4 - The Conservative Party, 1902–45

Summary

At least the succession to Salisbury was seamless. Arthur Balfour was the obvious choice, partly thanks to the accident of consanguity but also because his political career (since joining the Commons in 1874) suggested real political ability. At the time of his elevation to the premiership, Balfour had been piloting through parliament an Education Bill which began to extend previous provision of elementary schooling to the secondary level, entrusting responsibility to county and borough councils. Generally regarded nowadays as a sensible measure, at the time it aroused furious opposition from Protestant dissenters who, through compulsory local taxation, would have to cover the costs of teaching in Anglican (or Catholic) schools. Nonconformist objections to the proposal had been overridden by well-placed Anglican lobbyists, notably Salisbury's eldest son (who in 1903 was promoted to the cabinet alongside two cousins ‒ Balfour and his brother Gerald ‒ and his brother-in-law the Earl of Selborne). Equal opportunities were still a distant dream for progressive educationalists, but no-one could deny their existence within the Salisbury clan.

The terms of the Act were deeply unsettling to Joseph Chamberlain – a unitarian who owed his Birmingham powerbase to his identification with Protestant dissent as well as his charisma and business acumen. In its dealings with Chamberlain, the Conservative Party was not well served by the substitution of the dilettante Balfour for the Delphic Salisbury. If the succession had been determined on the grounds of political ability and seniority rather than the nepotism immortalized at the time by the phrase “Bob's your uncle”, Chamberlain would almost certainly have been the choice. As the Boer War came to its inglorious close, Chamberlain might not have been an ageing man in a hurry; but he was always a man with a plan. After dining with a group of young Conservative MPs in the spring of 1902, he confided that tariffs “are the politics of the future” (Gilbert 1991: 148).

Chamberlain was referring to a project that had been canvassed, particularly in imperialist circles, for many years, under various names – “tariff reform”, “fair trade”, “imperial preference”, etc. At its most basic, the idea envisaged protection of British products by means of import duties, which would be reduced (or waived entirely) in relation to trade within the empire.