clauses of a bill when in Committee, at the end of which they would have to be voted on. The result was a three-year 'Land War' in Ireland, beginning at Mitchelstown, County Cork, on 9 September, when a crowd was shot at by a body of policemen whom they had trapped in their own police station. Other violence followed this affair. As far as Balfour was concerned, his aim throughout was to enforce the law: the 'Plan of Campaign' was illegal and tenants would have to pay their rents, or face the consequences. (Searle 2004, 9-10) This attack on the Irish population gave Gladstone the cause for which he could fight. He began on 19 August 1886 by publishing a pamphlet on The Irish Question, I: The History of an Idea, II: Lessons of the Election. In it he outlined how his Irish policy had evolved and explained why Irish Home Rule was an obvious one for him to adopt. He also explained how the Conservatives would at first resist the policy, as they had resisted Catholic Emancipation and Corn Law Repeal, but they would then give in to it. He followed this in January and February 1887 with a series of speeches against the government's policy in Ireland and that summer he made another triumphant tour, this time to Wales, making numerous speeches, both public and private, seeing a procession of some 60,000 people in Swansea. 'It has really been a "progress", and an extraordinary one', he concluded. (Matthew 1994, 40) In December, however, he took himself and Catherine off to Florence for a holiday, as had been recommended by his doctor. In 1888 he kept up the offensive on the government and in June he launched a full-scale attack on the new Crimes Act. He announced that there was now an unprecedented division between the British Government and the Irish people which was the direct result of this. It had not reduced crime, but then, he declared, it was not intended that it should: what it was intended to do was to prevent the Irish people from expressing their legitimate grievances. He concluded in striking tones: 'Ireland is perhaps the most conspicuous country in the world where law has been on one side and justice on the other.' (Crosby 1997, 212) On 7 November, in Chamberlain's Birmingham stronghold, Gladstone gave another rousing address, this time to some 20,000 people attending the National Liberal Federation Conference. He supported the Irish, he said, because justice was on their side. The Conservative Government was not on the side of right, but then it was a 'Government of unequal laws'. Ireland could not be governed as it was at present, 'by perpetual coercion' and even the Union itself could not be defended: after all, it had only been brought into existence by the 'foulest and wickedest means'. (Crosby 1997, 212) This kind of oratory, upsetting though it was to the Queen and some Liberal leaders such as Harcourt and even John Morley, was perfectly acceptable to many of the party rank and file. Irish political developments continued to dominate Gladstone's political life in 1890 and 1891, but in a new way. He had come closer to Parnell over the years, and the Irish leader spent 18 and 19 December 1889 at Hawarden. But the Irish leader's private life was soon to become more public, causing a broad rift between the two men and within the Irish Home Rule Party. For many years Parnell had been the lover of Mrs Katherine O'Shea, with the knowledge and acquiescence of her husband, Captain William O'Shea. As early as April 1881, Captain O'Shea had acted as go-between for Parnell with the Liberal cabinet, and he had stayed in contact with the government throughout its existence, though it was his wife who had done most to bring Parnell and Gladstone together. Five days after Parnell left Hawarden, Captain O'Shea, now more an ally of Joseph Chamberlain than of Gladstone, filed a petition for divorce. This would lead to a trial before the Divorce Court. On 17 November 1890 the case came to Court. Initially Gladstone was prepared to wait and see what happened, but on receipt of a large number of letters, 'all one way', on the case, by 21 November he came to a conclusion: I agree with a newspaper ... that the dominant question, now properly before Mr. Parnell for his consideration, is what is the best course for him to adopt with a view to the furtherance of the interests of Home Rule in Great Britain. And, with deep pain but without any doubt, I judge that those interests require his retirement at the present time from the leadership ... I have no right spontaneously to pronounce this opinion. But I should certainly give it if called upon from a quarter entitled to make the demand. Gladstone, armed with this opinion, held a meeting with senior colleagues (Granville, Harcourt, John Morley and the chief whip, Arnold Morley). A meeting with Justin McCarthy, a Home Rule MP and journalist, followed, in which Gladstone told him his opinion was clear: Parnell should go. But Parnell refused to leave quietly. McCarthy could not bring him to step down and John Morley could not find him to show him a copy of the letter Gladstone had sent to him, outlining his views of what Parnell should do. Gladstone seems to have been furious with the Irish leader: he insisted his letter should be published, and was determined Parnell should not defy his wishes. Parnell published his own counter to Gladstone's letter, but when the Irish Home Rule Party held a meeting on 5 December, McCarthy led forty-five MPs from the room, leaving him with only twenty-eight supporters. Parnell's public position was ruined, and he died the following year. In Gladstone's opinion the cause of Irish Home Rule was damaged by these events, but he did not think it was beyond repair: he also saw that he was now its undisputed champion and when he was next prime minister he would have to deal with it properly, once and for all. Despite Gladstone's pre-eminent concern with Ireland, others in the Liberal Party and the government had other things on their mind during these years. In the Liberal Party itself some of the younger members were beginning to develop their own ideas about the future of Liberalism. Gladstone had no great sympathy for 'progressive' ideas, such as Welsh or Scottish Church disestablishment, and he was not an outspoken supporter of temperance. When James Keir Hardie, a future Labour Party leader, led a deputation of coal miners to the 1889 Liberal Party conference to petition Gladstone for his support for their campaign for an eight-hour working day, he was not in favour of their call. References Crosby, T.L., The Two Mr. Gladstones, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1997, p. 212. Feuchtwanger, E.J.,. Gladstone, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1975, p. 1-3 Magnus, P., Gladstone: A Biography, London, John Murray, 1954, p. 245. Matthew, H.C.G. (ed.), Gladstone Diaries, XII: 1887-1891, Oxford, Clarendon, 1994, p. 40. Matthew, H.C.G. (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries, with Cabinet Minutes and Prime Ministerial Correspondence, XI: July 1883-December 1886, Oxford, Clarendon, 1990, p. 585. Matthew, H.C.G., Gladstone, 1809-1898, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 348-9. Morley, J., The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, 3 vols, London, Macmillan, 1904, III, p. 343. Pugh, Martin. The making of modern British politics, 1867-1945. Oxford; Malden, Mass. : Blackwell Publishers, 2002, p. 7-8 Searle, G.R., The Liberal Party: Triumph and Disintegration, 1886-1929, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1992. p. 1-5 Searle, G.R.,. A New England, Peace and War 1886-1918, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 9-10 Read More