The Role of the German Threat in the Propaganda and Electioneering Tactics of the Conservative Party at the Two General Elections of 1910
Abstract
For most of the period following the electoral Reform Act of 1884, the Conservative Party made opposition to Home Rule for Ireland and support for the Empire the two main planks of its appeal to voters. This proved a potent attraction at the 1900 ‘Khaki Election’, which was fought at the very height of the Boer War, at a time when the Liberal Party was in turmoil. At the 1906 General Election, the mood of the electorate had changed dramatically. Jingoism lost the advantages it had enjoyed six years earlier. After Lord Salisbury’s resignation in 1902, the party endured three years of bitter internal division over tariff reform and entered the election in a state of alarming disarray. During the election campaign, the Liberal Party offered voters a choice between a forward-looking modern party, espousing a ‘New Liberalism’ which was determined to uphold free trade and to implement social reform against a divided Conservative Party fighting to introduce protectionism.
Keywords
Free Trade Election Campaign Social Reform Liberal Party Conservative PartyPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
- 1.P.M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914, London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, pp. 343–345.Google Scholar
- 3.J. Ramsden, The Making of Conservative Policy, London, Longman, 1980, p. 15.Google Scholar
- 11.F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 109–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 12.A.J.A. Morris, The Scaremongers. The Advocacy of War and Rearmament, 1896–1914, London, Routledge, 1984, pp. 201–204.Google Scholar
- 46.L.S. Amery, My Political Life, vol. 1, London, Hutchinson, 1953, p. 236.Google Scholar
- 54.R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and Defence Policy, 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 176.Google Scholar
- 56.W. Fest, ‘Jingoism and Xenophobia in the Electioneering Strategies of British Ruling Elites Before 1914’, in P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls (eds), Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, London, Macmillan, 1981, p. 181.Google Scholar
- 66.H. Taylor, The Strange Case of Andrew Bonar Law, London, Stanley Paul, 1938, p. 137.Google Scholar
- 71.D. Dutton, ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’: The Unionist Party in Opposition 1905–1915, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1992, p. 134.Google Scholar