Z0375723

WERE UNIONIST DOUBTS ABOUT THEIR

ELECTORAL STRENGTH IN 1913 AND 1914
JUSTIFIED?

The outbreak of World War I has proven inconvenient for historians of the Unionist party.
It led to the postponement of the general election that otherwise would have taken place in
late 1914 or 1915 and this has limited the extent to which it has been possible to identify long-
term trends before 1914. This essay considers what an election in 1914 or 1915 might have
demonstrated and whether the Unionists were on the verge of victory.

Given Green’s claim that this period saw a ‘crisis of conservatism’, the present study
evaluates the extent to which this ‘crisis’ persisted up to the outbreak of war.1 In the context
of the historiography of the Conservative Party, it contributes to an understanding of
conservative electoral success, which is, as Ball and Holliday have suggested, the primary
reason for their significance.2 This study also has implications for interpretations of the
Conservative party’s interwar dominance and of the political impact of World War I. If the
Unionist party in 1914 was in a strong electoral position, then its subsequent success might
be attributed to long-term changes in the social, political and economic context. If, however,
the Unionist party was in a weak electoral position in 1914, then this supports the notion that
World War I was a ‘rampant omnibus’ that fundamentally altered British politics.

The essay examines Unionist strength in the light of contemporary political issues (in
particular tariff reform and Ireland) and of party policy and strategy. This is considered in
the context of the strengths of competing political parties because electoral potency is best
understood in relative terms. Green’s study of the ‘crisis of conservatism’ has prompted a
reconsideration of many important issues. However, his emphasis on the Conservative party
in isolation has limited the usefulness of his study. There are numerous other works

1 E. H. H. Green, The Crisis of Conservatism: The Politics, Economics and Ideology of the British Conservative
Party, 1880-1914 (London, 1995); E. H. H. Green, ‘Radical Conservatism: The Electoral Genesis of Tariff
Reform’, Historical Journal 28 (1985), pp. 667-692.
2 Stuart Ball and Ian Holliday (eds.), Mass Conservatism: The Conservatives and the Public since the 1880s

(London, 2002), p. 1.
Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

published in recent years that might have benefited from a broader perspective.3 It is argued
that tariff reform was a short-term problem for Unionists that had significantly abated by
1913. While the party’s response to home rule challenged its credibility, its negative strategy
meant it was able to win broad support, and the problems experienced by the government
boded well for the Unionists had they fought a general election in 1914 or 1915.

In 1906, the Unionists saw their parliamentary representation reduced to just 156 MPs.
This defeat owed much to the fact that the party had adopted a policy of tariff reform and its
difficulty in winning electoral support owed much to its continued links with this policy up to
1913. The significance of this was that it was a short-term reason for Unionist misfortunes,
suggesting that their exclusion from government was a product of contingent political
circumstances. Tariff reform was unpopular with voters who faced the prospect of the ‘dear
loaf’ and there was understandable suspicion of a policy that promised increased costs of
living. The Morning Leader claimed that ‘Tariff Reform means 45,000,000lb of horseflesh a
year’ and the Daily Chronicle suggested that it would lead to ‘horse sausage for all’.4 Long-
term promises of increased incomes and of social reform funded by tariff reform did not
mitigate the short-term prospect of increases in the cost of living. The most significant impact
of tariff reform was that it narrowed Unionist appeal. This was critical given that working-
class support was central to the party’s success up to 1906,5 which was demonstrated by the
disastrous effect that tariff reform had on the Unionist vote in the north.6
That tariff reform was adopted by the party after 1903 reflected strategic concerns. This
was important because it meant that it remained sufficiently flexible to reject the policy on
the same grounds, and to work to recover the electoral support that it had lost. Certain
elements of the party remained committed to tariff reform but, after 1911, its failure to win
popular support had discredited it and groups such as the Tariff Reform League were barely
able to collect any donations.7 In the period 1903 – 1910, the policy of tariff reform had been
a problematic centrepiece for Unionist electoral appeal. In January 1910, Berliner Zeitung
wrote that ‘everyone who voted for the unionists voted for Tariff Reform. All other issues

