XXVI. NON-PARTY ORGANISATIONS OUTSIDE OF PARLIAMENT
[Sidenote: Different Kinds of Political Organisations.]
The political organisations outside the walls of Parliament may, for convenience, be classified under four heads; although the groups so set apart are not always perfectly distinct, and a particular organisation is sometimes on the border line between two different groups. These four heads are:--
1. Non-party organisations, whose object is to carry into effect some one project or line of policy, but not to obtain control of the general government, or to act as an independent political group in the House of Commons.
2. Local party organisations, each confined to one locality, whose primary object is to nominate party candidates and carry the elections in that place, although they may incidentally bring their influence to bear on the national policy of the party.
3. National party organisations, whose object is to propagate the principles of the party, to aid in carrying the elections throughout the country, and also to formulate and control to a greater or less extent the national party policy. Of the organisations formed for such a purpose, the most famous was early dubbed by its foes the "Caucus," and under that title the career of these bodies on the Liberal and the Conservative side will be described in Chapters XXIX. and XXX., the Labour Party being treated in a later chapter by itself.
4. Ancillary party organisations. These are handmaids to the party, which make no pretence of trying to direct its policy, but confine themselves to the work of extending its popularity, promoting its interests, and preparing the way for its success at the polls. They will be discussed hereafter, but a few words must be said here about the most important of them all, because without a knowledge of its character, the history of the caucus, with which it has come into contact, can hardly be understood. It is the central association, or central office, of the party, composed of paid officials and agents, with or without the help of a group of wealthy and influential men. It raises and disburses the campaign funds of the party, and takes charge of general electioneering interests; but it always acts in close concert with the party leaders and the whips, and is, in fact, under their immediate direction and control. The central office is thus a branch of the whip's office, which attends to the work outside of Parliament, and it is really managed by a principal agent or secretary directly responsible to the parliamentary chiefs.
[Sidenote: They are Distinct from the Organs of State.]
Unlike the instruments of party inside of Parliament, all of these four classes of exterior political organisation are wholly unconnected with the constitutional organs of government; save that the central office is directed by the whip. Outside of Parliament, as in the United States, the organisation of parties is artificial or voluntary, that is, the mechanism stands quite apart from that of the state, and its effect thereon is from without, not from within. From this fact have flowed important consequences that will be noted hereafter.
[Sidenote: The Non-Party Organisations.]
Among the different kinds of political organisation those here called non-partisan are by far the oldest. Yet the term itself may be misleading. It does not mean that they have confined their efforts to cultivating an abstract public opinion in favour of their dogmas, for they have often sought to elect to Parliament men who would advocate them there. Nor does it mean that they have had no connection with the existing parties, for sometimes one of the parties has countenanced and supported their views, and in that case they have thrown their influence in favour of the candidates of that party. The term is used simply to denote a body whose primary object is not to achieve victory for a regular political party. Curiously enough, such a group of persons often comes nearer than the great parties of the present day to Burke's definition of party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." For each of the leading parties includes men who are not wholly at one in their principles. Party aims are complicated and confused, and are attained only by a series of compromises, in which the ultimate principle is sometimes obscured by the means employed to reach it. A party in modern parliamentary government would be more accurately defined as a body of men united by the intent of sustaining a common ministry.
[Sidenote: Their Early History.]
Various organisations of the kind termed here "non-partisan" arose during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The first of these of any great importance appears to have been the Society for Supporting the Bill of Rights, founded in 1769 to assist Wilkes in his controversy with the House of Commons, and in general to maintain the public liberties and demand an extension of the popular element in the constitution. Finding that the society was used to promote the personal ambition of Wilkes, some of the leading members withdrew, and founded the Constitutional Society with the same objects. Ten years later county associations were formed, and conventions composed of delegates therefrom met in London in 1780 and 1781 to petition for the redress of public grievances. Other societies were established about the same time, and they were not always of a radical character. The Protestant Association, for example, was formed under the lead of Lord George Gordon to maintain the disabilities of the Roman Catholics, and brought about the riots of June, 1780, which are still called by his name.
The political societies of those days were short-lived, and most of them died soon; but the outbreak of the French Revolution sowed the seed for a fresh crop. In 1791 the working classes of the metropolis organised the London Corresponding Society, and the next year men of less extreme views founded the Society of the Friends of the People to promote moderate reform. Whether radical or moderate, however, associations of that kind could not live in those troublous times. The repulsion and alarm provoked by the course of events in France were too strong to be resisted, and a number of repressive statutes were passed to break them up. First came an Act of 1794 to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, then in the following session another to prevent seditious meetings, and, finally, a statute of 1799, which suppressed the London Corresponding Society by name, and any others that were organised with branches. These acts and a series of prosecutions drove out of existence all the societies aiming at political reform; and during a few years, while the struggle with France was at its height, the course of domestic politics was unvexed by such movements. But the distress that followed the wars of Napoleon caused another resort to associations, which was again met by hostile legislation.
[Sidenote: The Catholic Association, and Movements for Reform.]
The repressive statutes were, however, temporary, and when the last of them expired in 1825, the way for popular organisations was again free. The Catholic Association had already been formed in Ireland to procure the removal of religious disabilities, and just as it disbanded, with its object won, in 1829, the shadow of the coming Reform Act brought forth a number of new political societies in England. In that very year Thomas Atwood founded at Birmingham the Political Union for the Protection of Public Rights, with the object of promoting parliamentary reform; and after the introduction of the Reform Bill similar unions, formed to support it, sprang up all over the country. An attempt was even made to affiliate them together in a great national organisation; but the government declared the plan illegal, and it was abandoned. Among the most interesting of the societies of this kind were those organised in London. Here, in 1831, the National Union of the Working Classes was founded by artisans, disciples of Robert Owen, commonly known as the "Rotundanists," from the name of the hall where their meetings were held. But Francis Place, the tailor, a notable figure in the agitations of the day, had no sympathy with the socialistic ideas of these men, and dreaded the effect of their society upon the fate of the Reform Bill. He had a much keener insight into the real situation, and started as a counterstroke the National Political Union, with the sole object of supplying in London the popular impulse needed, in his opinion, to push the measure through.[462:1] The Bill was no sooner passed than the many associations, which had been founded upon a union of the middle and lower classes to effect a particular reform, began to die out.
[Sidenote: The Anti-Slavery Societies.]
Meanwhile two successive organisations of a non-partisan, and, indeed, of a non-political, character, had been carrying a purely humanitarian movement to a triumphant end. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787, and strove, by the collection of evidence, by petitions, pamphlets and corresponding local committees, to enlighten public opinion and persuade Parliament. After working for a score of years, supported by the tireless efforts of Wilberforce in the House of Commons, it prevailed at last upon Parliament to suppress the slave-trade by the Acts of 1806 and 1807. Sixteen years thereafter the Anti-Slavery Society was formed to urge the entire abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, and this it brought about in 1833, the strength of its advocates in the Commons, backed by popular agitation outside, being great enough to compel Lord Grey's government to bring in a bill for the purpose.[462:2]
[Sidenote: Non-Party Organisations after 1832.]
[Sidenote: The Chartists.]
Since 1832 the non-party organisations have been, on the whole, more permanent, and more widely extended than before; and, with some marked exceptions like that of the Chartists, they have tended to rely less upon a display of physical force, and more upon appeals to the electorate--a change following naturally enough upon the enlargement of the franchise. Chartism developed out of a large number of separate local organisations of workingmen, who realised that they had gained no political power from the Reform Act, and demanded a reform of Parliament in a really democratic spirit. The movement took its name from the People's Charter, with its six points, published in 1838 by the London Working Men's Association. To this the various local bodies adhered, sending the next year delegates to a great People's Parliament in London. But the violence of the language used by the Chartists opened a door for prosecution; the leaders became frightened, and for the moment the agitation lost its force. In 1840 it was reorganised, and was supported by several hundred affiliated bodies. From first to last, however, it was weakened by dissensions among the leaders, relating both to the methods of operation and to subordinate issues. The movement culminated in 1848, in the mass meeting on Kennington Common, which was to form in procession, and present a mammoth petition to Parliament. The plan had caused grave anxiety; troops were brought up, thousands of special constables were sworn in; but at the last minute Feargus O'Connor, the leader of the Chartists, lost his nerve, and gave up the procession. The great demonstration was a fiasco, and soon after the whole movement collapsed.
[Sidenote: The Anti-Corn-Law League.]
One of the many reasons for the failure of Chartism was the existence at the same time of the most successful non-partisan organisation that England has ever known, the Anti-Corn-Law League. This, like the Anti-Slavery Association of an earlier day, was formed to advocate a single specific reform, and to its steadfast fidelity to that principle its success was largely due. It excluded rigidly all questions of party politics, and in fact its most prominent leader, Cobden, always retained a profound distrust of both parties. The reform embodied, however, in the eyes of its votaries, both an economic and a moral principle, so that they were able to appeal at the same time to the pocket and the conscience of the nation--a combination that goaded Carlyle into his reference to Cobden as an inspired bagman preaching a calico millennium. As the League appealed to more than one motive, so it used freely more than one means of making the appeal. After a number of local associations had been formed, a meeting of delegates from these, held in 1839, founded the League, which proceeded to organise branches all over the country, sent forth speakers and lecturers, worked the press, collected information, issued pamphlets by the ton, petitioned Parliament, and strove to elect candidates who would support its views. All this was done upon a huge scale with indefatigable energy. The movement derived its force from the middle-class manufacturers, but they strained every nerve to indoctrinate the working classes in the cities, and later the rural population, until at last public opinion was so far won that the crisis caused by the failure of the Irish potato crop brought about the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The League had done its work and dissolved.
[Sidenote: Other Non-Partisan Associations.]
There have been, and still are, a large number of other associations of a non-partisan character, which bestir themselves about some political question. Often they exist in pairs to advocate opposing views, like the Marriage Law Reform Association, and the Marriage Law Defence Union, the Imperial Vaccination League, and the National Anti-Vaccination League. These associations are of many different kinds. Some of them are organised for other objects, concerning themselves with legislation only incidentally, and taking no part at elections, like the Association of Chambers of Commerce, and the Association of Municipal Corporations. Some exist primarily for other purposes, but are very active in politics, like certain of the trade unions;[464:1] others are formed solely for the diffusion of political doctrines, but generally abstain from direct electoral work, like the Fabian Society, with its socialist ideals; and, finally, there are organisations which, although not primarily partisan, in fact exert themselves vigorously to help the candidates of one of the great parties. To the last class belongs the Liberation Society, formerly very active in urging the disestablishment of the Church, and throwing its influence in favour of the Liberals; and also its opponent, the Committee for Church Defence, equally strong on the side of the Conservatives. More active than either of them at the present day is the Free Church Federation, which has been brought into the political arena by its repugnance to the Education Act of 1902. In the same category must be placed the National Trade Defence Association, an organisation formed by the liquor dealers to resist temperance legislation, and perhaps Mr. Chamberlain's recent Tariff Reform League, both of which support the Tories. It so happens that the societies that oppose the last two bodies are not so consistently devoted to the Liberals. Then there are societies of another type formed for a transitory purpose in foreign affairs: such as the Eastern Question Association of 1876, which opposed Disraeli's Turkish policy, and the present Balkan Committee working for freedom in Macedonia.
All associations that attempt to influence elections are in the habit of catechising the candidates and publishing their answers, sometimes producing a decided effect upon the vote. Now it may be suggested that societies which take an active part in elections, and always throw their influence on the same side, ought not to be classed as non-partisan, but rather as adjuncts to the great parties; and yet they differ from the true ancillary organisations because their primary object as societies (whatever the personal aim of individual members may be) is not to place the party in power, but to carry through a particular policy with which that party happens to be more nearly in sympathy than its rival.
FOOTNOTES:
[462:1] Graham Wallas, in his "Life of Francis Place," gives a graphic description of the movements in London.
[462:2] For these movements see Clarkson's "History of the Slave Trade," "The Life of Wilberforce," by his sons, and "The Memoirs of Sir T. Fowell Buxton."
[464:1] This does not refer to the political labour organisations that have grown out of the trade unions, but must now be classed as regular parties. For the earlier political activity of the trade unions, as such, see Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "Industrial Democracy," I., 247 et seq.
XXVII. LOCAL PARTY ORGANISATIONS
Contrasted with those bodies which are non-partisan, but extend over the whole country, or at least over an indefinite area, stand the local party organisations. Before the Reform Act of 1832 local organisations such as exist to-day for the election of parliamentary candidates were almost unknown. They would, indeed, have been of little use in most of the old electorates. Not to speak of the rotten boroughs, which were sold for cash, a large number of the smaller constituencies were pocket boroughs, in the hands of patrons who would not have suffered any one else to influence the voters. In 1807, when Lord Palmerston was elected to Parliament for Newtown in the Isle of Wight, Sir Leonard Holmes, who controlled the seat, made a stipulation that he should "never, even for an election, set foot in the place. So jealous was the patron lest any attempt should be made to get a new interest in the borough."[466:1]
Even in the counties the voters were so much under the personal lead of the landowners that party machinery would have been superfluous. A few of the large boroughs had, indeed, an extended franchise and a wide electorate. Most notable among them was Westminster, and here a real political organisation for the election of members to Parliament existed for some years before the great reform. It was, however, conducted in the interest neither of the Whigs, nor of the Tories, but of Radical Reformers, who were truly independent of both parties.[466:2]
[Sidenote: Their Origin.]
With the extension of the franchise a change began in the political status of the voters. In many constituencies it was no longer enough to secure the support of a few influential persons; and the winning of a seat by either party depended upon getting as many of its adherents as possible upon the voting lists. The watchword of the new era was given by Sir Robert Peel in his celebrated advice to the electors of Tamworth in 1841, "Register, register, register!" It was the more important for the parties to take the matter in hand, because disputes about the complex electoral qualifications, instead of being settled on the initiative of the state, were left to be fought out before the revising barrister by the voters themselves, who were apt to be very negligent unless some one made a systematic effort to set them in motion. It was not less necessary for the parties to keep the matter constantly in hand, because, the duration of Parliament being uncertain, it could not be put off until shortly before the election. The lists must be kept always full in view of a possible dissolution. Often the work was done on behalf of the sitting member or the prospective candidate by his agent on the spot, without any formal organisation. But this was not always true, and, in fact, the Reform Bill was no sooner enacted than local registration societies began to be formed, which for some years increased rapidly in number among both Liberals and Conservatives.[467:1]
[Sidenote: Their Early Objects.]
The primary object of the registration societies was to get the names of their partisans on to the lists, and keep those of their opponents off; and they are said to have done it with more zeal than fairness, often with unjust results, for any claim or objection, though really ill-founded, was likely to be allowed by the revising barrister if unopposed.[468:1] From registration a natural step led to canvassing at election time; that is, seeking the voters in their own homes; persuading the doubtful; when possible, converting the unbelieving; and, above all, making sure that the faithful came to the polls. This had always been done by the candidates in popular constituencies; and now the registration societies furnished a nucleus for the purpose, with a mass of information about the persons to be canvassed, already acquired in making up the voting lists. The nomination of candidates did not necessarily form any part of their functions. The old theory prevailed, of which traces may be found all through English life, that the candidate offered himself for election, or was recommended by some influential friend. The idea that he ought to be designated by the voters of his party had not arisen; nor did the local societies, which were merely self-constituted bodies, claim any right to speak for those voters. No doubt they often selected and recommended candidates; but they did so as a group of individuals whose opinions carried weight, not as a council representing the party.
