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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Between the 1880s and 1914, British liberalism underwent a significant transformation. During this period, liberalism was redefined by liberal intellectuals so as to be more explicitly an ideology of social reform. At the same time, from 1906-1914 Liberal governments enacted a radically new social welfare policy. Both of these phenomena were the product of a growing awareness on the part of most Liberals that their party was critically dependent upon the votes of working men for electoral success. Following the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 and the launching of Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign in 1903, the Liberals were faced with an overt challenge from both the left and the right to their claim to be the party of the working man. The articulation of a new liberalism—both as ideology and as policy—was central to the Liberal response to this challenge.
If, however, the Liberal party were to persuade working-class voters that it remained the best political instrument for defending their interests and promoting their needs, the evidence of a transformed liberalism could not be limited to the ideology of intellectuals and the policy of the parliamentary party. The language and behavior of the party activists in the constituencies had to reflect a similar transformation. These were the men who represented liberalism to the local voter. At the same time, these were the men upon whom the national party depended for the unstinting work that was crucial to electoral success. This Liberal rank-and-file was dominated by middle-class Nonconformists. They shared with Liberals a belief in individual liberty and an abhorrence of privilege. Their political agenda—disestablishment of the Anglican church and an end to its privileged position in the education system, temperance reform, the application of Christian principles to foreign policy—reflected these concerns, and after 1886 it increasingly was identified with the policy of the Liberal party. To what degree, then, did the new liberalism affect them?
1 See Pelling, Henry, Social Geography of British Elections, 1885-1910 (London, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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5 Cifford, John, The Christ of the Coming Century; or the Primitive Christian Faith in Its Application to the Institutional Life of Man (London, 1899), p. 8.Google Scholar (Emphasis is Clifford's.)
6 Clifford, quoted in Byrt, , Clifford, pp. 106–7, 117Google Scholar; and in Koss, , Nonconformity, p. 21.Google Scholar
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16 Ibid., 82, 126 (June 1880): 267-68 (on Bradlaugh); 83, 133, 141 (January, September 1881): 28, 348; 84, 150 (June 1882): 231 (on Ireland); 85, 159-160 (March-April 1883); 106, 147 (on Irish and Indian self-government); 79, 90 (June 1877): 231 (on the franchise). The one example of Clifford compromising his principles for party purposes was his justification of the occupation of Egypt (ibid., 84, 153-54 [September-October 1882]: 350, 392).
17 Clifford, John, Jesus Christ and Modern Social Life (London, 1872), pp. 10, 35–37.Google Scholar For the Christian Social context, see Christensen, , Christian Socialism, pp. 136–42, 154–61, 289–310Google Scholar
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37 Baptist Times and Freeman, December 3, 1909, p. 881.Google Scholar See Clifford's fortnightly letter from December 3, 1909, to February 11, 1910, and from November 18 to December 16, 1910, for his views on the Lords. For earlier statements, see the General Baptist Magazine 83, 141 (September 1881): 348Google Scholar; and a speech on July 10, 1899, quoted in Koss, , Pro-Boers, p. 9.Google Scholar
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39 See ibid., pp. 121-23 (on education); Marchant, , Clifford, p. 60Google Scholar (on Welsh disestablishment); and Clifford, , The New City of God, p. 24Google Scholar; Clifford, , The Demands of the Twentieth Century, p. 23Google Scholar; Baptist Times and Freeman, May 5, 1911, p. 281Google Scholar (on equality for women).
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46 Baptist Times and Freeman, August 6, 1909, p. 564.Google Scholar See also Clifford, , God's Greater Britain, pp. 126–27.Google ScholarDouglas, Roy, Land People & Politics: A History of the Land Question in the United Kingdom, 1878-1952 (New York, 1976), Chaps. 6-9Google Scholar, discusses the context. It is interesting to note that Clifford did not endorse the taxation of unearned increments apart from land values.
47 Clifford, , The Christ of the Coming Century, pp. 34–35.Google Scholar