3 e.g. Neal McCrillis, The British Conservative Party in the Age of Universal Suffrage: Popular Conservatism,
1918-1929 (Columbus, 1998); Anthony Seldon and Stuart Ball (eds.), Conservative Century: The Conservative
Party since 1900 (Oxford, 1994). Counter-examples include Martin Pugh, ‘The Rise of Labour and the Political
Culture of Conservatism, 1890-1945’, History 87 (2002), pp. 514-537; Andrew Thorpe, A History of the British
Labour Party (Basingstoke, 1997); Philip Williamson, ‘The Conservative Party, 1900-1939: From Crisis to
Ascendancy’, in Chris Wrigley (ed.), A Comparison to Early Twentieth-century Britain (Oxford, 2003).
4 National Union Gleanings 34, p. 111.
5 Jon Lawrence, ‘Class and Gender in the Making of Urban Toryism 1880-1914’, English Historical Review 108

(1993), pp. 629-652.

6 Ibid., p. 650.
7 Frans Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular Colonialism in Edwardian

England (Oxford, 1990), pp. 144-145.

Page 2
 Z0375723 Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914

were minor.’8 If this was the case, it hindered the Unionists more than it helped them. But the
fact that tariff reform was such a problem for the party in this period is significant because it
suggests that the problems it experienced were contingent and short-term, and that once it
was able to distance itself from tariff reform it would be able to restore its electoral strength.

Ireland was, Stubbs has suggested, ‘the pre-eminent political concern [of] the Unionist
party in the years immediately preceding the war’.9 If the period 1903 – 1909 was dominated
by tariff reform, that of 1909 – 1914 was characterised by a return to a conservative
constitutional agenda. Tariff reform was not formally repudiated until 1913 but it had been
displaced before then, firstly by the question of the Lords’ powers and secondly by home rule.
Few had expected Ireland to return to the forefront of politics, but political circumstances
made this almost inevitable. The general election of December 1910 had made the Liberal
government reliant on the support of Irish nationalists, and the 1911 Parliament Act had
removed the Lords’ veto, an insurmountable barrier to home rule. The importance of Ulster
to Unionists was reflected in the volume of leaflets that the party produced, which far
outstripped the amount produced for any other issue in 1913 and the Unionist response to
the government’s proposed programme of home rule went well beyond parliamentary norms.
Bonar Law sought to draw the monarch into the issue and, speaking in 1912, he implied that
he would support armed insurrection if the government attempted to coerce Ulster.
Paramilitary language and dire threats from other leading Unionists did little to dampen the
impression that the party was prepared to defend Ulster at any cost.10 By 1914, the future of
the Unionist party was invested in the issue of Ulster’s independence above all others.
Conflict would have undermined the Unionists’ claim to be the party of the constitution: it
threatened undermine the party’s raison d’être. Had the government forced the issue, the
Unionist party would have had no constitutional power against it.
By 1914, however, both Asquith and Bonar Law were growing desperate for a settlement. 11
Bonar Law appreciated the risks his party now faced, and was – despite his earlier language –
willing to compromise.12 Asquith also appreciated the risks of his position. By 1914, it was

8 Reported in The Standard, 29 January 1910, NUG 34, p. 225.

9 Jeremy Smith, ‘Conservative Ideology and Representation of the Union with Ireland, 1885-1914’, in Martin
Francis and Ina Zweiniger-Bergielowska (eds.), The Conservatives and British Society, 1880-1990 (Cardiff,
1996); John Stubbs, ‘The Unionists and Ireland, 1914-18’, Historical Journal 33 (1990), p. 867 (emphasis in
original).
10 David Dutton, His Majesty's Loyal Opposition: The Unionist Party in Opposition, 1905-1915 (Liverpool, 1992),

pp. 202-206.
11 Patricia Jalland, ‘United Kingdom Devolution 1910-1914: Political Panacea or Tactical Diversion?’ English

Historical Review 94 (1979), p. 779.