The time was coming, however, when another extension of the franchise, and the growth of democratic ideas, would bring a demand for the organisation of the societies on a representative basis. The change began almost immediately after the passage of the Reform Act of 1867; and the occasion--it cannot properly be called the cause--of the movement is curious. When discussion in England was busy with Hare's plan for proportional representation, which John Stuart Mill hailed as the salvation of society, serious voices were heard to object to the scheme on the ground that it would lead to the growth of party organisations, and would place the voter in the grip of a political machine.[469:1] It is, therefore, interesting to note that the first outcry in England against actual party machinery was directed at an organisation which sprang from the minute grain of minority representation in the Act of 1867.
[Sidenote: The Birmingham Caucus.]
[Sidenote: Its Object.]
By the Reform Act of 1867 the great towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds were given three members of Parliament apiece; but in order to provide some representation for the minority, the Lords inserted, and the Commons accepted, a clause that no elector in those towns should vote for more than two candidates.[469:2] Much foresight was not required to perceive that if one of those towns elected two Liberals and a Conservative, two of her members would neutralise each other on a party division, and her weight would be only one vote; while a much smaller town that chose two members of the same party in the ordinary way would count for two in a division. Such a result seemed to the Radicals of Birmingham a violation of the democratic principle, and they were determined to prevent it if possible. They had on their side more than three fifths of the voters, or more than half as many again as their opponents, and this was enough to carry all three seats if their votes were evenly distributed between three candidates. But to give to three candidates the same number of votes when each elector could vote for only two of them was not an easy thing to do, and failure might mean the loss of two seats. Very careful planning was required for success, very strict discipline among the voters, and hence a keen interest in the result among the mass of the people and perfect confidence in the party managers.
[Sidenote: Its Formation.]
To provide the machinery needed, Mr. William Harris, the Secretary of the Birmingham Liberal Association, a self-constituted election committee of the familiar type, proposed to transform that body into a representative party organisation; which was forthwith done in October, 1867. The new rules provided that every Liberal subscribing a shilling should be a member of the association, and that an annual meeting of the members should choose the officers and twenty members to serve upon an executive committee. This committee, which had charge of the general business of the association, was to consist of the four officers and twenty members already mentioned, of twenty more to be chosen by the Midland branch of the National Reform League when formed, and of three members chosen by a ward committee to be elected by the members of the association in each ward. According to a common English custom the committee had power to add to its members four more persons chosen, or, as the expression goes, coopted, by itself. There was also a larger body, consisting of the whole executive committee and of not more than twenty-four members elected by each of the ward committees. It was officially called the general committee, but was commonly known from the approximate number of its members as "The Four Hundred." It was to have control of the policy of the association, and to nominate the three Liberal candidates for Parliament in the borough.[470:1]
The number of Liberal voters in each of the several wards was then carefully ascertained; and those in one ward were directed to vote for A and B; those of another for A and C; those of a third for B and C; and so on, in such a way that the total votes cast for each of the three candidates should be as nearly as possible the same. Protests were, of course, made against voting by dictation. It offended the sense of personal independence; but the great mass of Liberals voted as they were told, and all three of the candidates were elected.
[Sidenote: Its Early Victories.]
The association had accomplished a great feat. Three Liberals had been sent to Parliament from Birmingham in spite of the minority representation clause. But a chance for another victory of the same kind did not come again until the dissolution six years later; and at first the managers were less fortunate in the elections to the school board. The Education Act of 1870 provided for cumulative voting at the election of these bodies; that is, the elector might cast all the votes to which he was entitled for one candidate, or distribute them in any way he pleased. The system made it possible for very small minorities to elect one or more candidates, and the Liberal Association, in trying to elude its effects, as they had done in the case of the parliamentary election, attempted too much and carried only a minority of the board. For a time the organisation languished; but it was soon recalled to a more vigorous life than ever.
[Sidenote: Its Revival in 1873.]
In 1873 the association was revived for the purpose of getting control of the municipal government of the town, and introducing a more progressive policy in its administration. Two names are especially associated with the new departure, that of Mr. Schnadhorst, the secretary of the association, who had a genius for organising, and that of Mr. Chamberlain, who was the leading spirit of the movement, and became the mayor of the borough in the following autumn. These men proceeded to reconstruct the association on a slightly different, and apparently even more democratic, plan. Taking the wards as the sole basis of the fabric, an annual meeting was held in each ward, at which any Liberals residing there might take part. They were entitled to do so whether voters or not, and without regard to any subscription, provided they signified their adherence to the objects and organisation of the association, a statement which was understood to imply a willingness to accept the decisions of the majority. The meeting elected a committee, a chairman and a secretary for the ward; three persons to serve with those two officers upon the executive committee of the central association; and a number of persons, fixed in 1877 at thirty, to serve on the general committee. The central executive committee contained, in addition to the five members so elected in each ward, the four officers of the association, and thirty members coopted by itself. It chose seven of its own members, who with the four officers formed a management sub-committee of eleven. The general committee of the association was composed, as before, of the whole executive committee, together with the thirty representatives from each ward; and, as there were sixteen wards, it numbered by 1877 five hundred and ninety-four members; and was known as the "Six Hundred" of Birmingham. It had power to determine the policy of the association, and to nominate the candidates for Parliament and the school board. The members of the town council, on the other hand, being elected by wards, were nominated by the ward committees; but the whole association was bound to support them.
[Sidenote: Its Efficiency.]
Such was the new organisation of the Liberal Association.[472:1] Its efficiency as an engine for controlling elections is proved by the fact that during the four years from 1873 to 1876, inclusive, it carried all three seats in Parliament in spite of the provision for minority representation, a majority of the school board at each election in spite of the provision for cumulative voting, and all but two of the sixty-eight members elected to the town council during that period.[472:2] The association was, indeed, well constructed for the purpose.
As in the case of every political organisation based upon primary meetings, an attempt to wrest the control from those who held it was a difficult undertaking. To be successful more than half the wards must be captured at one time, and that in the face of vigilant men, who knew all the ropes, who had the management sub-committee in their hands, and who by means of cooptation could convert a narrow majority into a larger one, and thus perpetuate their own power. On the other hand, a revolt against the nominations actually made was well-nigh precluded by the agreement virtually entered into on joining the association, to abide by the decision of the majority. It has been said that for a dozen years the men who conducted the organisation sent travelling companions to one ward meeting after another to insure the election of their supporters to the various committees.[473:1] Whether this be true or not, it is certain that the power of the managers was never overturned. Their rule has, indeed, been prolonged over such a period that it must be attributed both to the excellence of the mechanism and to their own popularity. Throughout the many vicissitudes of his long career, from his early years of advanced radicalism, through his breach with Mr. Gladstone over the Home Rule Bill, his subsequent junction with the Conservatives, and finally his advocacy of a wholly new policy about preferential tariffs, Mr. Chamberlain has never failed to carry every one of the parliamentary seats in Birmingham for his own adherents. Such a result shows a power which nothing but a strong personal hold upon the people, and a hold coupled with a highly efficient organisation, could have secured.
[Sidenote: Criticisms of the System.]
The system adopted by the Liberals in Birmingham was copied in other places, and soon became the subject of vehement discussion, the arguments for and against it being the same that are commonly used in the case of every party organisation. Its adversaries declared that it threw absolute power into the hands of men with time to devote to working the machinery; that it set up a tyranny which crushed out individuality, extinguished free discussion of opinions, destroyed independence in public life, caused a loss of variety and fertility in Liberalism, and brought party politics into municipal affairs where they ought not to be.
[Sidenote: Its Defence.]
To these criticisms the advocates of the system replied that the association was conducted by the men with the most public spirit, because they were willing to devote time and thought to the work; that it could not create a tyranny, because the ward meetings were open to all Liberals, who could at any time overthrow the management if they chose; that, in regard to independence, every Liberal had a right to speak freely at the ward meetings, to persuade his fellows to adopt his views if he could, and that this is the only right he ought to enjoy, because "a minority has no right to thwart a majority in determining the course of Liberal policy." They insisted that the association was simply "a method by which those who believe in human progress . . . can take counsel together; come to an agreement as to their nearest duty; and give their decisions practical effect in the legislation of their town and country." They claimed that such men "are bound to select representatives who will support the definite measures they believe to be immediately necessary for the peace and prosperity of the land."[474:1] In short the Radicals of Birmingham looked upon themselves as reformers with a mission to fulfil, and felt the impatience--perhaps one may say intolerance--which men in that position always feel for the hesitating, the wavering, and the independent members of their own party. To the Radicals the association appeared as an effective instrument for putting their ideals into practice, and seemed wholly good; while others, who had not the same faith in the end to be attained, felt keenly the evils which the organisation actually involved, and still more the abuses to which it might give rise in the future.
[Sidenote: The Caucus and Town Politics.]
In regard to the charge of bringing politics into municipal affairs the Radicals boldly justified their course, insisting that they stood for a definite progressive policy in local, as well as in national, affairs.[475:1] Under the lead of Mr. Chamberlain, who was elected mayor of Birmingham in the autumn of 1873--the same year in which the association was revived--the town council entered upon a period of great activity. It improved the ordinary public services, such as paving and sanitation; reorganised the health department; and inaugurated an efficient system of sewerage with a large filtration farm, which was, at least, a great improvement on what had gone before. It undertook also a number of public works of a class now called "municipal trading." The first of these was the supply of gas, both for lighting the streets and for private use. There were at the time two gas companies in Birmingham, and Mr. Chamberlain persuaded the council that the town could make a profit by buying their property, and conducting the business itself. A bargain was struck with the companies, and the purchase was made. It was no sooner done than a proposal was made to apply the same principle to water, which was also in the hands of a private company. In this case, however, the object was not profit, but an improvement of the supply with a view to better health, for a large part of the population still depended upon wells, many of them, of course, in a dangerous condition. Again a bargain was made with the company, and the water passed in turn under public control.
Finally an ambitious plan was adopted for improving the appearance of the town. Parliament has enacted a long series of statutes intended to secure better houses for the working classes. One of them, the Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act of 1875,[475:2] empowered any town, if authorised by a provisional order of the Local Government Board confirmed by Parliament, to expropriate at its fair market value an unhealthy area, that is, a district where the crowding together or bad condition of the houses, and the want of light and air, were such as to be dangerous to health. The town was to prepare a scheme for laying out new streets and otherwise improving the area, and was authorised to sell or let any part of the land on condition that the purchasers should carry the scheme into effect. Now Birmingham, like many of the English manufacturing places, had grown up in a squalid way, a network of narrow streets, devoid of space or dignity; and in the centre was a great slum with a high death-rate. This last, a region of more than ninety acres in extent, was taken under the Act; a broad thoroughfare, named, in recognition of its public origin, "Corporation Street," was laid out, and the land bordering upon it let on long ground leases for commercial buildings. The original intention had been to erect new houses for the people whose dwellings had been destroyed; but this part of the plan was in the main abandoned, on the ground that houses enough were provided by private enterprise.
The management by a town of its gas and water supply, the purchase and lease of large tracts of land, are steps in the direction of what is known to-day as municipal socialism; and they provoked a difference of opinion that still exists, both upon the wisdom of the policy in general, and upon the extent to which it can be profitably carried. The problem will be discussed hereafter, but we must note here that the Radicals of Birmingham believed it to be a political issue, which justified the use of party organisation as much as the issues that arose in Parliament. They felt in the same way about the administration of the new school law. In their eyes all these things formed part of a great Radical policy of which they were the protagonists.
[Sidenote: The Spread of Associations on the Birmingham Model.]
The Birmingham Radicals had faith, not only in their political aims, but also in the means they had devised for carrying them out. They did no little missionary work in other towns, urging the Liberals to introduce local representative associations on a democratic basis after the Birmingham pattern. In spite of opposition the idea was received with such favour that by the end of 1878 about one hundred bodies of this kind existed in different places.[477:1] The movement was reenforced by the foundation, in 1877, of the National Liberal Federation, whose history will form the subject of a later chapter. This body admitted to membership only associations of a democratic character, and its influence was strongly felt. The Birmingham leaders, who controlled the Federation, naturally desired to increase its power by extending the number of affiliated bodies as much as possible; while the local associations found an advantage in joining it as soon as it became a factor in Liberal politics. Moreover, after the split in the party over the Home Rule Bill, in 1886, when the Federation took the side of Mr. Gladstone's followers against Mr. Chamberlain, the former became interested in making the organisation as widely representative and popular as possible. These various motives gave successive impulses, with the result that by 1886 the Federation comprised two hundred and fifty-five local associations, and by 1888 seven hundred and sixteen.[477:2] The rules of the Federation, under the title of the "Objects" for which it exists, still open with the words "To assist in the organisation throughout the country of Liberal Associations based on popular representation," and the rules are preceded by a statement which says, All associations, thus constituted, are eligible for affiliation. Although the statement goes on to declare that "No interference with the local independence of the Federated Associations is involved. Each association arranges the details of its own organisation, and administers its own affairs." Still it has always been assumed that the local bodies were to be popular in character. In fact the old self-appointed committees were hardly compatible with the democratic spirit brought in by the Reform Act of 1867, and in the boroughs they soon gave way to representative bodies with a popular organisation.
The process was much less rapid in the country constituencies,[478:1] for not until 1884 was the franchise in these enlarged as it had been in the boroughs in 1867, and when that had been done the traditional authority of the squire and the parson presented an obstacle that yielded slowly. Even now Conservative candidates are returned unopposed more frequently in the counties than in the boroughs, especially in the rural counties of the south. Often it was found impossible to establish a Liberal association in each parish, and a local correspondent was, and in some cases still is, a necessary substitute. But the growth of democratic ideas, the practice of popular election, the change in economic conditions caused by the decay of agricultural prosperity and the desire to live in cities, with the consequent scarcity of rural labour, have, by reducing the patriarchal influence of the landlord over his people, paved the way for representative political organisations. At the present day associations democratic in form exist in almost every parliamentary constituency, whether borough or county, where the number of Liberal voters is not so small, or the chance of success at elections is not so desperate, that the district is what is sometimes officially called derelict.
[Sidenote: Existing Organisation of Local Liberal Associations.]
The constitutions of the local Liberal associations are not precisely uniform, nor, apart from the general principle that they ought to be based upon popular representation, is any pressure exerted to make them alike. The Liberals in each place are at liberty to organise themselves as they please; and in this connection it may be observed that all political societies are treated as purely voluntary, that is, the state makes no attempt to regulate them by law. The provisions in regard to primaries and the nomination of candidates by party conventions, which have become universal in the United States, are entirely foreign to English ideas, and would be regarded with astonishment and aversion.
[Sidenote: The Draft Rules.]
[Sidenote: Rural Districts.]
