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The Conservative Party, Patriotism, and British Politics: The Case of the General Election of 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Paul Readman
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Extract

Paul Rich has written that “nationalism in English society has not been a subject that has especially interested historians until comparatively recently.” This judgment could equally be applied to what Gerald Newman has described as that “mere primitive feeling of loyalty,” the less complex and far more ancient phenomenon of patriotism, which, for the purposes of the present article, will simply be taken to mean “love of country.” In the last few decades, the attention given to patriotism by British historians has grown rapidly. However, historians of party politics, particularly those interested in the late nineteenth century, have proved something of an exception to this rule. Although few would dispute Lord Blake's view that “‘patriotism’ … has usually been a valuable weapon in the Conservative armoury,” even work done on the tory party has avoided serious discussion of the subject. Most writers, particularly those of textbook studies, have found it difficult to move beyond rather general allusions to the Conservatives' transformation into the party of patriotism in the 1870s, with “Disraeli's speeches of 1872–3” and his “performance at Berlin in 1878” establishing once and for all “the image of the Conservative party as the champion of national honour.” This argument, of course, owes much to Hugh Cunningham's important History Workshop article of 1981, which put forward the view that patriotism—originally an antistate and libertarian “creed of opposition”—had by the late nineteenth century passed from the hands of the radicals into the possession of the political Right.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 2001 , pp. 107 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2001

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114 Frederick Willis remembered that in the jubilee year of 1897, “the little old lady in black was the idol of mansion and cottage. Her photograph adorned the walls of the humblest homes, and the song ‘Queen of the Earth,’ specially written for the common people, was sung all over the world … ‘V.R.’ in letters of vari-coloured fire was everywhere … It is doubtful if there was any poor little street in London during that scintillant week which did not have its humble tribute picked out in penny fairy lights—V.R. [sic].” See Willis, , Peace and Dripping Toast (London, 1950), pp. 71, 73Google Scholar.

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121 Price, , Imperial War, p. 108Google Scholar. The six seats were Bethnal Green, South-West; Burnley; Cumberland Cockermouth; Newcastle-under-Lyme; Cumberland Eskdale; and Sheffield, Brightside.

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126 Address of Robson, W. S., EA, p. 204Google Scholar. Robson saw his majority in South Shields increase by 2,360, a swing of 13.6 percent over the Liberal vote in 1895. One exception was the prominent Imperialist and South African bondholder Rochfort Maguire, whose strong support for the war and the annexation of the Boer republics did not prevent him from losing the Liberal-held seat of East Leeds by a margin of nearly two thousand votes.

127 These figures are based on the descriptions of individual constituencies given in Pelling's Social Geography.

128 Speaking at a meeting of election agents on the last day of the twenty-second National Liberal Federation conference in March 1900, Gladstone claimed that though there were “considerable differences of opinion in our party,” they were “wholly produced by the war.” See National Liberal Federation, Proceedings in Connection with the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Federation Held in Nottingham, March 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th, 1900 (London, 1900), p. 35Google Scholar. And as P. D. Jacobsen has pointed out, Liberal Imperialism at least “was inextricably bound up with the unique political conditions created by the war,” being “the product of wartime politics in much the same way as was the ‘khaki election’ of 1900”; see Jacobsen, , “Rosebery and Liberal Imperialism 1899–1903,” Journal of British Studies 13, no. 1 (1973): 86–87Google Scholar. The speedy demise of the Liberal Imperialist faction after 1902 would certainly tend to support this.

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132 The division list for this vote can be found in Parliamentary Debates, 4th ser., 1899, 77:157–60Google Scholar.

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136 Feuchtwanger, , Democracy, p. 239Google Scholar. Richard Price has also relied on The Times for his list of Liberal pro-Boers (Price, , Imperial War, p. 106, n. 33)Google Scholar.

137 As detailed by Price, these were “Dillon's amendment to the address urging arbitration; Stanhope's amendment in October 1899 disapproving of the conduct of the negotiations; Redmond's amendment to the address in February urging the cessation of hostilities and recognition of the independence of the Boer states; and Lawson's move to reduce Chamberlain's salary by £100” (Price, , Imperial War, p. 106, n. 33)Google Scholar.

138 The House of Commons divisions used here were the four mentioned in the note above and, in addition, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's motion condemning the government's management of South African affairs since 1895 (6 February 1900) and the four supply votes of 15 and 16 February 1900. As regards speeches and election addresses, the latter were found particularly useful, but either in cases of doubt or cases where no address could be found, reference was made to speech reports in local newspapers. It is, e.g., difficult to say on the basis of a reading of his election address alone whether M. Levy (Leicestershire, Loughborough) can be classed as pro-Boer; but his speeches during the campaign itself leave little doubt as to his views. Declaring the conflict in South Africa to have been brought on not by “the stupidity of Mr. Kruger” but, rather, “the capricious, aggressive and unwise diplomacy of Mr. Chamberlain,” he thought there to be “no merits in the war at all”; see Leicester Daily Post (22 September 1900), p. 5Google Scholar. Examples of organizations include the Imperial South African Association and the Imperial Liberal League (for Liberal Imperialists), and the Manchester Transvaal Committee, and the South African Conciliation Committee (for Pro-Boers). The opinions of contemporaries are an important consideration. Heber Hart's lists of candidates approved by the Imperial Liberal Council were especially useful in determining who could be described as Liberal Imperialist. For these lists see The Times (25 September 1900), p. 8, (29 September 1900), p. 10, and (2 October 1900), p. 8Google Scholar. My work is not the first attempt at finding the numbers of pro-Boer and Liberal Imperialist M.P.s. In addition to the list provided by Price, J. W. Auld has produced a list of 45 pro-Boer M.P.s. (“Pro-Boers,” pp. 100–101). Yet while this list was clearly compiled with care, close scrutiny reveals some errors. Given that Auld considered “active participation in antiwar organizations and activities” an important determinant of pro-Boer status, it is curious that such Liberal M.P.s as the treasurer of the Peace Society (W. Hazell) and the chairman of the Liverpool South African Conciliation Committee (J. T. Brunner) were omitted from his list. Indeed, these omissions seem all the more curious in the light of the latter's participation in a conference—attended by the notorious South African pro-Boer activist S. C. Cronwright—Schreiner-that “strongly condemned the war,” plus the fact that the former issued a joint address with Henry Broadhurst (his running mate in Leicester and a man whom Auld does see as a pro-Boer). See Cronwright-Schreiner, S. C., The Land of Free Speech (London, 1906), pp. 11–12Google Scholar; address of Broadhurst, Henry and Hazell, W. (Leicester), EA, pp. 181–82Google Scholar. As for the Liberal Imperialists, another historian has calculated that 47 M.P.s who stood as candidates fall into this category; see Boyle, T., “The Liberal Imperialists,” Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research 52 (May 1979): 70 ffGoogle Scholar. However, not only does Boyle's list exclude those Liberal Imperialist candidates who never became M.P.s, it also includes such doubtfuls as J. E. Whitley (Halifax) and J. W. Benn (Southwark, Bermondsey).