12 Dutton, Loyal Opposition, p. 216.

Page 3
Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

recognised that the coercion of Ulster would be almost impossible.13 The idea of a violent
confrontation was hardly appealing, especially given that after the Curragh incident in March
1914 the army’s loyalty could not be counted upon.14 Opposition to the annual Army Act in
Westminster would also have been a serious challenge to the government. Asquith’s
conciliatory position in 1914 was a significant concession on that of 1912, when he had
dismissed suggestions to exclude Ulster.15 Unionists would have benefited from an election
fought over this issue. Victory would have meant the suspension of the issue and a defeat
would have been a pretext for Bonar Law to drop it, by interpreting it as a constitutional
referendum. A compromise would also have been to Unionist advantage and Bonar Law was
very aware of the electoral consequences if he rejected a ‘fair and reasonable’ compromise.16
Moreover, had home rule passed, the loss of Irish Nationalist MPs would have given Unionist
MPs a majority over the Liberals and Labour.
Had war not broken out, the manner in which the impasse over home rule was resolved
would have been central to the Unionist’s subsequent fate. The suggestion that the dispute
meant that they were ‘rapidly disintegrating’17 assumes that the dispute would not have been
resolved. While differences remained, party leaders had already indicated a considerable
willingness to compromise. Both parties had an interest in avoiding a violent confrontation,
and Asquith had doubts about proceeding in the face of Unionist opposition. Even had there
been violence, as long as Bonar Law could distant the party from this it could have retained
credibility.

Ireland was significant because it marked a return to a traditional Unionist formula. Had
the issue been resolved along with Welsh church disestablishment, the Unionists would have
no policy to speak of. Historians have suggested that one of the most serious factors in
limiting the success of the Unionist party was its lack of a positive policy appeal. Balfour’s
speeches as leader are indicative of the nature of the party’s approach. Typically partisan and
rarely constructive, he had little to say on social questions18 and he admitted privately that
‘none of [our members] have any clear idea as to what the policy of the Party [should be].’19

13 Robert Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923 (London,
1955), p. 210.
14 Dutton, Loyal Opposition, p. 229; Jalland, ‘Devolution’, p. 784.
15 Jalland, ‘Devolution’, p. 773.
16 Dutton, Loyal Opposition, p. 221.
17 Smith, ‘Conservative Ideology’, p. 35.
18 e.g. Balfour, speech, 10 December 1909, NUG, 34, pp.139-42; Balfour, speech, 29 November 1910 in NUG, 35, p.

549.
19 Balfour, letter, 20 December 1912, George Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British Unionism: Lord Selbourne's

Domestic Political Papers, 1885-1922 (London, 1987), p. 94.

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 Z0375723 Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914

The Morning Post identified a range of issues where the party had no policy.20 A motion
advocating a ‘clearly defined policy’ at the party conference in 1912 was withdrawn,
presumably for lack of support,21 and the pamphlet Some Points of Policy Explained by
Unionist Leaders, despite purporting to set out a ‘Unionist social reform policy’, contained
little more than vague commitments and rhetoric.22 Three examples of the Unionist attitude
to policy questions – on the land campaign, on housing, and the formation the USRC, suggest
the limits of Unionist policy in this period.
Ridley argues that the establishment of the Unionist Social Reform Committee in 1911 was
a demonstration of a pre-war Unionist social reform policy.23 She cites the 1914 Campaign
Guide as evidence that ‘the party took social policy more seriously than has sometimes been
supposed’.24 An examination of Unionist publications from this period demonstrates that the
views of the ‘young men’ in the USRC were not representative of the party as a whole. Though
The Times predicted the later influence of the USRC,25 its short-term influence was limited. It
was evidence of Unionist ‘principled opportunism’: the USRC was used to improve Unionists’
reforming credentials without making commitments to implementing any of its proposals.26
In private Steel-Maitland acknowledged the limits of Unionist interest in social reform, and
Adams has characterised the attitude of the party to social reform as of disinterest.27 Lloyd
George’s ‘land campaign’, launched in 1914, was an attempt to increase Liberal support in
rural areas. Gilbert has suggested that this campaign has not received the attention it has
merited.28 It was widely seen within the Unionist party as a threat but the party failed to
respond to this challenge constructively.29 Despite three committees considering the
question, the party was nowhere near forming a coherent response by August 1914.30 Arthur
Griffith-Boscawen’s 1912 Housing Bill was a private members’ bill that provided for grants-
in-aid to local authorities to support compulsory slum clearance.31 The bill reflected

20 Dutton, Loyal Opposition, p. 271; Alan Sykes, Tariff Reform in British Politics, 1903-1913 (Oxford, 1979), p. 18.
21 Annual Conference Reports of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations 42 (14-15
November 1912), p. 48.
22 Some Points of Unionist Policy Explained by Unionist Leaders (1914) in Archives of the British Conservative

and Unionist Party, 1914/57.