But while the Federation does not strive to enforce uniform regulations, it issues a pamphlet of "Notes and Hints for the Guidance of Liberals," covering organisations both in rural villages and in towns, and containing drafts of rules, which may be taken as typical. The pamphlet suggests that in rural districts there should be normally, in each parish or polling district, a self-appointed committee with power to add to its own members. The term "committee" is used because the members, being few, can do most of the work directly, instead of delegating it to a smaller body. In reality the committee is the whole association for the parish, and although the draft rules do not expressly so provide, the intention is clear that it shall include all known Liberals there, whether voters or not. It must meet at least six times in the year; and elects a chairman, treasurer, honorary secretary, and any sub-committees that may be needed. It appoints, also, in proportion to population, delegates to the Liberal association for the parliamentary division, which selects the candidate of the party for the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: Small Towns.]
For small towns without wards the model organisation is similar, except that the primary body is called an association, and meets only once a year, unless convened at other times on the request of twelve members; current business being transacted by an executive committee composed of the officers, and of a certain number of other members chosen at the annual meeting. Above the associations for the parish or polling district, and the small town, comes an association for the parliamentary division of the county in which they are situated. This is often, though not always, purely a representative body, without any mass meeting of members. It has a council, composed mainly of delegates chosen from the parishes, towns, or other primary districts, roughly in proportion to population; and an executive committee, sometimes elected entirely by the council, sometimes containing delegates from the districts. Finally it has its officers who are members of both these bodies.
[Sidenote: Large Towns.]
For large towns, that are divided into wards, the draft rules follow more closely the Birmingham plan. They provide in each ward for a committee or association designed to include every man who is disposed to help the Liberal cause. This body elects its officers, the other members of its executive committee, and delegates to the general committee for the town according to population. The association for the whole town meets annually to choose its officers, some members of the general committee, and, in case the town is not a parliamentary borough, delegates to the association for the division of the county. The association for the town is managed, as is usually the case in all organisations of this kind, by three distinct authorities. First, the officers, who attend to current administration. Second, the executive committee, which consists of these officers, of the three officers of each ward, and of members chosen by the general committee. Third, the general committee itself, which determines the policy to be pursued, and is composed of members elected in part by the ward committees and in part by the annual meeting of the whole association for the town. In parliamentary boroughs the general committee--often known as the Council, and sometimes as the Liberal Two Hundred, or whatever the nearest hundred may be--nominates the party candidate for the House of Commons, on the recommendation of the executive committee, and subject to final adoption at a meeting of the association. But in fact the executive committee, in all Liberal associations for parliamentary constituencies, either selects the candidate, and asks for a formal approval by the council, or lays before that body two or three names to choose from. In any case the meeting of the whole association is merely a grand ratification gathering held for applause, not for consultation. The effect is like that of the ancient proclamation, "this is your king an' it please you."
[Sidenote: Variations in Different Places.]
The draft rules prepared by the Federation are merely typical, and although in their general outlines they give a very fair idea of the organisation of local associations throughout the country, there are endless variations in detail and in nomenclature. If, indeed, the constitutions of a number of these bodies are examined at random, no two of them will probably be found exactly alike. It may be observed that the draft rules make no provision for cooptation, an arrangement that appears nevertheless in the rules of many local associations. Nor do they require the payment of any subscription as a condition for membership; but this again is not infrequently done, the sum required running from a nominal amount up as high as five shillings. Sometimes the payment is a condition for any participation in the organisation; sometimes it is not needed for voting in the ward or district meetings, but confers a right to vote in the general meetings of the association, or to be elected to the committees by cooptation. Occasionally Liberal members of the town council and school board have ex officio seats on the council of the association; or local Liberal clubs, although not strictly democratic, are given a representation upon it. But owing to the fact, which will be explained hereafter, that the competition for nomination to Parliament is not very keen, and hence there is rarely a close canvass of the members of the committees, all these differences in detail are of little practical importance. The essential point is that in almost every English parliamentary constituency, whether county or borough, where the chance of carrying the election is fair, there is to-day an association of a representative and nominally, at least, of a democratic character. It contains habitually the three organs, of officers, executive committee, and council; while in the great towns that have several seats there is a still larger organisation comprising all the parliamentary divisions.
[Sidenote: The Paid Agents.]
It is an old custom for parliamentary candidates to employ paid agents, usually solicitors by profession, to take charge of the election, and with the growth of popular organisations the business has assumed in most places a more systematic form. The association for each parliamentary division, and sometimes for a smaller district, has a paid as well as an honorary secretary. His duties are many, for he is the maid-of-all-work of the organisation, and is known by the comprehensive title of Liberal Agent for that division. He acts as clerk for the association, organises committees for wards or polling districts, supervises subordinate agents, arranges public meetings, gives advice and assistance wherever needed, canvasses the voters, attends to their registration, and conducts the hearings before the Revising Barrister. He is also usually appointed by the candidate his statutory election agent; and, if so, he takes general charge of the whole campaign, having under him a band of clerks, sub-agents, and messengers, and a small army of volunteer canvassers. He is an important factor in politics; for upon his skill as an organiser, and his tact and good sense in conducting the fight, the result of the election may often depend.
These agents have been said to be the only professional politicians in England; and in one sense that is true, for they are the only class of men who make a living out of party politics; but the expression is inappropriate, because they are not politicians at all in the sense in which the term is used in other countries. They have nothing to do with the direction of politics; they merely help to elect a candidate in whose selection they have no voice; and although their advice may have weight, their duty is solely to carry out the instructions of others. Like all other permanent officials in England, their actual influence depends upon circumstances. If a chairman is capable and active, the power of the agent will not be so great as in the more common case where the chairman leans very much upon him. The agents, in short, are more nearly akin to the permanent official than to the politician. In fact they have no political aspirations for themselves, for they are not of the class from which members of Parliament are taken.
Their salaries, which vary much, run all the way from forty pounds to four hundred pounds, with about one hundred and fifty pounds as the average, the scale of pay having risen somewhat of late years. They must be thoroughly familiar with the law of registration and election, and are commonly recruited from solicitors with a small practice, or from accountants; although many of them--perhaps nearly one half--finding that their work as agents fills their whole time, have given up all other business. The occupation tends, indeed, to become a profession by itself; one to which a man devotes his life after he has once entered it. The Liberal agents have a national association of their own, containing some two hundred and fifty members, and a few years ago, in order to maintain a higher standard, a smaller society was formed, which issues certificates of qualification. The association meets every year at the time of the meeting of the National Liberal Federation, and such of the agents attend as can afford to go, or can get their employers to pay their expenses. They meet usually about one hundred and fifty strong, and are given a breakfast at which they are addressed by the chief whip, and by the leader of the party in Parliament or some other prominent member; for their importance is now thoroughly appreciated. Thus there has arisen in English political life a class of men whose counterpart exists in no other country. They occupy in the party a position not unlike that of the non-commissioned officers in the army. Their work is essential to success, but they have no hope of promotion beyond their own grade. Their position is perfectly well understood, and they tend to surround it with professional safeguards and supports.
[Sidenote: Liberal Agents in Scotland.]
In Scotland political associations with paid agents have developed more slowly than in England; partly because a great deal of the work connected with registration, which falls upon the party agents in England, is done by the public authorities north of the Tweed; and partly because it was the old Scotch habit to have election business, like everything else, conducted for the candidate by his regular attorney. The result is that although there are many Liberal associations in Scotland, and the agents have tended to become a class so far as to form a society among themselves, they have as a rule much less work to do than in England, and are still usually paid almost entirely out of the candidate's own pocket. Hence, when he is defeated, and gives up the fight, the constituency is apt to lose its agent altogether, and become derelict.
[Sidenote: Conservative Local Organisations.]
Contrary to the prevailing opinion, the Conservatives have, in the matter of party organisation, been more than once the first in the field; and although their machinery has neither been so democratic nor attracted so much attention as that of the Liberals, it has been on the whole more effective. The Reform Act of 1832 was no sooner passed than they began energetically to form registration societies; and the extension of the borough franchise in 1867 brought a renewed activity. They tried at once to enlist the interest, and win the support, of the workingmen who had been made voters in large numbers. At the general election of the following year they worked in vain, but in a short time they succeeded so well, that at the next election, in 1874, they obtained a majority in the House of Commons for the first time since 1841. Their victory was, indeed, commonly attributed to their superior organisation, a fact which gave a powerful incentive to the adoption by their rivals of Mr. Chamberlain's plan for a National Liberal Federation.
[Sidenote: Their Growth after 1867.]
Conservative associations of a modern type had, indeed, been formed in some places long before 1867,[484:1] but the Act of that year gave a new and vigorous impulse. It had hardly been enacted when local associations, largely composed of workingmen, sprang up, especially in the manufacturing districts of the north. Some of them were very large, the one at Bradford, for example, had, by 1872, twenty-five hundred members, and was believed to have caused the change in the politics of the place.[485:1] The associations increased rapidly in number. In 1871 there were two hundred and eighty-nine of them; in 1872, three hundred and forty-eight; in 1873, four hundred and seven; in 1874, four hundred and forty-seven; in 1875, four hundred and seventy-two, besides two hundred and twenty-eight branch associations; and in 1876 the number of Conservative associations of every kind in England and Wales was nearly eight hundred.[485:2] A considerable part of them were composed almost entirely of the artisan class. Many societies had, indeed, been organised under the name of Conservative Working Men's Associations, and these had set up a separate national union among themselves.
[Sidenote: They Become Representative.]
The associations formed at this time seem to have been voluntary bodies without a representative character, and in fact some of them were turned into clubs, in order to make them more attractive, or, according to the expression then used, to enable the members to obtain recreation as well as knowledge. But if the new Conservative associations were unlike the Birmingham Caucus, the size of their membership made them also very unlike the old registration societies. The object was not now merely to see that the faithful were properly registered, but to recruit supporters, stimulate enthusiasm, and discipline a fighting force among the masses of the people. The Conservatives are more easily led by authority than the Liberals, but the time was at hand when even among them more democratic forms were needed. After Mr. Gladstone's victory at the elections of 1880 a cry was again heard that the result was due to better organisation; in this case to the Birmingham Caucus, and curiously enough to the paid agents which it employed.[486:1] The movement among the Conservatives towards more popular forms of party machinery began with the associations in the large towns, which felt keenly the competition of the Liberal hundreds with their closely knit fabric of representative committees based on open meetings in the wards. In these places the Conservatives copied the organisation of their rivals, and thence the fashion spread gradually over the country, receiving an additional impetus in 1887, when the National Union of Conservative Associations was itself remodelled upon a wider basis, with a series of representative councils.
[Sidenote: Existing Conservative Local Organisations.]
Like the National Liberal Federation, the Conservative central office has issued draft rules to serve as models for local associations, and they may be regarded as typical. In the case of a borough the ward polling district, or such other subdivision as shall be found convenient, is suggested as the primary unit. In each of these there is to be a branch association, composed of all the Conservatives in the district who subscribe not less than one shilling to its funds. The branch association, at a mass meeting of its members, is to elect a president, a chairman, an honorary secretary and a treasurer, a committee to manage its affairs, and representatives to the central committee for the borough, in the proportion of one for every two hundred voters upon the parliamentary register. The central association for the whole borough is to consist of the members of the various branches. It is to hold general meetings for the choice of its officers; but it is to be managed by a central committee composed of the officers and representatives of the branch associations, together with the officers of any Conservative clubs in the borough, and representatives of the local Habitations of the Primrose League. This committee, being large, is authorised to delegate any of its powers to an executive committee, and other sub-committees, subject to ratification of their acts. In order to stimulate the necessary subscriptions, the rules provide, in accordance with a common Conservative practice, that all members who contribute not less than one guinea a year shall be styled Vice-President; but in this case they are given no power, and the title is their sole reward. The model rules for the parliamentary division of a county are framed upon the same lines, except that, when possible, associations are to be organised in each parish. This involves an additional wheel in the machinery, the parochial meetings electing the committee for the polling district; and the district meeting, which consists of all the members of the parish associations, electing the central committee for the parliamentary division.
[Sidenote: A Complex Type--Bradford.]
As in the case of the Liberal party, the model rules issued by the central office are merely typical, and although the general principles of organisation in the different local bodies are the same, there are great variations in detail. The Conservative Association of Bradford may be taken as a good example of the more complex forms. Here the geographical elements are the polling district, the ward, the three parliamentary divisions, and the borough as a whole; the committees in each of these being constructed by a combination of direct election, and of representation both of the smaller units and of clubs. Thus the polling district has a committee, composed of all the members of the party therein, which elects, besides its own officers, ten representatives to the ward association--of whom three are designated to serve on the ward executive--five representatives to the council for the parliamentary division, and two to the general council for the borough. The ward association consists of the officers and representatives of the polling districts; of representatives of any constitutional associations within the ward; and of subscribers to the amount of five shillings a year. It has an executive committee composed of the officers for the ward, and of the officers and representatives of the polling districts. The chief business of the ward association is registration, and the nomination and election of candidates for the city council, the municipal contests in Bradford being conducted on party lines. The divisional association consists of all persons who subscribe a shilling, or are enrolled as members of a polling district committee. Its business is conducted by a council containing the officers and five other members chosen at the annual mass meeting, the officers of ward and polling district associations, and representatives both from those associations, and from Conservative clubs. It acts, however, largely by means of sub-committees.
Finally the general association for the borough, with a similar qualification for membership, has, besides the ordinary officers, a long list of vice-chairmen, which includes all persons subscribing two pounds a year to its funds. The general council is composed of all these officers, of representatives from the divisions, polling districts and clubs, and in addition, of all men who pay one guinea a year--another instance of giving special privileges to the larger subscribers. The executive for the borough, styled the Finance and General Purposes Committee, consists of thirty members elected by the council; of representatives of the two leading clubs; of officers of the divisional associations; and of all the officers of the central association, including the vice-chairmen. Now, in 1900, the vice-chairmen formed a majority of the committee, and many of them must have acquired the position by reason of subscriptions to the funds. This is important not only because the management of the association as a whole is really in the hands of the General Purposes Committee, but especially because the rules require the divisional councils to invite that committee to be present for consultation at the meetings held for the selection of parliamentary candidates. The privilege so conferred is, however, merely potential, for it is almost universally the case in Conservative associations that the nomination of candidates for the House of Commons is arranged by the executive body or by a sub-committee thereof, and is simply accepted by the council.
[Sidenote: Extent of Conservative Associations.]
[Sidenote: The Paid Agents.]
Conservative associations of a popular character, with subordinate branches more or less fully developed, now exist in almost every parliamentary constituency in England and Wales, and in all but a few of those in Scotland, the central office of the party being engaged in a ceaseless effort to perfect the organisation wherever it remains incomplete. Unless in a very feeble state, the associations have their professional secretaries or agents, who are paid, on the average, a little higher salaries than their Liberal rivals, and are, therefore, it is claimed, on the whole, a better grade of men. The Conservative, like the Liberal, agents have societies of their own; a mutual benevolent society, and a national association with subordinate branches which admits members only on examination.
[Sidenote: Similarity of Liberal and Conservative Associations.]
