GREEN, Ewen Henry Harvey - The Crisis of Conservatism. The Politics, Economics, and Ideolo

THE CRISIS OF CONSERVATISM
The Crisis of Conservatism offers a powerful new interpretation of Conservative
party history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It locates the
seeds of their electoral failure in their inability to manage transitions in the areas
of class, imperialism, economics, property, and the rise of socialism. The
startling conclusion reached by Green is that World War I effectively came to the
rescue of the party, which might otherwise have collapsed altogether.
Green draws on an impressive range of personal and public writings and
records. His argument has implications for the whole of British politics in the
late Victorian and Edwardian eras, and will be of interest to all historians and
students of the period.
E.H.H.Green is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Magdalen College,
Oxford. The Crisis of Conservatism was shortlisted for the Longman/History
Today Book of the Year award.
THE CRISIS OF
CONSERVATISM
The politics, economics and ideology
of the British Conservative party,
1880–1914
E.H.H.Green
London and New York
First published 1995
First published in paperback in 1996
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
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© 1995, 1996 E.H.H.Green
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-98554-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-14339-X (Print Edition)
To my mother and in memory of my father
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
List of abbreviations x
INTRODUCTION 1
Part I Questions of decline
1 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DECLINE 24
Part II The nature of the political problem
2 CONSERVATISM AND THE EMPIRE 53
3 CONSERVATISM AND THE PROPERTIED 71
4 CONSERVATISM AND THE PROPERTYLESS 110
Part III The nature of the response
5 INTELLECTUAL PRELUDE 146
6 THE ECONOMICS OF POLITICAL
INTEGRATION
170
7 IMPERIAL ORGANIZATION 179
8 THE DEFENCE OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE 192
9 THE DEFENCE OF BRITISH INDUSTRY 207
10 SOCIAL REFORM 225
Part IV Disintegration
11 DISINTEGRATION 247
CONCLUSION 285
APPENDIX 1: Conservative MPs supporting fair trade in the 1880s 310
APPENDIX 2: Conservative representatives of middle- and mixed-
class London and South-East Suburban seats
311
APPENDIX 3: Members of the Compatriots’ Club 314
APPENDIX 4: Members of the Unionist Social Reform Committee 316
Notes 318
Bibliography 383
Index 386
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My chief feelings on completing this book are relief and gratitude. Relief
because there were times when I thought this project would never end, gratitude
because over the years a number of friends, colleagues and institutions have
combined to ensure that it did. As a cinema fan I cannot help but be struck by the
similarity between acknowledgement sections in books and Oscar acceptance
speeches, but, although I have no desire to outdo Greer Garson and Sally Field, I
have incurred many debts which I would like to record. My initial research on
Edwardian Conservatism was funded by a Department of Education and Science
Major State Studentship, and I received further essential support from St John’s
College, Cambridge. The Institute of Historical Research elected me to a
Research Fellowship for the session 1984–5, and enabled me to bring the first
phase of the project to completion. In 1986 the Principal and Fellows of
Brasenose College, Oxford elected me to an Edward White Bate Junior Research
Fellowship in history, and allowed me to extend the scope of my research on
both this and other projects to a degree which would not otherwise have been
possible. At the same time my experiences teaching in Oxford, as a College
Lecturer at Magdalen College in 1987 and as Radcliffe Lecturer in Modern
History at St Hugh’s College between 1988–90, were also invaluable. At St
Hugh’s in particular the necessity of broadening and deepening my
understanding of European history served to strengthen the comparative aspects
of my research. The importance of the link between teaching and research has
been confirmed at the History Department at the University of Reading, which
appointed me to a Lectureship in Modern British History in 1990 and provided a
congenial and secure academic home in which to finish this book. W...