23 Jane Ridley, ‘The Unionist Social Reform Committee, 1911-1914: Wets before the Deluge’, Historical Journal 30

(1987), pp. 391-413.

24 Ibid., p. 412.
25 Times, 9 August 1912, p. 6.
26 Matthew Fforde, Conservatism and Collectivism, 1886-1914 (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 88, 96-97, 100-101.
27 R.J.Q. Adams, Bonar Law (London, 1999), p. 75; Fforde, Conservatism and Collectivism, p. 99.
28 Bentley Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: The Reform of British Landholding and the Budget of 1914’, Historical

Journal 21 (1978), pp. 117-141.

29 Dutton, Loyal Opposition, pp. 274-275.
30 Ian Packer, ‘The Conservatives and the Ideology of Land Ownership, 1910-1914’, in Francis and Zweiniger-

Bergielowska, Conservatives and British Society, p. 54.

31 Ridley, ‘USRC.’ pp. 402-403.

Page 5
Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

Boscawen’s longstanding interest in working-class housing and it was an isolated example of

conservatives outbidding Liberals on social issues. Many of the criticisms the bill implied
resounded with the Liberal press32 and F.E. Smith spoke of the ‘hypocrisy’ of the ‘Liberal
Anti-Social Reformers’.33 Boscawen’s Housing Bill was used as ammunition against the
government and one pamphlet claimed that ‘Social Reform [has been] Wrecked by the
Present Government’.34 But though the bill demonstrated the potency of the arguments of
Unionist social reformers, it was not in itself sufficient for a constructive assault government
policy.
The extent to which, by 1914, the Unionist party had developed a distinctive policy through
which they could build electoral appeal is questionable. Though the USRC was evidence that
in the long term they were prepared to adapt, there was no Unionist policy in many areas. But
this should not be interpreted as meaning that the Unionist party had no electoral appeal. As
the following section will show, the adoption of a negative strategy was in many respects
sensible choice.

The negative strategy adopted by the Unionist party in the years up to 1914 could achieve a
great deal. Attacks on other groups identified Unionists with those who opposed particular
developments and reduce the credibility of political opponents. The strategy was important in
keeping the party united when questions of policy threatened to divide it. Moreover, the lack
of a comprehensive political programme was far less serious an electoral disability than it
would be today. An examination of this period would suggest that, in fact, the lack of policies
in the run-up to elections was not unusual for any party. And social reform was not always
electorally popular: support for state-centred welfare in this period was not widespread and
compulsory measures alienated even those sections of society that stood to benefit.35
The shortcomings of the Liberal government were considerable. As a result, a negative
strategy could achieve much. Such a strategy lent itself to political rhetoric and to electorally
popular themes. The ambiguity of such language meant that different political audiences
could interpret it positively, and this made Unionist appeal more versatile. It also meant
Unionist policies were more difficult to attack: it was the constructiveness of the party’s tariff
reform policy that had made it so open to criticism. A negative position was key to Unionist
appeal, and it resonated with an electorate whose values were also often negative. In
particular, ‘working-class Toryism’ reflected scepticism towards Liberal values: F.E. Smith

32 HCDebs, 5s., 51, cc. 2245-6 (13 May 1913).

33 Times, 8 July 1912, p. 7.
34 Social Reform Wrecked by the Present Government (1914) in ArchBCUP, 1914/30.
35 Pat Thane, ‘The Working Class and State "Welfare" in Britain, 1880-1914’, Historical Journal 27 (1984), pp.

877-900.

Page 6
 Z0375723 Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914

saw Unionists as representing the non-organised working class and appealing to ‘manly
virtues’.36 Charmley has questioned ‘whether [a negative strategy] would be enough to win an
election’.37 But the evidence suggests that it might well have been.