At the present day local party organisation has been brought to a high state of efficiency in England, each party having covered almost the whole of Great Britain with a tessellated pavement of associations. These are especially complete in the boroughs, for on both sides the machinery in the rural parts of counties is less fully developed. The Conservatives have done their work a little more thoroughly than the Liberals, because with more rich men in their ranks they have larger resources in money, and can maintain paid agents in more constituencies where the chance of success is small. In general character the local associations of the two parties do not differ greatly, the most obvious contrasts being the common use of cooptation by the Liberals, and the special privileges accorded to the larger subscribers among the Conservatives. But neither of these things is universal, and in their essential features the local organisations of both parties are framed upon the same general principles. Both of them are democratic in form, admitting all adherents of the party, or all who pay a small subscription. Both are in form representative, the affairs of the associations being managed by a series of councils and committees, composed mainly of delegates whose authority is based ultimately upon mass meetings of all the members.
FOOTNOTES:
[466:1] Bulwer, "Life of Palmerston," I., 23-24.
[466:2] Cf. Wallas, "Life of Francis Place," Chs. ii., v.
[467:1] By 1837 Conservative registration societies had become common throughout the country. (Publications of the National Union of Conservative Associations, 1868, No. 4.)
By far the best, and in fact the only comprehensive, work on the party organisations in Great Britain is Ostrogorski's "Democracy and the Organisation of Political Parties," Vol. I. His description is very complete, but, while accurate, is likely to mislead a superficial reader, who might easily get an impression that the extreme cases were typical, although the writer takes pains not to say so. Mr. Bryce's caution in the preface should, therefore, be borne in mind. Mr. Ostrogorski appears to look on democracy, and on party machinery in particular, from the outside, as something artificial and weird, rather than the natural result of human conduct under the existing conditions. He does not seem to put himself quite in the shoes of Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Schnadhorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Salisbury, Captain Middleton, or other men who have come into contact with the party organisations, and ask what he himself would, or might, have done in the same position. Hence his analysis has a slight air of unreality, and does not wholly approve itself as a study of ordinary political motives. But apart from this criticism, the work is admirably done, and is an invaluable contribution to political science.
[468:1] Ostrogorski, I., 156-58.
[469:1] Trevelyan, "A Few Remarks on Mr. Hare's Scheme of Representation." Macmillan, April, 1862; Bagehot, "English Constitution," 1 Ed., 188-94; and see Hans. 3 Ser. CLXXXIX., 458. See also Leslie Stephen, "The Value of Political Machinery," Fortnightly, December, 1875.
[469:2] The provision was applied also to the county constituencies returning three members, which some of them did under the Reform Act of 1832. In the city of London, which had four seats, an elector was to vote for only three candidates. 30-31 Vic., c. 102, Secs. 9, 10, 18.
[470:1] Ostrogorski, "The Introduction of the Caucus into England," Political Science Quarterly, June, 1893, p. 287. Langford, "Modern Birmingham," II., 362-63.
[472:1] H. W. Crosskey, "The Liberal Association--the 600--of Birmingham." Macmillan, February, 1877.
[472:2] H. W. Crosskey, ut supra.
[473:1] Ostrogorski, I., 166-67.
[474:1] H. W. Crosskey, "The Birmingham Liberal Association and its Assailants." Macmillan, December, 1878.
[475:1] Cf. Chamberlain, "The Caucus." Fortnightly, November, 1878; and the two articles by H. W. Crosskey already cited.
[475:2] 38-39 Vic., c. 36.
[477:1] H. W. Crosskey. Macmillan, December, 1878.
[477:2] Proc. Ann. Meeting, 1888, p. 14.
[478:1] Cf. Ostrogorski, "Democracy," I., Part III., Ch. i., Ser. viii.
[484:1] In Liverpool, for example, a Conservative association originally formed in 1832, was replaced in 1848 by a new Constitutional Association upon a broader foundation. Among the objects the latter aimed "To promote by all legal means the Election of Members of Parliament for the Borough who subscribe to, and uphold the principles of the Association. . . . To promote by all legal means the Election of such Candidates for the Town Council as are Members of this Association." It contained at the outset a couple of hundred members; and it had in part a representative character with the wards as a basis, for its affairs were managed by a general committee, composed of thirty members chosen by the association, together with the chairman and secretary of each ward committee ex officio. (Fiftieth Rep. Liverpool Const. Assoc., 1898.)
[485:1] Speech of Mr. Taylor, in the Report of the Conference of the National Union in 1872.
[485:2] Reports of Council at Conferences of the National Union in 1875 and 1876.
[486:1] In his remarks at the Conference in 1880, the Chairman of the Council of the National Union of Conservative Associations said: "It was not at all satisfactory to find that in a number of constituencies gentlemen who practically knew nothing of election matters undertook the management merely as a professional duty in their capacity as lawyers. . . . The Birmingham Radicals had made a point for many years of training a number of men to election work, and of giving them experience by employing them in municipal contests, and he recommended their example to the attention of the meeting." Report of the Conference of 1880.
XXVIII. ACTION OF LOCAL ORGANISATIONS
[Sidenote: All Popular Party Organisations are Largely Shams.]
Although the local associations purport to be democratic and representative, it would be an error to take their rules too seriously. Every voluntary political organisation contains an element of sham. Part of its stock in trade is the pretence that it is more powerful, and more widely representative, than it really is. Much of its success depends upon the old Chinese military policy of scaring the enemy by an imposing appearance before the fight begins. In ordinary times of public inattention the vox populi may be manufactured by a small number of persons, for the mass of the people are rarely interested until an issue has been presented to them, and the framing of that issue, which may be by far the most important step in the whole process, is often done at a meeting of half a dozen men. All the members of the party may have a right to attend that meeting, but they will not do so, or if they do the private conference will take place earlier, and the meeting will simply decide upon the acceptance of plans prepared beforehand. This is a law of human nature resulting from the fact that a large assembly can only say Yes or No. It does not mean that the desires of the public are perverted, for as a rule it has none that are strong or definite. It means that the number of people who care enough to take an active part in the formative stage is small, and in the long run they get control of the wires whether as an elected or a self-constituted committee. The sham consists in making it appear that the plan proposed expresses the preconceived wish of a large body of people.
[Sidenote: Local Associations Controlled by a Few Men.]
In England the element of sham in the party organisations is as great as it is elsewhere. Although the council of a local association is a numerous body, and gives the appearance of a highly popular institution, the association, as a whole, usually contains among its enrolled members not more than one tenth, or at most one fifth of the voters belonging to the party; and the meetings for the election of delegates to the various councils and committees are thinly attended.[492:1] The organisation is, in fact, managed, as a rule, by a few men influenced to a greater or less extent by the paid agent. They are often, especially among the Liberals, tradesmen or even workingmen, who take an active interest in politics, without cherishing any parliamentary aspirations for themselves, or any political ambition unless it be for municipal office; but they like, especially if Conservatives, to take for their chairman a man of higher social position. Moreover, there seems to be little rivalry for the positions that give a control of the body. On the contrary, one is much more impressed in ordinary times by the efforts of an organising secretary, spurred on from above, to interest people in forming associations in unpromising districts, than by struggles for power in the most active associations. In England the stage at which public interest awakes is the election, the process of selecting the candidates arousing little attention. While, therefore, the franchise is wide, and the number of people who vote is very great, the nomination is really made by a body of men no larger than the voters in an ordinary borough before 1832.
[Sidenote: Possibility of their Capture.]
[Sidenote: For Personal Motives.]
One might suppose that under such conditions it would be easy for a small knot of adroit and persistent men, or even for a single resourceful manipulator, to capture a local association; but in normal times there is little incentive to do so. To explain fully why this is the case would anticipate much that remains to be said about the social and political traditions of England. Yet some of the reasons can readily be suggested. The expense of maintaining the organisation and a seat in Parliament is large, and the funds must be provided by somebody. If they are subscribed from public spirit by local men who do not want the seat themselves, those persons will naturally control the association. If they are defrayed by the candidate, or member of Parliament, then under ordinary circumstances he will control so far as his own seat is concerned; and by nursing and courting the constituency, or by his political reputation, he will probably have built up a popularity among the voters which the association cannot defy. The expense limits, therefore, the class of persons who might want to capture the association in order to control the nomination to the House of Commons; nor among those who could afford the cost is there much object in so doing. If, as in some other countries, nominations were confined by law or by custom to residents of the constituency, the rivalry between two or three aspirants for the honour might become intense; but in England the local man has little advantage over a stranger, and if the party association in his own place is unwilling to accept him, the expenditure of labour, time and money required to capture it would probably be much greater than would procure him a nomination elsewhere. Apart from the personal privilege of sitting in the House there are no strong selfish motives for getting control of a local organisation. The member of Parliament has no patronage to distribute among the men to whom he owes his seat; and although the association may lead to the town council, or even the honourable post of a justice of the peace, these are not in themselves objects of keen emulation, nor are they stepping-stones to higher things beyond.
[Sidenote: For Political Objects.]
Moreover, there is no object under ordinary circumstances in capturing a local association with a view to promoting a political policy; for the policy of the party is directed by the parliamentary leaders, in the cabinet or on the front Opposition Bench, and the local party voter has, as a rule, little sympathy for the member who weakens the party by thwarting them. There are, however, cases of deep political cleavage in the party ranks before the leaders have agreed upon a policy, when there may be the strongest incentive to capture the local organisations in order to turn the scale. The breach among the Liberals over the first Home Rule Bill was an example of that kind, and had Mr. Gladstone given a longer premonition of his plans there would, no doubt, have been a struggle for the control of the local Liberal associations all over the country. The recent agitation for fiscal reform furnished another instance of the same kind, and a very striking one; because the Conservative leader not only took no positive stand on the question, but intimated that the party could adopt no definite policy on the subject until the next election. Under these conditions the attitude of the local Conservative organisations became of the utmost importance, and it is said that a systematic effort was made by the members of the Tariff Reform League to capture them in the interest of the reform. Certainly many of them showed that they held very definite opinions on the point, sometimes absolutely opposed to those of their sitting member.
[Sidenote: Relation of an M.P. to his Association.]
Connected with this question is another: that of the relation of a member of Parliament to the association of his constituency. In the early days of the Birmingham Caucus, shortly after it had begun to spread over England, a case of friction between a sitting member and the local association occurred, which caused much controversy and no little alarm. The caucus was the bugbear of the day, and men feared that it was about to turn the representative into a mere instrument to register the decisions of a party machine--an anxiety heightened by the fact that the new associations were in the hands of the Radical wing of the party.
[Sidenote: The Case of Mr. Forster.]
Mr. W. E. Forster, in carrying through Parliament the Education Act of 1870, had offended the more extreme Radicals, because the act did not provide that education supported by public rates should be compulsory and free, and because, in their eyes, it treated the Church schools with too much favour. Although opposed by the Radicals, he was reelected for Bradford in 1874 by the help of Conservative votes; but in 1878 he came into collision with the Liberal association which had just been formed there. One of its rules provided that any one proposed for nomination to Parliament must give an assurance to the general committee that he would abide by their decision in regard to the selection of the candidate. To that condition Mr. Forster refused to submit, denying the right of any association to come between him and his constituents. The association insisted upon its rule, and the controversy in Bradford provoked a discussion in the public press of the country. In the end the matter was compromised by changing the rule so as to read that such an assurance "may be required" instead of "shall be required," and Mr. Forster allowed his name to be submitted to the general committee. He had won his point, for he had been nominated without giving the assurance; but his troubles with the association were not at an end. In 1882 he resigned from Mr. Gladstone's ministry because he disapproved of the so-called Kilmainham treaty, and before long the quarrel broke out again, continuing until his death in 1886.[495:1] The particular provision which gave occasion to the dispute in 1878 has not proved a permanent source of difficulty, for the local associations have not been in the habit of demanding a pledge of that kind, and on the other hand the ordinary rules of fair play require that a man who allows his name to be proposed for nomination shall abide by the decision of the body to which he submits it, unless he feels that he has been unjustly treated, or unless some important question of policy is involved.
[Sidenote: Local Pressure on Members Neither New nor Systematic.]
A much more important matter is the control exerted by the local party association over its representative in the House of Commons, whether by urging him to take a particular line of action, by refusing a renomination, or even by the more drastic measure of requesting his resignation in case he fails to comply with its opinion. Mr. Ostrogorski lays great stress upon the quarrel in 1885 between the Liberal association in Newcastle and Mr. Joseph Cowen, who had taken a highly independent attitude in Parliament, and had not given a consistent support to the Liberal cabinet.[496:1] No one would assert that an association, any more than an individual voter, is bound to support a candidate of whose views and conduct in public affairs it seriously disapproves, because he is an estimable person. Yet this was very nearly the relation of Mr. Cowen to the local association. Voters and organisations must consider the opinions as well as the personality of the candidate, and this they may well do without reducing him to a mere mouthpiece of their wishes.
But in order to determine the real import of an attempt to fetter the independence of a member of Parliament, one must consider how far it introduced a new practice into English politics, and for what purposes the claim of the association to call the member to account has been used. The question whether a member of Parliament is the agent of his constituents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether he is to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the whole kingdom, is as old as Burke's famous discussion with the electors of Bristol. The latter view always has been, and still is, the prevailing one in theory; but the charge that the representatives have become mere delegates has been constantly cropping up. In 1849, for example, very nearly at the high-water mark of independence in Parliament, and long before the party machine had been thought of, there were complaints about the thraldom of members to their constituents.[496:2] A member must always have been more or less in bondage in the proprietary boroughs, and this continued in some places after the first Reform Act. As late as 1857 Sir Stafford Northcote gave up his seat for Dudley because he found that he practically represented Lord Ward.[496:3] The exercise of control over their member by influential constituents is, therefore, not a new thing, and the advent of the modern party associations has not, as men feared, developed it into a system. No doubt the Liberal caucus in the days of its youth tried to bring an organised pressure to bear upon the members,[497:1] but this has diminished rather than increased of late years.
[Sidenote: The Question When a Member Ought to Resign.]
The question under what circumstances a member ought to resign his seat is one which always has been, and always will be, perplexing. The doctrine that he must resign simply because the local party association asks him to do so can be confidently asserted to have made little or no headway in either of the two great parties. But that a member who has pledged himself expressly or tacitly to the support of a certain policy, and then changes his mind, may, in some cases, be bound in honour to go back to his constituents, would hardly be denied. Whether such an obligation has arisen or not must depend upon the circumstances, and upon the definiteness and importance of the pledge or understanding. When Peel decided to bring in the bill for Catholic Emancipation, to which he had previously been openly opposed, he felt constrained to resign his seat for Oxford, and was defeated for reelection to his great grief;[497:2] but he did not feel under a similar duty when converted to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and was reproached on that account by Disraeli.[497:3]
A candidate who seeks election as a member of a party, or as a supporter of a cabinet, may well be considered to have given a general pledge to remain in the party or to support that cabinet, so that if he ceases entirely to do so he may be bound to resign. This is the form in which the question has arisen of late between members and local associations, but both obligation and actual practice are as unsettled to-day as similar questions have been in the past. When the South African War broke out a few members on the government side of the House felt unable to support the cabinet on that question. One of them, Sir Edward Clarke, who sat for Plymouth, was requested by the Conservative association of the borough to resign, and did so,[498:1] provoking comment favourable and otherwise. The same action was proposed in the case of Mr. (now Lord) Courtney; but he took the ground that as a Liberal Unionist he had professed to support the cabinet only on the issue of Home Rule, and had caused his independence upon other matters to be clearly understood. The motion to request his resignation was defeated in the Liberal Unionist association of his constituency,[498:2] but he was not renominated at the next general election. In the same Parliament Mr. (now Sir) George Doughty, who, for other reasons, crossed the floor from the Liberal to the government side, resigned his seat at Great Grimsby, and was reelected by an increased majority. While in the following Parliament Sir Michael Foster and Mr. Winston Churchill crossed in the opposite direction, without feeling bound to resign. The former, representing a university, had, indeed, stated at the election that he was by no means a strict party man, and retained his seat after a good deal of reflection.[498:3] Other cases of a radical change of policy could be cited, but these are enough to show that local party organisations have not fastened on their members chains that can be used with certainty to withdraw them from their seats even in so strong a case as an open breach with their party.
[Sidenote: Refusal to Renominate.]
The refusal of support for reelection, by men of decisive influence in a constituency, on the ground that they cannot approve the course pursued by their representative, is a thing that must always happen; although it did not take the form of withholding a nomination by a party association until bodies of that kind came into being. A refusal made by powerful individuals was not less effective because they were not styled a representative committee. But such refusals, by whomsoever made, have always been rare. Nothing, indeed, impresses a foreign observer of British politics more than the universal recognition of the claim of a sitting member to renomination. So far as his own party is concerned his tenure of office is good behaviour, and at the present day the local association very seldom fails to renominate him, save in two cases; one where his course of action has been nearly tantamount to a change of party, a going over to the enemy; the other where the party itself is deeply cleft over a vital question on which the leaders have given an uncertain sound. This last was true in the general election of 1906, when several of the local party organisations were sharply divided upon the issue of fiscal policy.
[Sidenote: Influence of Local Associations Used for Party Cohesion.]
The fear that the local associations, by dictating to their member a given course of action, by requesting his resignation, or by refusing him renomination, would degrade him to the position of the delegate of a local party machine has certainly not been realised; and it is not less instructive to observe the purposes for which such influence as they possess has actually been used. A stranger might have expected that it would be employed to promote local interests. But that has not been the case. No doubt members of Parliament, like all other popular representatives, are affected by the special interests of their constituents. On matters that touch these they must consider the welfare of their own locality. A measure like the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896, for example, which by relieving agricultural land from a part of its burden of rates, and making up the loss to the local authority from the National Treasury, changed the incidence of taxation between town and country, is sure, for local reasons, to detach some members from their regular party allegiance. But with the absence of national grants for local improvements, and with the judicial procedure for private bill legislation, the occasions, outside of the dockyard towns, where distinctly local interests come into play are not numerous. Moreover, in those cases the member is affected by the impression his action is likely to have upon the bulk of his constituents, or by the solicitation of a body that represents special interests, rather than by pressure from his local party association. Nor does the latter, at the present day, commonly try to enforce upon him the particular views held by its managers upon matters of public policy. On the contrary such action as it takes is, and has been from the beginning, almost wholly confined to urging him to support the leaders of the party.[500:1]
[Sidenote: Reasons for This.]
That the local associations act, not on behalf of local interests or opinions, but for the cohesion of the party as a whole, is the result of many causes, and not least among them of the fact that the member is commonly not a resident of the place for which he stands. This makes it easy for him to look upon himself as a representative of the nation at large, rather than a delegate of a borough. It saves him also from parochial sympathies and prejudices; and above all it relieves him from the necessity, he would otherwise be under, of serving an apprenticeship in the local association, and coming into Parliament a product of the machine. Another cause is the strength of national party ties, and the greater strictness of party discipline, of which more will be said hereafter. The local associations have fallen in with this tendency, and any substantial control they have acquired over their members has been exerted to make them follow, not local wishes, but the party leaders. Bagehot has remarked somewhere that the House of Commons has been saved from becoming a collection of delegates from local constituencies by the spirit of deference; but at the present day it is due in even larger measure to the spirit of party. That spirit has prevented the predominance of local interests which is the curse of many legislative bodies.
FOOTNOTES:
[492:1] Ostrogorski, I., 332-33.
[495:1] Ostrogorski, I., 194-203, 228-30. T. W. Reid, "Life of William Edward Forster," I., 517-20; II., 44-55, 206-14, 219-20, 501, 511, 535-36.
[496:1] I., 230-40.
[496:2] Cf. Jephson, "The Platform," II., 324-27.
[496:3] Lang, "Life of Sir Stafford Northcote," I., 141-50.
[497:1] Cf. Ostrogorski, I., 208-16, and see Ch. xxix., infra.
[497:2] Parker, "Life of Sir Robert Peel," II., 88, 101-2.
[497:3] "To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favour of protection, I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if I had relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also." Hans. 3 Ser. LXXXIII., 112.
[498:1] The Times, Feb. 10, 1900.
[498:2] Ibid., Feb. 23 and 26, March 9 and 15, 1900.
[498:3] Ibid., Nov. 29, 1902, Jan. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 1903.
[500:1] Occasionally some local interest is touched by an administrative act or order, and the member for the place exerts himself to get the grievance redressed; but except, perhaps, for asking a question in the House this hardly affects his attitude in Parliament, and the fact that he belongs to one party or the other has little or no weight with the administrative departments.
XXIX. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS
The Liberals
[Sidenote: The Conference at Birmingham in May, 1877.]
Not content with creating local associations of Liberals on a democratic basis, the Radicals at Birmingham conceived the idea of uniting them together in a great national federation which should represent the whole party throughout the kingdom. The Tories had formed, some years earlier, the National Union of Conservative Associations, and their great victory of 1874, attributed largely to better organisation, had made the time ripe for a more vigorous combination on the Liberal side. Moreover, the new associations framed on the Birmingham pattern had already shown the possibility of concerted action on national questions; for they had held simultaneously a large number of indignation meetings to denounce the Bulgarian atrocities. In May, 1877, therefore, they were invited to send delegates to a conference at Birmingham to form a national party organisation. The call for the meeting contained a clear statement of its purpose. "The essential feature of the proposed Federation," it declared, "is the principle which must henceforth govern the action of Liberals as a political party--namely, the direct participation of all members of the party in the direction, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and of progress to which priority shall be given. This object can be secured only by the organisation of the party upon a representative basis."[501:1]
[Sidenote: Proceedings Thereat.]
The conference was attended by delegates from ninety-five local associations, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had entered Parliament the year before, was called to the chair. In his opening speech he propounded with even greater distinctness the object of the plan. "We hope," he said, "that the time is not distant when we may see a meeting of what will be a really Liberal Parliament, outside the Imperial Legislature, and, unlike it, elected by universal suffrage, and with some regard for a fair distribution of political power." After speaking of the need of trusting to the popular initiative in framing the immediate policy of the party, he continued: "Our association will be founded on the belief that the Liberals in the country are more united than their leaders, and that they have attained a pretty clear conception of what are the changes in our Constitution which they believe will be beneficial to the country; that we may obtain their adoption by a little gentle pressure which concerted action may enable us to bring to bear, and that in this way we may exert a great influence on the future policy of the Liberal party." In the ensuing debates the same point of view was emphasised by Mr. William Harris, the founder of the Liberal "Four Hundred" in Birmingham, who declared that "The enfranchisement of the great mass of the people in towns had given the power of controlling representation into the hands of the people, but the direction of the policy of the party, the inauguration of measures to be submitted to Parliament, and the determination of questions on which the people should be asked to agitate, had been confined to the people who had managed the Liberal party; and it was, no doubt, the dissatisfaction of the Liberals with this state of things which led to the inaction of the Liberal party at the last election. . . . To find a remedy for this state of things was the object they invited the representatives present to consider that morning. . . . Why should they not at once and for all form a federation which, by collecting together the opinions of the majority of the people in all the great centres of political activity, should be able to speak on whatever questions arose with the full authority of the national voice."
The chief business of the conference was the adoption--without amendment--of the constitution which had been prepared beforehand. Mr. Chamberlain was then elected president of the Federation with great enthusiasm. A number of vice-presidents were taken from other towns; but the treasurer and honorary secretary were also citizens of Birmingham, while Mr. Schnadhorst, the great organiser, whose hand had been at work throughout the movement, became at once the active secretary. In short, all the offices of any real importance were retained in the town that had given birth to the Federation and was to control its movements for some years to come.
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's Benediction.]
[Sidenote: Aim of the Federation.]
The makers of the Federation had taken pains to secure for their plan the sanction of Mr. Gladstone, whose name, in spite of his resignation of the Liberal leadership, carried more weight than that of any one else in the party. He was present in Birmingham on the day of the conference, and in the evening addressed a public meeting. After stating that, in point of organisation, the Conservatives had for years been ahead, and would remain ahead so long as the Liberals adhered like them to a method of arbitrary selection of the representatives of party, founded mainly upon the power of the purse, he declared that it was, in his opinion, to the honour of Birmingham that she had "held up the banner of a wider and of a holier principle"; and he rejoiced that the large attendance of representatives of constituencies showed a disposition to adopt this admirable principle. Thus he gave the new organisation his blessing and bade it God-speed.[503:1] The public meeting ended with a resolution moved by Mr. Chamberlain, and adopted unanimously, which put into formal terms the aim of the movement, already so clearly set forth in debate. It said that, as the opinion of the people should have a full and direct expression in framing and supporting the policy of the Liberal party, this meeting heartily approves of the proposal of a Federation of Liberal Associations. In short, it was made perfectly evident at every step in the genesis of the Federation, in the call for a conference, in the speeches made thereat, and in the final resolution which closed the proceedings, that the new organisation was intended to take an important, and perhaps the leading, hand in directing the policy of the party. It was expected to be, as Mr. Chamberlain expressed it, a Liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; not, indeed, doing the work of that body, but arranging what work it should do, or rather what work the Liberal members should bring before it, and what attitude they should assume. By this process the initiative on all the greater issues, so far as the Liberal party was concerned, would be largely transferred from the Treasury Bench to the Federation. This was, indeed, expressly stated by some of the speakers as their principal desire, and with such an avowed object it is not surprising that the new machine for the manufacture of Liberal policy should have been popularly called the Caucus.
[Sidenote: Its Constitution.]
[Sidenote: The Council.]
The constitution adopted at the conference provided for a great representative assembly of the Federation, called the Council, composed entirely of delegates from the local associations, roughly in proportion to the population of their towns or districts. If the population was under fifty thousand the association was entitled to five representatives; if between fifty and one hundred thousand to ten; and if larger still to twenty representatives. The Council was to hold an annual meeting at which the president, vice-president, treasurer, and honorary secretary, were to be elected. Special meetings could also be called by the officers. Each annual meeting was to decide upon the place at which the next should be held, and in order to awake enthusiasm for the party all over the country it has been the habit, from that day to this, to hold the annual meeting at one after another of the chief provincial towns.
[Sidenote: The General Committee.]
The constitution set up one other body, partly but not wholly representative in character. It was called the General Committee, and consisted of the officers of the Federation; of delegates from the associations, two in number if the town or district had less than fifty thousand people, three if it had between fifty and one hundred, five if it had over one hundred thousand; and finally of not more than twenty-five additional members chosen by the Committee itself. The principal functions of the Committee were: to aid in the formation of local associations based on popular representation (no others being admitted to membership in the Federation); and to submit to the associations political questions upon which united action might be considered desirable. Unlike the Council, which was to visit different places, the General Committee was to meet in Birmingham until it decided otherwise. It was empowered to elect its own chairman, and it chose Mr. William Harris of that town, the father of the first representative association established there in 1868.
[Sidenote: The Federation Begins Actively.]
The Federation does not seem at first to have been universally attractive, even to the local associations formed after the Birmingham pattern, for it was joined at the outset by only about half as many of them as had sent delegates to the conference. But by January, 1879, when the first meeting of the Council was held at Leeds, the number had risen to one hundred and one. In its report at that meeting the General Committee showed that it had been very active. It had held no less than five sessions, and on the subject of the Eastern question it had stirred up many public meetings, and had organised a great deputation of local delegates to the Liberal leaders in the two Houses of Parliament. The Committee believed that its labours had not been fruitless, for the report said: "In regulating the action of the Liberal party, both in and out of Parliament, in bringing about closer union between leaders and followers . . . the efforts of the Federation resulted in a great and important measure of success. . . . But for the Liberal action, largely stimulated and guided by the Federated Liberal Associations, we should unquestionably have been at war with Russia." Mr. Chamberlain in his presidential address at the meeting of the Council at Leeds, speaking of any possible attempt to avoid a programme of domestic policy, when the Liberals again came to power, remarked: "I think we shall be justified in saying to Lord Hartington[506:1] that concession is a virtue that gains by being reciprocal." At this time the Radicals and the Whigs, or Liberals of the older type, still formed mutually distrustful wings of the party, and the Federation was the organ of the former.
In its regular session the Council passed no vote on public policy; but, at the public meeting in the evening, resolutions were adopted against the foreign policy of the Conservative government, and in favour of peace, retrenchment, and reform. At the meeting at Darlington in the following year a similar course was followed. Clearly the Federation was taking very seriously its mission as a spur to the Liberal steed; but equally clearly it was not as yet seeking to act as a parliament outside of the imperial legislature, and the centre of gravity was at this time not in the Council, but in the General Committee.
[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain Enters the Cabinet.]
Before the third meeting of the Council took place in January, 1881, an event had occurred that changed essentially the attitude of the Federation. The general election of 1880 had placed the Liberals in office with Mr. Gladstone at their head, and Mr. Chamberlain had been given a seat in the cabinet. It is commonly stated that his connection with the Federation was not the cause of his selection, and this is no doubt perfectly true in the sense that it was not the direct reason for offering him the seat. It is, indeed, well known that the choice lay between him and Sir Charles Dilke.[507:1] But as Mr. Chamberlain had sat less than four years in Parliament, and had never been in the ministry, it can hardly be denied that his position at the head of the new Liberal organisation, which had attracted so much attention throughout the country, was one of the factors in the political prominence that brought him within reach of the cabinet. His new office necessarily brought a change in his relation to the Federation. It was obviously unfitting for him to remain the chief officer of a body that might be used to bring pressure to bear upon Parliament and even upon his colleagues. He therefore resigned the post of president, and was succeeded by his friend and fellow-citizen Mr. Jesse Collings;[507:2] but he continued until the Liberal split in 1886 to make the principal speech at the evening public meeting held in connection with the annual session of the Council.
[Sidenote: The Federation Begins to Act as an Outside Parliament.]