One reason that a negative strategy was particularly important was that it could appeal to
a broad variety of different groups. The nature of the franchise made such a wide appeal
essential to Unionist electoral success. Between 1900 and 1910 the size of the electorate
increased by one million, and individuals became more likely to vote.38 Whilst Matthew et al
are rightly sceptical of the democracy of the franchise, Tanner has shown that the working
class was not systematically disenfranchised.39 Instead, the franchise was restricted in a
‘random and vexatious way’.40 The extent to which the parties appealed to different grous is
important in understanding their electoral strength because the pre-1918 franchise was a
diverse one.41 This emphasises the importance of a broad appeal (and of a negative strategy)
to Unionist electoral strength. After 1885, it was Unionist support in different social groups
that defined their success. In 1906 the Unionists had lost their previously broad base through
the adoption of tariff reform and after 1910 the recovery of this broad base boded well for
future Unionist electoral success.
Unionists understood the need for a working-class appeal, and in 1913 and 1914, Unionist
pamphlets appealed to working-class voters. The Liberal treatment of Boscawen’s Housing
Bill, for example, was frequently used as ammunition against the government. One pamphlet
compared Unionist and Liberal legislation and suggested that Unionists were ‘the real friends
of the working classes’.42 The largest entry in the 1914 Campaign Guide was on socialism, and
this reflected the realisation that working-class votes were key to electoral strength.43 This
sensitivity was reflected in the Unionist party’s attitude to Labour-sponsored legislation, and

36 John Charmley, A History of Conservative Politics, 1900-1996 (London, 1996), p. 51.

37 Ibid., p. 52; Seldon and Ball, Conservative Century, p. 27.
38 F.W.S. Craig, British Electoral Facts, 1885-1975 (London, 1976), p. 75; John Ramsden, The Age of Balfour and

Baldwin, 1902-1940 (London, 1978), p. 54.

39 Stefan Berger, ‘The Decline of Liberalism and the Rise of Labour: The Regional Approach’, Parliamentary

History 12 (1993), p. 89; H.C.G. Matthew, R.I. McKibbin, and J.A. Kay, ‘The Franchise Factor in the Rise of the
Labour Party’, English Historical Review 91 (1976), pp. 723-752; Duncan Tanner, ‘Elections, Statistics, and the
Rise of the Labour Party, 1906-1931’, Historical Journal 34 (1991), pp. 893-908; Duncan Tanner, ‘The
Parliamentary Electoral System, the 'Fourth' Reform Act and the Rise of Labour in England and Wales’, Bulletin
of the Institute of Historical Research 56 (1983), pp. 205-219.
40 J. Davis quoted in Michael Childs, ‘Labour Grows Up: The Electoral System, Political Generations and British

Politics, 1890-1929’, Twentieth Century British History 6 (1995), p. 125. See also Jon Lawrence, ‘The Dynamics
of Urban Politics, 1867-1914’, in Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor (eds.), Party, State and Society: Electoral
Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot, 1997), p. 88.
41 Childs, ‘Labour Grows Up’, p. 126.
42 British Working Class Legislation (1914) in ArchBCUP, 1914/9.
43 Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 157.

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Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

Unionists realised the importance of avoiding alienating organised labour because it formed
a grouping that they needed to win over.44
The extent to which the Unionist party had a ‘policy’ to speak of is questionable. But they
had a clear political strategy: by appealing through rhetoric and negative attacks, they could
achieve much. Moreover, the USRC reflected the long-term development of a more open
attitude to a conservative social reform policy. Much in the short-term depended upon the
government’s shortcomings, but this is no reason to doubt Unionist electoral strength in 1913
and 1914.

The organisational strength of the Unionist party was important in determining the extent
to which it was able harness the electoral support it won in support of its policies and stance.
Its organisational strength after 1911 made it possible to exploit more efficiently electoral
support generated by the political strategies pursued by the party. After 1911, organisational
improvements in the party also set the basis for more effective campaigning.45 Before 1911,
the Chief Whip had been in charge of all the various branches of the party, appointments
were often nepotistic and membership was virtually meaningless.46 The work of the Unionist
Organisation Committee, established in 1911, was so far-reaching that according to Ramsden
that it was ‘the beginning of the climb back to power’.47 It reflected increased confidence and
a new coherence in the response to problems of which Unionists had been aware for some
time. Reorganisation also had financial consequences: by 1914, party funds were at a level
double that in 1911.48 These changes were themselves significant, but their significance was
also in that the party recognised the need to change and was willing to make adjustments,
something that had not been the case before 1910.49 Problems remained after 1911. But
developments in Unionist party organisation after 1911 represented a significant
development in its ability to exploit its electoral support.