The Federation lost none of its momentum from the change of ministry. On the contrary its activity increased, and in fact it began at this time to try its hand at framing a programme for the party in a rudimentary way. At its meeting in Birmingham in January, 1881, the Council passed, among other resolutions, one that urged upon the government the need of dealing at the earliest possible moment with various reforms, such as the amendment of the land laws, the extension of the franchise in rural districts, the redistribution of seats, and the creation of representative institutions in the counties. Similar resolutions were passed at the next annual meeting, which took place at Liverpool in October of the same year.
[Sidenote: It Puts Pressure upon Members of Parliament.]
Meanwhile the activity of the General Committee about current political questions continued; especially in the form of inciting local associations to constrain their representatives to vote with the cabinet. The annual report to the meeting of the Council at Liverpool said that some Liberals had been disposed to propose or support amendments which struck at the vital principle of the Irish Land Bill, while others abstained from voting. The Committee had thereupon decided that its "duty could be most properly and efficiently discharged by inviting the Liberal constituencies to bring legitimate pressure to bear upon those of their representatives, who, in a great national crisis, had failed to support the government." A circular was, therefore, issued to the federated associations which excited much complaint amongst the members of Parliament, but produced the desired effect.[508:1] When the bill was threatened with amendments of the House of Lords a meeting of delegates was called to attack the peers. This, in the opinion of the Committee, also had an effect, and helped to pass the bill.[508:2]
The systematic obstruction by Mr. Parnell and his followers in the Commons, and Mr. Gladstone's plan in 1882 for a new procedure which would enable the House to cut off debate, gave a fresh occasion for bringing the pressure of the federated associations to bear. A circular was sent out, and at once a large majority of them passed resolutions in support of the government's plan.[508:3] The General Committee held meetings also in connection with the Irish Coercion Act of that year, and sustained the cabinet heartily, while at the same time suggesting amendments. Some of these were adopted, and as the Committee complacently remarked, "The Federation may thus claim the credit of having on the one hand strengthened and guided public opinion in support of measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of order; and on the other of having sought to mitigate the severity of the proposed enactments."[509:1]
[Sidenote: It calls a General Conference of the Party.]
In 1883 the Federation took up energetically the extension of the franchise in the counties. It called a great conference of delegates at Leeds; acting on this occasion in cooperation with the National Reform Union of Manchester and the London and Counties Liberal Union, two rival organisations, which were, however, more local and less aggressive, and waned slowly before the greater vigour of the Federation.[509:2] The delegates met two thousand strong, representing more than five hundred associations, and adopted resolutions declaring that it was the duty of the government at the next session of Parliament to introduce bills to extend the county franchise and redistribute seats. Another conference in Scotland passed similar votes. "Taken together," the General Committee say in their annual report, "they represent the great bulk of the Liberal party throughout Great Britain . . . and . . . it is not too much to expect that such an expression of opinion will exercise decisive weight with the Members of the Government in the arrangement of their measures."
[Sidenote: Its Claims at This Time.]
These examples show the attitude and the activity of the Federation during the first Liberal ministry that held office after its formation. It claimed to represent, or perhaps one ought to say it claimed that it would when fully developed represent and that it could immediately evoke, the opinion of the whole Liberal party in the country. It was, therefore, convinced that it ought to exert a great influence upon the cabinet in the framing of measures; and it believed that it did so. There is no need of reviewing further the history of the Federation during this period, for its position remained unchanged until Mr. Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. But on two points the action of the Council is noteworthy in connection with its subsequent career. The resolutions passed at the annual meetings began to cover a wider field. This was especially true after the downfall of the Liberal government, in 1885, when they assumed the proportions of a full programme of internal reforms.[510:1] Then again amendments to the resolutions offered were moved from the floor. In 1883, for example, an amendment in favour of woman suffrage was carried; and in 1885 another demanding local option in regulating the sale of liquor.
[Sidenote: The Struggle over Home Rule.]
Mr. Gladstone's ministry having resigned in consequence of a defeat on the budget, the Conservatives came to power in June, 1885, and the general election at the end of the year, with the political upheavals to which it gave rise, proved a turning-point in the history of the Caucus. The election left both parties without a working majority; for the Conservatives and Home Rulers together almost exactly balanced the Liberals. In January the Conservatives were beaten on the address with the help of Irish votes, and Mr. Gladstone, returning to office, prepared a bill for a separate Parliament in Ireland. Some members of the moderate wing of the party had already left him during the debate on the address; and in March, while the Home Rule Bill and its complement, the Irish Land Bill, were under discussion in the cabinet, several of the ministers, including Mr. Chamberlain, resigned, one of their chief stumbling blocks being the exclusion of Irish representatives from the House of Commons. A struggle began at once for the control of the National Liberal Federation. On one side stood Mr. Gladstone with his cabinet, the official leaders of the party; on the other Mr. Chamberlain, hitherto the hero and idol of the Caucus, which he had nurtured and made great, which had treated him as its special representative in the cabinet, and had passed each year a vote to welcome him when he came to make his speech. He had declared in Parliament not long before that he was not the Caucus,[511:1] but it certainly expressed his views, and he fought its battles. During the late election he had made the country ring with appeals for the reforms advocated in its programme, especially the demand for labourers' allotments, embodied in the cry for "three acres and a cow." The Caucus was the weapon of the Radical wing of the party, while he was the greatest Radical champion, and although Kitson, the president of the Federation, was against him, the majority of the officers were on his side, among them William Harris, the founder of popular party organisation in Birmingham and still the chairman of the General Committee.
[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain is Defeated in the Council;]
On April 6, two days before Mr. Gladstone brought in the Home Rule Bill, the officers sent a circular to the federated associations asking them to consider the proposals of the government, as soon as they were made known, with a view to an expression of opinion by the Liberal party. A special meeting of the Council was then summoned to meet in London on May 15. There Mr. Harris moved a resolution drawn up by the officers, and expressing Mr. Chamberlain's ideas. It approved of giving the people of Ireland a large control over their own affairs by means of a legislative assembly; but, while declaring the confidence of the Council in Mr. Gladstone, requested him to amend his bill by retaining the Irish representatives at Westminster. The resolution was met by an amendment moved by the followers of the Prime Minister, commending the Home Rule Bill, thanking him for it, and assuring him of support in the present crisis. After a long and eager discussion the amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority.
[Sidenote: and Withdraws from the Federation.]
The result, so far as the Federation was concerned, was decisive. Six members of the General Committee, including Mr. Harris,[511:2] thereupon resigned; and several influential public men, among them Mr. Chamberlain, withdrew from the organisation. But the mass of the people think on broad lines, delight in strong contrasts easily understood, and have little sympathy with a half-way group that stands between the two opposing parties in the state. Hence like the Peelites in 1846, and the Free Trade Conservatives in 1905, the Liberal Unionists in 1886 were a body in which the members of Parliament were many and their following in the country comparatively few. The personal secessions from the Federation were not numerous, and not a single local association left the fold.[512:1] But the break soon became incurable. The opponents of the Home Rule Bill ceased to be regarded by their former companions in arms as members of the party, and were constrained to leave the Liberal associations;[512:2] while Mr. Chamberlain in conjunction not only with his Radical friends, but with all the Liberals who could not follow Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, including even Lord Hartington and the Whigs, founded a new organisation upon the old model, called the Liberal Unionist Association.
[Sidenote: New Position of the Federation.]
The National Liberal Federation did not save Mr. Gladstone and his adherents from defeat at the general election of 1886; but they had obtained control of the organisation, and must find out what to do with it. If a power, it had also been a source of anxiety, and under the wrong management it might again be used to put pressure on the members of Parliament, and even on the leaders themselves. It was useful and must be cajoled; but it was also dangerous and must be kept in check. Like a colt, it must be treated kindly, but must be broken to harness, and above all the reins must not be allowed to get into strange hands lest it learn bad tricks.
[Sidenote: Removal to London.]
Obviously the offices of the Federation could remain no longer at Birmingham, because in spite of the loss of his organisation Mr. Chamberlain still controlled the city so completely that his candidates carried every seat there at the election of 1886. The offices were, therefore, moved to London, where they were established in the same building with the Liberal Central Association--the body that acts in conjunction with the party whips--and what is more, M. Schnadhorst, the paid secretary of the Federation, who had taken Mr. Gladstone's side at the time of the split, was also appointed honorary secretary of the Association. This arrangement, which lasted until he retired in 1894, and has continued ever since under his successor Mr. Hudson, was not mentioned at the time in the printed reports of the General Committee, but its effects in bringing the leaders of the party into close touch with the management of the Federation can readily be imagined. Another link of the same kind was soon made. The General Committee had always been in the habit of distributing political literature, and in 1887 a publication department was created under the direction of a joint committee consisting of two representatives of the Central Association, and two of the Federation.[513:1] All these changes brought the Federation nearer to the party chiefs, and gave it also a more national stamp.
[Sidenote: The Federation Broadened.]
At the same time the constitution was slightly modified. The principal changes adopted in 1887 were: making the representation on the Council more nearly proportional to population; giving to each association for a whole constituency three votes in the General Committee, and to all others one vote apiece without regard to size; and lastly providing for district federations, especially for Wales, the Home Counties and London, which should be represented as separate organisations upon the governing bodies. The object of these changes appears to have been to make the Federation attractive to all Liberals throughout the country, for it had hitherto been regarded as preeminently an instrument of the Radical wing of the party, and many local associations had held aloof. The managers now tried to induce them to join in order to make the Federation as fully representative of the whole party as possible. In this they were successful in a high degree, as may be seen from the fact that the federated associations, which numbered in 1886, before the split over Home Rule, only two hundred and fifty-five, rose in two years to seven hundred and sixteen.[514:1] In carrying out this object there was no need of opening the door to local associations not framed upon a popular and representative basis, because societies of that kind had already been entirely superseded.[514:2]
[Sidenote: Relation to the Party Leaders.]
When the Federation, breaking away from Mr. Chamberlain, chose the side of Mr. Gladstone, the leaders of the party took it at once under their patronage, and began to show a keen interest in its proceedings. Not only did Mr. Gladstone address almost every year a great public meeting held in the evening during the session of the Council, as Mr. Chamberlain had been in the habit of doing before 1886; but other leaders of the party attended the meetings of the Council itself, and former cabinet ministers made speeches there in moving, seconding or supporting the resolutions. This practice magnified the apparent importance of the Federation, and lasted until the Liberals came into office again in 1892.
[Sidenote: Resolution of the Council]
[Sidenote: The Nottingham Programme.]
Meanwhile the Council, meeting as before in one after another of the great provincial towns, continued to adopt a series of resolutions setting forth the policy of the Liberal party. The embarrassment that might come from this in the future was not fully perceived at the time, and there was at first no attempt to discourage it. In fact a statement of the objects of the Federation published with the new rules in 1887 repeated the words originally written ten years earlier: "the essential feature of the Federation is the participation of all members of the party in the formation and direction of its policy, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and progress to which priority shall be given."[514:3] The resolutions became, in fact, more and more comprehensive, because the Council was naturally in the habit each year of reaffirming its previous votes about internal reforms, and adding new ones, the older expressions of opinion being after a while condensed into what was known as the "omnibus resolution." At the meeting held at Nottingham in 1887 a series of resolutions were adopted condemning coercion, urging Home Rule, the principle of one man one vote, registration reform, disestablishment of the Church in Wales, and the need of reform in the land laws, in labourers' allotments, county government, local option, London municipal government, and free education. The resolutions were talked about as a programme for the party, and the managers began to see that a danger was involved, but apparently as yet only the danger of splitting the party. The General Committee, therefore, in its next annual report, after speaking of the influence exerted by the Federation, remarked: "A force so great and so overwhelming requires to be directed with the utmost care and judgment, and your Committee asks for the support of the Federated Associations in applying it only to questions of a practical character, with regard to which there is a general consensus of opinion in the party. . . . Much has been said and written of the Nottingham programme. Neither the resolutions submitted at Nottingham, nor the resolutions which are submitted at the present meetings of the Council, are intended to constitute a political programme. The resolutions which were submitted last year, and those which will be submitted this year, refer to subjects upon which there is a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks. Every question added which is not thus approved tends to divide and to weaken the party."[515:1]
[Sidenote: Amendments Ruled Out of Order.]
The principle that resolutions on which there was not a general consensus of opinion ought not to be adopted by the Council was given a very definite application at that meeting. A motion stood upon the agenda in favour of one man one vote, and the payment out of the public rates of returning officers' expenses. The president, Sir James Kitson, stated that a delegate wished to add the question of the payment of members, but he must rule that it should be sent up by one of the federated associations with a request for inclusion in next year's programme. As the agenda was prepared by the General Committee, the action of the president was in effect a ruling that a question not placed by that committee upon the paper could not be proposed from the floor. A little later in the meeting he took the same position when a member wanted to bring forward the grievances of the Scotch crofters.[516:1]
The ruling was a complete innovation, for amendments of a similar character had not only been adopted by the Council in former years, in 1883 and 1885, for example; but in the great struggle for the control of the Federation in 1886, the defeat of Mr. Chamberlain had been brought about by an amendment in favour of the Home Rule Bill, which was carried in the Council by a large majority. The conditions, however, had changed. A freedom of making motions that was harmless when the Federation contained only one extreme wing of the Liberals, became a very different thing when it comprised all the elements in their ranks, and the ruling was now essential if motions were not to be made that might divide or weaken the party. It was repeated the next year when a delegate sought to add to the omnibus resolution a rider on the question of the eight-hour day;[516:2] and it was confirmed by the new president, Dr. Spence Watson, in 1891.[516:3] In fact, Dr. Watson in his opening address at the meeting explained that in his opinion the exclusion of any alteration or amendment of the resolutions submitted to the Council arose from the very nature of the case;[516:4] and thereafter the rule was firmly established in the proceedings of the body.
Three matters, however, deserve a brief notice in this connection. First, the rule has never been applied to the General Committee. At its meetings amendments may be freely moved and carried; but then the General Committee has power merely to discuss public questions, not to express definitely the opinion of the party.[517:1] Second, the rule in the Council would seem to apply only to amendments that may provoke a difference of opinion. At the meeting of 1889, for example, immediately after the eight-hour day amendment had been ruled out of order, another declaring "that Welsh disestablishment and disendowment should be dealt with as soon as Irish Home Rule is attained," was adopted, without objection from the president, with the unanimous approval of the meeting.[517:2] Third, the rule in the Council applies only to resolutions affecting the Liberal programme. It has not been applied to such a matter as a revision of the rules of the Federation, and in 1896 and 1897 several motions to amend proposals relating to the rules were made, and one of them, which occasioned a count of votes, was carried by a narrow majority.[517:3]
[Sidenote: Resolutions and Speakers Cut and Dried.]
With no questions submitted, save those on which there was believed to be a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks, and no amendments allowed, serious dissent about the adoption of the resolutions never occurred. Nor was there much real discussion. In accordance with a common English custom an agenda paper was distributed before the meeting, which contained not only a list of the resolutions to be brought forward, but also the names of the proposer, the seconder, and sometimes a third or fourth man who would support each of them. Now these persons were expected to make speeches long enough to fill together nearly the whole of the sitting; and hence the other delegates, although at liberty to take part, did not often feel inclined to make, upon an unopposed resolution, remarks that in the presence of one or two thousand people must be in the nature of an harangue. As a rule, therefore, the proceedings followed closely the agenda; a resolution was proposed, seconded, and supported as had been arranged, and was then carried unanimously.