Electoral strength can only be assessed if it is evaluated for in relative terms, against other
political parties. This is especially important given that Unionist electoral appeal owed a great
deal to the shortcomings of its political opponents. In 1914, the Liberals had been in
government for over eight years. Since December 1910, however, they had only been able to
form a government with the support of Irish nationalist and Labour MPs. By-election results

44 Pugh, ‘Popular Conservatism’, p. 278.

45 Ramsden, Balfour and Baldwin, ch. 3.
46 Ibid., pp. 48-49.
47 Ibid., p. 62.
48 Adams, Bonar Law, p. 67.
49 Seldon and Ball, Conservative Century, p. 25.

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 Z0375723 Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914

through 1913 and 1914 tended to favour the Unionists against the Liberals, though this trend
was not very marked and the government still polled more in by-elections in 1913 than the
Unionists. There were numerous fronts upon which Unionists could attack the government,
not only on themes such as the preservation of the Union but also on recent political events.
The government had been plagued by problems (not least the Marconi scandal), Unionists
had been able to embarrass them in Parliament and by-election losses through 1911-1914
emphasised their dependence on Labour and Irish nationalists. The idea that the government
was interfering in citizens’ private lives was a popular one.50 Liberal land taxation and navy
estimates were also issues upon which the government had left itself open to criticism.
The Liberals’ position damaged their electoral support. For many of the party’s English
supporters, home rule gave credence to claims that the Liberals were in hoc to Irish
nationalists. One MP observed ‘the warden Redmond standing over [the Liberal front bench]
with a loaded gun, biding them “toe the line” at whatever cost’.51 Gilbert has suggested that
Liberal social reforms risked alienating financially and organisationally important middle-
class supporters, though it has been more recently contended that this threat was limited so
long as traditional Liberal concerns remained at the fore.52 There is no doubt that within the
party a ‘cave’ of opposition to social reform did exist, however.53 Middle-class Liberals in
particular were growing disaffected; this is ironic given that the extent the party had a broad
social policy in 1914 is questionable. Speaking in 1913, Snowden observed:
I read in a paper a day or two ago that the Liberal Party is in need of a programme… Liberal
candidates do not quite know where they are – or where their party is.54
While the alliance with Labour and Irish nationalists guaranteed the Liberals a governing
majority, it was neither strong nor enduring. For the Liberals, the alliance offered the support
of key Irish constituencies and of organised labour. For Labour the alliance provided
influence on government policy. For both the avoidance of three-way fights was important to
avoid a Unionist victory. Despite these considerations, the long-term future of the alliance
was doubtful. The labour movement was increasingly voicing its concerns about the
government’s legislative record, and its confidence was growing. 55 It is likely that the pact

50 Thane, ‘State Welfare’, pp. 892-893.

51 Annual Conference Reports 42 (14-15 November 1912), p. 21.
52 Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George’; Ian Packer, ‘The Liberal Cave and the 1914 Budget’, English Historical Review

111 (1996), pp. 620-635.

53 Packer, ‘Liberal Cave’, pp. 633-634.
54 Philip Snowden, quoted in The Labour Party and the Liberal Food Taxes (1913) in Archives of the British

Labour Party, 13/17.

55 Roy Douglas, ‘Labour in Decline, 1910-1914’, in Kenneth D. Brown (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History:

Responses to the Rise of Labour in Britain (London, 1974), pp. 121-122; John D. Fair, ‘Labour's Rise and the
(cntd.)

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Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

would have endured after 1914, but it was becoming increasingly dysfunctional.56 Evidence of
these strains is key to discrediting P.F. Clarke’s suggestion that Liberal strength endured
right up the outbreak of war. The intra-alliance differences were not, as he suggests,
‘electorally irrelevant’.57 That the Liberals had a pact with Labour had an important corollary,
because it limited the extent to which they developed their appeal to organised labour. It was
this, Searle has suggested, that was their ‘Achilles heel’.58
The limits of Liberal policy were demonstrated by Labour’s dissatisfaction with their
legislative record.59 Yet Labour did not have a distinctive political message of their own, and
their core appeal was limited.60 The party’s prospects were long-term: its appeal was
sectional, its resources limited and it by no means commanded the support of all trade
unionists.61 An examination of by-election results after 1910 is telling. Labour consolidation
took place where the Liberals had been historically weak, and Labour gains were made at the
Liberals’, not the Unionists’, expense.62 This is evidence of the latter’s increasing engagement
with and the former’s difficulty in dealing with organised labour. Nevertheless, the 1913
Chesterfield by-election demonstrated the difficulties Labour faced if it acted
independently.63 As Masterman pointed out in 1906, Labour in this era was ‘a party in the
making rather than a party made’.64

The Unionist party in 1914 was in a position of electoral strength. The internal and
external problems it had experienced as a result of tariff reform had been dealt-with, and
though they had few formal policies, the negative electoral strategy that they pursued was
justifiable and (given the government’s shortcomings) effective. The outcome of the conflict
over home rule and the exclusion of Ulster was therefore pivotal: had this not been resolved
peacefully, the resulting violence could have seriously damaged Unionist appeal. It is
important to note, furthermore, that the Unionists’ negative strategy owed a great deal to the
perceived shortcomings of the Liberal government. This does not mean that the Unionists

Liberal Demise: A Quantative Perspective on the Great Debate, 1906-1918’, Albion 34 (2002), pp. 58-73; Pugh,
‘Rise of Labour’, p. 16.
56 Ramsden, Balfour and Baldwin, p. 86.
57 P. F. Clarke, ‘The Electoral Position of the Liberal and Labour Parties, 1910-1914’, English Historical Review 90

(1975), p. 830.
58 G.R. Searle, The Liberal Party: Triumph and Disintegration, 1886-1929 (Basingstoke, 1992), p. 173.
59 Douglas, ‘Labour in Decline’, p. 112.
60 In 1913, only 22% of adult males were trade unionists. Economist, 6 September 1913, p. 453.
61 Thorpe, British Labour Party, p. 26.
62 Duncan Tanner, ‘Class voting and radical politics: the Liberal and Labour Parties, 1910-1931’, in Lawrence and

Taylor, Party, State and Society, p. 112.

63 Economist, 23 August 1913, p. 362; Clarke, ‘Liberal and Labour Parties’, p. 829.
64 C.F.G. Masterman, ‘Liberalism and Labour’, Nineteenth Century and After 60 (1906), p. 706.

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Z0375723 Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914

were not a potent political force but, rather, that it is particularly important to see their
strength in terms of the weaknesses of other political parties.
The Unionist party in the pre-war period was electorally strong, and this was at least a
factor in the party’s interwar dominance. Whilst World War I was undoubtedly a watershed
for British politics, these conclusions suggest that it was also an important catalyst of ongoing
developments. Methodologically, these conclusions imply that it is important to assess the
strength of political parties in relative terms and that negative electoral strategies should not
simply be dismissed –the period 1913-1914 suggests that they could be highly effective.
These conclusions suggest that the problems of tariff reform were circumstantial and that
the party would have recovered its electoral strength even had World War I not broken out.
There was, undoubtedly, a ‘crisis of conservatism’, but this was a short-term phenomenon, a
product of the circumstances in which the party found itself. The indications were that the
Liberals and Labour might well have found themselves facing challenges after 1914 on the
scale of those Unionists faced after 1903. Viewed in relation to the other parties, the Unionist
‘crisis’ therefore seems less critical. This emphasises the importance of understanding party
strength in a wider context, and the centrality of political discourse in electoral success. This
also emphasises the diversity of the mass-electorate before 1918 and the importance of
broad-based policy. Unionist doubts about their electoral strength may not have been
justified, but it was these doubts that were undoubtedly an important element in its formula
for electoral success.

4,941 words.

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Unionist Electoral Strength, 1913-1914 Z0375723

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Associations, 44 – 46.

Archives of the British Conservative Unionist Party: 1s., Pamphlets and Leaflets, pt. 2.

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