Under such conditions the duty of preparing the resolutions for the Council, by drawing up the agenda, was of prime importance. If the Federation was no longer used, as in the days when it was guided from Birmingham, to press forward a policy upon which all Liberals were not agreed, it might now be supposed to speak with a more authoritative voice on behalf of the whole party; and while its votes were passed by common consent, the right to select the questions which should be presented for general acceptance conferred no small power. Nominally this function was intrusted to the General Committee, but that body, which was far too large for such a task, had been in the habit of delegating the preliminary work to a few of its own members under the title of the General Purposes Committee,[518:1] and in 1890 amendments to the rules of the Federation were proposed chiefly in order to confer the power definitely upon the smaller body. They provided that the General Purposes Committee should consist of the officers of the Federation, and of not more than twenty other members elected by the General Committee; that it should prepare the business for meetings of the Council, and generally carry on the affairs of the Federation. Although the change involved a concentration of power it was adopted at the time without opposition,[518:2] but was the cause of heart-burning at a later date.
[Sidenote: The Process of Preparing Resolutions.]
In his opening speech the next year the President explained the functions of the Council. "From the earliest time," he said, "it has been the practice and the rule of these meetings to make certain declarations. Some of us think those declarations are a little too numerous already. Some of us are afraid that the declarations partake somewhat of the character of a programme. Some of us look back to the good old time when we took up one burning question and fought it, and fought it until we carried it into law. In the first place this is a business meeting for the purpose of receiving the report. In the second place it has come to be a meeting for making certain declarations. It is not--and I wish to be particularly clear upon this point--for the discussion of subjects. But you will say 'The National Liberal Federation not to discuss subjects!' Certainly it can, and certainly it does. It does not discuss them at the annual meeting. It does discuss them at the General Committee meetings, and at the conferences held from time to time.[519:1] Great dissatisfaction is found with the fact that there are rules affecting the Federation. No federation, no society of any kind, could ever exist without rules. There must be absolute rules of procedure, and one of the rules of the proceedings of these meetings has been that beforehand the General Purposes Committee sends out to every association which is federated--between 800 and 900--to ascertain what the wishes of that association may be. From the replies it receives, from prior resolutions, from the business which has been transacted at the General Committee meetings of the Federation and at the conferences, the General Purposes Committee prepares the resolutions which are submitted, and those resolutions are either accepted or rejected. They are not altered or amended. That arises from the very nature of the case. . . . It is absolutely impossible to discuss questions in which great numbers of men take a great interest and hold different views in a gathering of this character. The first discussion must take place in the individual associations. The individual associations must send up their delegates to our General Committee meetings and conferences, and the matter must be threshed out there, and there must be clear evidence as to the question having received general acceptance before it comes to a meeting of this kind." Then, after referring to the question of an eight-hour day, about which the associations showed a wide difference of opinion, he added: "Do you think we wish to stifle discussion? Why, discussion is the very life-blood of Liberalism. We long for discussion of all questions. We wish to have further discussion of this question, a discussion searching out to the very bottom of the matter. We don't want a hap-hazard discussion in a great meeting where it is absolutely impossible that men can give their real opinions, can argue the question out, and go down to the roots of the matter."[520:1]
[Sidenote: Contrast with the Original Plan.]
It would be difficult to express more forcibly the change that had come over the Federation, in the functions, and still more in the aims, of the Council meetings. According to the original plan the Federation was to be a true Liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; and it was a far cry from that conception to a body voting, without amendment or real debate, ratifications of measures prearranged by a small committee, and found by previous inquiry to express the universal sentiment of the party. If the Federation, with its General Purposes Committee, its General Committee and its Council, still remained a shadow of a Liberal parliament, it was one somewhat after the model of Napoleon's legislature with its Council of State, its Tribunate, and its Legislative Assembly, where one body prepared the laws, another debated, and a third voted them.[520:2]
[Sidenote: The Newcastle Programme.]
As the General Purposes Committee placed upon the agenda for the Council only resolutions on which the party was believed to be united, it is not strange that they were invariably carried, and almost always with substantial unanimity. The surprising thing is the number of questions on which the whole body of Liberals appeared to agree; but it must be remembered that the party was in Opposition, so that neither the leaders, nor any one else, could make any effort at present to put into effect the resolutions that had been voted. They expressed merely aspirations, and the impulse of every one was to assent to any proposal for a reform to which he had no fixed objection. This was the more true because all assemblies of that kind are attended most largely by the ardent or advanced members of the organisation, the more moderate elements caring far less to be present. The resolutions, therefore, increased until they reached high-water mark at the very meeting of 1891,[521:1] where Dr. Spence Watson in his opening address said he thought them too numerous already. From the town where the Council met that year the resolutions became known as the "Newcastle Programme." At the evening meeting Mr. Gladstone took up, one after another, most of the subjects included therein, and dwelt upon the importance of each of them; but before doing so he remarked that when the Liberals came to power they would want the additional virtue of patience, because with the surfeit of work to be done it would be difficult to choose proper subjects of immediate attention.[521:2]
The virtue of patience was needed very soon. The Council had met at Newcastle in October, 1891. Owing to a change in the date of meeting, it was not called together again until January, 1893; and in the meanwhile a Liberal ministry had come into office. The Council took up no new questions, and passed a single modest resolution relating to the party policy, saying "That this Council confirms the series of Resolutions known as 'the Newcastle Programme,' and confidently expects that Mr. Gladstone's government will promptly introduce into the House of Commons Bills embodying Reforms which have been declared again and again by this Council to be essential to the welfare of the people of the United Kingdom."[522:1] As the reforms contained in the Newcastle Programme could hardly have been embodied in statutes in less than ten years by a cabinet with a large and homogeneous majority, the demand that bills upon all those subjects should be promptly introduced by a ministry with a very narrow majority, and depending for its life upon the support of Irish votes, showed the need of patience rather than its presence. In fact most of the speakers at the meeting emphasised the reforms in which they were especially interested, and the rest urged the importance of the whole array.
[Sidenote: Its Effects.]
The wealth of the programme speedily caused embarrassment to the leaders of the party. Home Rule, as every one admitted, was entitled to the first place; but after that had been put on the shelf by the House of Lords difficulties arose, for the Liberals in the House of Commons were not all of one mind. Some of them were more interested in one reform, some in another, and each had an equal right to feel that his subject had been accepted as an essential part of the Liberal policy deserving immediate attention. People said that the traditional division into parties was passing away, that the parties were falling apart into groups, like those in continental legislatures. The assertion was frequently repeated, although it was disproved by the constancy with which the ministers were supported by their followers in a House of Commons where the defection of a dozen members at any moment would have turned the scale. Month after month the whips came regularly to the table with their slight margin of Liberal votes. In fact the government defeats on minor matters were less frequent than in Mr. Gladstone's previous administration; and no defeat on a question of political importance occurred until June, 1895, when it was accomplished by the trick of bringing Conservatives secretly into the House through the terrace. After that defeat the ministers resigned, not because their followers had ceased to vote with them, but because they were weary of a hopeless struggle. Nevertheless the Newcastle Programme with its magnificent promises had been a source of weakness to them. It restrained their freedom of action, and forced their hands. In short, it hampered their initiative in party policy, and it caused disappointment among their followers.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Criticism.]
Lord Rosebery, who had succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894, felt the bad effects of the Newcastle Programme. At the public meeting, held when the Council met in January, 1895, he spoke of the function of the Federation in threshing out the issues lying before the party, and that of the cabinet in winnowing them, selecting from a vast field the bills to be brought forward in the session. "Now, this programme," he went on, "as it stands now, without any addition, would require many energetic years in which a strong Government, supported by a united and powerful Liberal Party, would have to do their best to carry into effect (sic). But what is sometimes forgotten is this--that we cannot pass all the measures of this programme simultaneously. . . . Whilst this process of winnowing is going on, all Cabinet Ministers are subject to a bombardment of correspondence . . . by appeals, some of them menacing, some of them coaxing and cajoling, but all of them extremely earnest, and praying that the particular hobby of the writer shall be made the first Government Bill. . . . Any delay in pushing forward each measure that has been recorded in what is called the Newcastle programme implies, we are told, the alienation of all the earnest and thoughtful members of the Liberal Party--in fact, the backbone of the Liberal Party. And I have come to the conclusion that the Liberal Party is extremely rich in backbones."[523:1]
At the public meeting in the following year, after the fall of his government, he spoke even more plainly. He said there had been complaint that officialdom had crept into the National Liberal Federation. His own experience was that it played a very subordinate part there, and if he had a secret hope on the subject, it was that officialdom might have a little more to do with the organisation. "I remember two occasions on which the National Liberal Federation took the bit between its teeth and, certainly uninspired by officialdom, took very remarkable action. The first occasion was when it made at Newcastle a programme, a very celebrated expression of faith which, I confess, was in my opinion too long for practical purposes."[524:1] Later in alluding to the fall of his ministry he asked: "Why did it fall? It fell because, with a chivalrous sense of honour too rare in politics, and with inadequate means, it determined to fulfil all the pledges that it had given in Opposition. It had, I think, given too many pledges--partly owing to you, Dr. Spence Watson. It had, I think, assumed too many responsibilities, it had taken a burden too heavy for its back, or the back of any Government or any Parliament, to bear."[524:2]
[Sidenote: The Programme Cut Down after 1894.]
The lesson of the Newcastle Programme had not been in vain. Already in 1895 the "omnibus resolution," which, by way of comprehensive reform, threatened the interests of the landlord, the manufacturer, the mine owner, the Church, and the House of Lords, had been omitted, although most of the matters covered by it were made the subject of special votes. The next year the programme was left out altogether. Apart from resolutions criticising the Conservative government for its foreign policy in Armenia and Egypt, and stating on what terms an education bill ought to be based, the only vote dealing with the policy of the Liberal party declared simply, "That this Council reaffirms its adherence to the principles for which the Federation has always contended," a confession of faith not likely to cause acute discomfort to a future cabinet. As the years went by the pressure for specific reforms was too strong to be resisted, and resolutions dealing with them were adopted; but they have never again reached anything resembling the range, the well-nigh revolutionary proportions, or the suicidal capacity, of the Newcastle Programme.
[Sidenote: Complaints that the Whips Control the Federation.]
A political, like a military, defeat is apt to cause mutual recriminations. If Lord Rosebery lamented that the leaders in Parliament had been overburdened by the programme of the Federation, there were Radicals aggrieved by the control which, in their opinion, the leaders, acting through the whips and the Liberal Central Association, had acquired over the Federation. The complaints were so loud, and so much discussed in the press, that Dr. Spence Watson felt constrained to deal with them in his presidential address. The charge was that by having the same quarters, and the same secretary (Mr. Hudson) the Federation had been fused with and merged into the Central Association. This, he insisted, was absolutely incorrect, the two organisations having duties which lay quite apart one from the other; and he defended the existing connection between them as a good business arrangement, which had resulted in much better work.[525:1] The charge in another form was that the General Purposes Committee, in preparing the resolutions for the Council, was swayed by the whips by means of Mr. Hudson. Of this he said: "We are told that the resolutions are not genuine; that they are forced upon us by the Whips through the secretary, Mr. Hudson. No man admires the work of Mr. Hudson more than I do, because no man sees more of his work. I think Mr. Hudson, if he were so disposed, which I imagine is very far from his disposition, would find it very difficult to impose the will of the Whips upon us. We are not exactly the men to be dealt with in that way. Now, gentlemen, I wish to put this quite plainly. There is not a grain of truth in it. I have written down these words because I wish to be precise. I assert that not a single resolution has ever, at all events since 1886, been suggested, hinted at, drawn, altered, or manipulated by any Whip or leader whatsoever."[525:2]
[Sidenote: Power Concentrated in an Executive Committee in 1896.]
Although the statement was no doubt true, and would perhaps continue to be true, the efficiency of the party might well depend upon having the resolutions of the Council prepared by a small body of men of proved discretion, who would insert nothing embarrassing to the leaders. In view of the experience with the Newcastle Programme it might be wise to take even greater care in the selection of men who could understand the situation of the front bench, and to increase their powers. At a meeting of the General Committee, at Leeds, in December, 1895, a vote was passed instructing the General Purposes Committee "to consider whether the machinery of the Federation can be made more representative and democratic." Democracy is a principle in whose name strange things are done; and in accordance with this vote a plan was reported for a revision of the rules, in which the principal changes proposed would strengthen the hands of the General Purposes Committee, renamed the Executive Committee. That body was directed to invite expressions of opinion from the federated associations about the subjects to be brought before the Council; was confirmed in its power to frame the resolutions to be submitted;[526:1] and was given authority to decide any questions of procedure that might arise during the sessions of the Council.[526:2] In order, as the General Committee said in their report, to "afford an opportunity for the ventilation of views upon subjects not dealt with in the resolutions," it was provided that upon the motion to adopt the annual report "the Council shall be open for the free discussion of any matter affecting the policy and principles of the Liberal party." A mere chance to talk supplies a useful safety valve, without doing harm; and in this case the talk could not be followed by an expression of opinion on the part of the Council, for no vote would be in order save to accept, or reject, or refer back, the annual report.[526:3] The discussion would be like that in the House of Commons on the motion to adjourn over Easter.
Hitherto the action of the General Committee had been entirely free, but the revised rules intrusted the Executive Committee with the duty of preparing the business for that body as well as for the Council; not, indeed, in the same absolute way, for any federated association could propose an amendment or further resolution, provided they gave notice thereof to the secretary five days, at least, before the meeting. Moreover the Executive Committee was given power to nominate its own members. Every association had also a right to make nominations, but these were not, like those of the Executive Committee, circulated among the local associations before the meeting.[527:1]
[Sidenote: Members of Parliament Excluded Therefrom.]
Finally, members of Parliament were declared ineligible to the Executive Committee. To a question why they were excluded, the chairman of the General Committee "replied that it had always been considered desirable that when a man became a Member of Parliament he should retire from the Executive, and that they should be free from all thought of outside influence."[527:2] The answer does not make it perfectly clear whether the object of the provision was to free the members of Parliament from the influence of the Committee, or the Committee from the influence of the members. Both results were in fact attained. The members of the House were left to the sole tutelage of the whips, so far as the Federation was concerned, for since 1886 it had ceased altogether from the practice of stirring up local associations to bring pressure to bear upon their representatives;[528:1] and, on the other hand, the new rule removed any opportunity for a member of Parliament to use, or appear to use, the Committee for his own political advancement.[528:2] Lord Randolph Churchill's doings in the National Union of Conservative Associations--to be related in the next chapter--was still fresh in men's minds. It is, indeed, a striking fact that from the time when the Liberals came to power in 1892 the leaders ceased for some years to attend even the sittings of the Council, which were left wholly to the lesser lights.[528:3] One of the chiefs spoke at a public evening meeting; but they all stayed away from the Council itself where business was transacted, thus depriving it of the weight that came from having its words sanctioned by the presence of the real leaders of the party.
[Sidenote: Opposition to the Changes.]
During the debate on the new rules in the Council,[528:4] a number of amendments were moved, which aimed at preventing the concentration of power in the hands of the General and Executive Committees. Of this nature were motions that the Executive Committee should be chosen by the Council; that amendments to the agenda and further resolutions might be proposed at Council meetings; that the agenda should be prepared by the General, instead of the Executive, Committee; and that the Executive Committee should not have power to nominate its own members. As these amendments struck at the very root of the revision, none of them were carried, and in fact the new rules were adopted without substantial alteration.
[Sidenote: Renewed Discussion in 1897 and 1898.]
At the meeting in the following year, 1897, the same questions were raised again. Changes in the rules were proposed, similar in character to the amendments rejected in 1896, and brought forward with the same object. They were urged on the ground that the control ought to be taken from the hands of the few and placed in the hands of the many, that at present "the whole thing was wire-pulled from the top," that the Liberal party had got out of touch with the Labour party, and that the associations had not so much opportunity as they ought to have to bring matters before the Council. In the end the proposals were shelved by being referred to the Executive Committee.[529:1] The next report of the General Committee treated the matter with great frankness: "The Annual Council Meeting," we read, "must either be (a) an open conference for the debate of multitudinous questions about which the party has come to no agreement, or (b) an Assembly of a declaratory character to emphasise matters upon which the party are agreed. The former function is impossible, if merely because the Council may consist of more than a thousand persons sitting for less than a dozen hours. . . . It is inevitable (and there is no reason why it should not be frankly recognised) that the business of the Council Meeting should be more or less 'cut and dried' beforehand. . . . These resolutions are intended to inform the party leaders of the subjects in dealing with which they may rely upon the support of the party as a whole. The Federation does not interfere with the time or order in which questions should be taken up. That is the province of the leaders of the party."[529:2]
The report went on to discuss the occult question: Who was responsible for the Newcastle Programme? "The Federation," it said, "had steadily refused to formulate a political programme. . . . How then did the Newcastle Programme come into existence? No Newcastle Programme was ever framed by the Federation or by any one connected with it." The Council merely passed a number of resolutions urging reforms, all of which had been demanded at previous meetings. "But the resolutions of this particular meeting received a special significance from the fact that . . . to the surprise of every one, our great leader, Mr. Gladstone . . . took up seriatim the resolutions which had been passed at the Council Meetings and gave them the weight of his direct approval. The newspapers at once spoke of the Newcastle Programme."[530:1] Poor Mr. Gladstone! It seems that by taking the action of the Federation too seriously, he became quite unconsciously[530:2] the unfortunate author of the Newcastle Programme.
A few members protested vehemently in favour of the changes they had proposed in the rules, but the report of the General Committee was adopted with only two dissentients; and thus the opposition to the concentration of power in the hands of a small executive body was laid to rest. But it must be observed that if the direction of the Federation is in the hands of a few men, their power is exerted, not to incite, but to restrain the Council, not to use it to carry through a policy of their own, but to prevent it from doing something indiscreet.
[Sidenote: Discussion in the Press.]
The ill-starred Newcastle Programme, and the concentration of authority within the Liberal organisation to which it gave rise, provoked discussion in the press as well as in the Federation itself, with the contending views painted in higher colours. One can find articles written to prove that the political machine had taken the place of public opinion;[530:3] or that the Federation acted at the instigation of the whips, was as much subject to the Liberal Government as the Board of Trade, and was used by the leaders to register opinions upon questions on which the party itself was divided;[531:1] or finally that the Federation had become an anti-democratic juggernaut, which elevated the aristocratic elements in the party and killed enthusiasm.[531:2] Opinions of this kind are exaggerated, springing from dread of the organisation, or disappointment at the results achieved.
Another writer tells us more calmly that the evolution of Liberal policy goes through three stages: first, a free discussion in the General Committee, which shows the trend if not the balance of opinion, but which does not add articles to the party programme, because the Federation does not act by majorities, and all the associations may not have sent delegates to the committee; second, the adoption by the Council, without amendment or real debate, of resolutions which have been found to command the assent of practically the whole party; and third, the unfettered selection by the Liberal cabinet from among those resolutions, of the measures they think it best to bring before Parliament.[531:3] The writer states correctly the theory of the matter; and sees clearly that although the General Committee is allowed to discuss very freely and to act by majority, its decisions are not considered authoritative, while the Council which speaks in the name of the party is not permitted to deal at all with questions that might arouse a serious difference of opinion.
[Sidenote: The General Committee and Council at Work.]
[Sidenote: Example in the Boer War.]
The actual working of the National Liberal Federation is well illustrated by its action in regard to the Boer War, a matter on which the Liberals were divided. At a meeting of the General Committee in December, 1899, a resolution was proposed, saying that there was much to deplore in the conduct of negotiations with President Kruger, and that in making peace due regard must be paid to the wishes of all sections of the South African population; but avoiding carefully any statement whether the war was inevitable or not. A second clause simply praised the soldiers and expressed sympathy with the sufferers. A motion was made to add somewhat incongruously in the clause a recital that "a wise statesmanship could and should have avoided" the war, and it was carried by 114 votes to 94.[532:1] But this was treated merely as the opinion of the persons present, not as binding the party; and when the agenda was prepared for the meeting of the Council in the following March, the Executive Committee, wishing to avoid points of difference, omitted the words that had been inserted. The principal resolution relating to the war was introduced in the Council by a speech in which the mover virtually threw the blame for the war upon the Boers. This raised a storm of dissent, and speakers took the other side with no mild language. But an amendment could not be moved, and after the most contradictory opinions had been uttered the resolution was adopted unanimously.[532:2] The members of the General Committee, therefore, expressed their views individually and collectively, but ineffectually, while in the larger assembly the members could personally declare their opinions, but the Council as a whole could not. It could only pass a resolution carefully drawn so as to conceal the differences of opinion that existed.
[Sidenote: Selection of the Party Leader.]
At one time the Federation was tempted to lay its hand on a matter even more delicate than the formulation of party policy, and that is the selection of the party leader. On Dec. 13, 1898, Sir William Harcourt's resignation of the Liberal leadership in the House of Commons was made public, and it so happened that the General Committee met three days later. There a motion was made requesting him to reconsider his position, and another "That, in the opinion of this meeting, the question of the leadership of the Liberal party should be taken into immediate consideration, and calls upon the leaders to close up their ranks." In deference, however, to a strong feeling that the motions did not come within the functions of the Federation they were withdrawn;[533:1] and before the Council met the Liberals in the House of Commons had chosen Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as their leader. The decision in the Committee was wise, for the success of parliamentary government depends upon the fact that the leaders in the Commons possess the influence required to command the support of their followers, and this can be secured only by having them selected, formally or informally, by the members of the party in Parliament. A man chosen by a popular body outside might well be quite unable to lead the House.
[Sidenote: The Federation is Muzzled.]
The National Liberal Federation has now had a history of thirty years, and it has proved very different from what it was originally intended to be. As an organisation it is highly useful to the party in many ways. It does valuable work in promoting local organisation, in distributing party literature, in collecting information, and in keeping the Liberal workers throughout the country alert. Even the Council does good service in arousing enthusiasm, and preserving an appearance of participation by the rank and file in the management of party affairs. But as a Liberal parliament outside of the imperial legislature, which directs the policy of the party, the Federation is a sham. The General Committee can debate and act freely, but the lack of a sufficiently representative character, and the almost invariable absence of all the leading Liberals,[533:2] deprives its deliberations of any real might; while the Council is effectively muzzled. Its resolutions are carefully prepared so as to express no opinions on which every one does not agree, and hence they declare nothing that every one did not know already. Nevertheless it involves some dangers. Popular excitement on some question might force the Executive Committee to bring in unwise resolutions; the Council itself might become roused, and by a change in the rules tear off the muzzle; and it is not inconceivable that a man with popular talents and a demagogic temperament might capture the organisation, and use it to combat the leaders and thrust himself into power.
To a person unfamiliar with the hopes and fears inspired by the Caucus a generation ago, a discussion of this length about a body that wields very little real power may seem like a long chapter on the snakes in Iceland; but there are a couple of good reasons for treating the subject thoroughly. The very fact that the Caucus was regarded as the coming form of democracy, destined to undermine the older political institutions of the nation, makes its subsequent history important, for it shows that among a highly practical people democratic theories about direct expression of the popular will yield to the exigencies of actual public life. The story of the Caucus illustrates also the central conception of this book, that in the English parliamentary system leadership must be in the hands of the parliamentary leaders. We have seen this principle at work in the House of Commons, and a popular organisation, in attempting to direct party policy, strove against it in vain. That the result is not an accident may be seen from the experience of the Conservative party, where a similar movement, not less dramatic at times, has travelled through different paths to the same end.
FOOTNOTES:
[501:1] These and the following statements are taken from the official "Proceedings attending the formation of the National Federation of Liberal Associations with Report of Conference held in Birmingham on Thursday, May 31, 1877." Since this chapter was written, "The National Liberal Federation, from its Commencement to the General Election of 1906," has been published by Dr. Robert Spence Watson, for many years its president. But although a valuable history of the organisation, and a vigorous statement of the opinions held by its leaders, the book adds little to the information that may be gathered from other sources, for the author does not take us behind the scenes.
[503:1] M. Ostrogorski points out very clearly how important it was for the standing of the Federation to have the real Liberal leader for its sponsor, and how this was possible, because he was not the nominal leader. I., 181.
[506:1] Then the Liberal leader in the House of Commons. The statements of what took place at these meetings are taken from the annual reports published by the Federation.
[507:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 630. Jeyes, "Mr. Chamberlain," 85-86.
[507:2] Mr. Collings remained president only one year, and his successors were from other towns.
[508:1] Rep. of 1881, cf. Ostrogorski, I., 209-11.
[508:2] Political education had always been one of the functions of the Federation, and it was in the habit of distributing party literature. In 1881 it sent out copies of two speeches by Mr. Chamberlain. These were, in fact, the only speeches it circulated that year.
[508:3] Rep. of meeting of General Committee, March 6, 1882; Ann. Rep. to Council, December, 1882, cf. Ostrogorski, I., 213-15.
[509:1] Ann. Rep. to Council, December, 1882.
[509:2] Cf. Ostrogorski, I., 218-25.
[510:1] The resolutions adopted by the Council in October, 1885, related to primogeniture and entail, tenure and compensation of tenants, registration of land titles, enfranchisement of leaseholders, compulsory purchase of land for labourers, public elementary schools, election of rural governing bodies, and disestablishment of the Church.
[511:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCXCIII., 573 (Oct. 30, 1884).
[511:2] Mr. Harris came back a few years later and served on the executive body.
[512:1] Rep. of the Gen. Com. in 1886.
[512:2] Cf. Ostrogorski, I., 293, 307-9.
[513:1] Rep. of 1887, pp. 28, 29, 40.
[514:1] Rep. of 1888, p. 14.
[514:2] Ibid., p. 12.
[514:3] Ibid., 1887, p. 39.
[515:1] Rep. of 1888, pp. 13, 14.
[516:1] Rep. of 1888, pp. 109, 112.
[516:2] Ibid., 1889, pp. 128-29.
[516:3] Ibid., 1891, pp. 87, 96.
[516:4] Ibid., p. 42. On other occasions he repeated the statement, adding that the practice saved the Council the risk from which the Union of Conservative Associations had suffered, of having alterations made suddenly under the magic strains of eloquence. Rep. of 1895, p. 58; 1896, p. 57.
[517:1] As late as 1894 the General Committee declared that the Registration Bill of the Liberal government was not satisfactory and urged its amendment. Rep. of 1894.
[517:2] Rep. of 1889, p. 129.
[517:3] Ibid., 1896, pp. 73-78; Rep. of 1897, pp. 77-80.
[518:1] Rep. of 1890, p. 29.
[518:2] Ibid., pp. 6-8, 58.
[519:1] These were special conferences of delegates from the associations of the whole, or of some part, of the country. They were not infrequently held.
[520:1] Rep. for 1891, pp. 42-44.
[520:2] "Now whilst the Council of the Federation declares what the party as a whole desires, the General Committee attempts by preliminary discussion to arrive at what the desires are. As the General Committee examines but does not declare, the freest and fullest discussion takes place at its meetings." Rep. of 1898, p. 42.
[521:1] Rep. of 1891, pp. 6-8.
[521:2] Ibid., p. 101.
[522:1] Rep. of 1892, p. 6.
[523:1] Rep. of 1895, pp. 111-13.
[524:1] The other occasion was when it held a conference on the subject of the House of Lords.
[524:2] Rep. of 1896, pp. 109, 119
[525:1] Rep. of 1896, pp. 58-60.
[525:2] Ibid., p. 58.
[526:1] The agenda was to be sent to the associations in advance of the meeting.
[526:2] In 1902 the Committee itself proposed at the Council meeting, and carried a substitute for its own resolution. Rep. of 1902, p. 70.
[526:3] It was so ruled. Rep. of 1898, p. 60.
[527:1] The text of this provision was: "One month, at least, prior to the meeting of the General Committee at which the Executive Committee is to be elected, a list of those Members of the existing Executive Committee who offer themselves for reelection, together with the names of any others nominated by the Executive Committee, shall be sent to each of the Federated Associations. Federated Associations desiring to nominate other Candidates for the Executive Committee shall send in formal nominations to the Secretary of the Federation at least fourteen days before the meeting. In the event of nominations exceeding the number to be elected, a ballot will be taken at the meeting of the General Committee."
[527:2] Rep. of 1896, p. 77.
[528:1] This appears from the annual reports of the General Committee, which did, however, continue for some years to send circulars to local associations urging them to pass resolutions of a general character.
[528:2] At the same time all the Liberal members of Parliament were made ex officio members of the Council, where their presence was expected to exert a restraining influence upon the extreme and impracticable elements in the party.
[528:3] After the party had been out of power many years this rule was not rigidly observed. In 1903, for example, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman spoke in support of one of the resolutions. Rep. of 1903, p. 75.
[528:4] Rep. of 1896, pp. 71-78.
[529:1] Rep. of 1897, pp. 75-80. One of the arguments in favour of the election of the Executive Committee by the General Committee was that the latter was more fairly representative than the Council, because the delegates to the Council from the part of the country where the meeting was held attended in greater numbers than from more distant places.
[529:2] Ibid., 1898, pp. 39, 41.
[530:1] Rep. of 1898, pp. 40-41.
[530:2] Ibid., pp. 54-55.
[530:3] "The Ministry of the Masses," Edinburgh Review, July, 1894.
[531:1] "The Reorganisation of Liberalism," James Annand, New Review, November, 1895.
[531:2] "The Future of Liberalism," Fortnightly Review, January, 1898.
[531:3] "The National Liberal Federation," Contemporary Review, February, 1898.
[532:1] Rep. of 1900, p. 15.
[532:2] Ibid., pp. 63-70.
[533:1] Rep. of 1899, pp. 21, 24.
[533:2] The exceptions are rare. In 1903, however, Mr. Bryce moved a resolution on education. Rep. of 1903, p. 20.