Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics 1892–1914

Abstract

In this study of the changes in the social and political thought of the Edwardian Liberal Party, Dr Emy charts the process of internal conversion by which the Party came to favour an advanced social policy. He links these changes with important developments in the internal composition of the Party, in particular the emergence of a new group of social radicals, and claims that these two factors were responsible for the Liberals' commitment to advanced measures of social reform. The author also maintains that the entry of the social radicals into Parliament marks the origins of a significant debate in modern British politics - the economic problem. He argues that the central issue of the problem - the degree to which social and moral priorities are both entitled to and are able to displace the primacy of deterministic economic assumptions about how society must work - was the critical issue of post-1906 politics, and also came to form the touchstone of modern party allegiances.

The Rise of the Information State: the Development of Central State Surveillance of the Citizen in England, 1500–2000

“…This might be seen as reflecting the needs of capitalists, although this ''new'' Liberalism tended to result in a shift of the political allegiance of employers to the Conservative Party (Emy 1973;Clarke 1972). One might argue, moreover, that rather than these developments being driven by the internal threats presented to British capitalism by the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century or late Victorian competition, they reflected once again the external threats to the English state presented by the ''Second Industrial Revolution'' of the late nineteenth century which undermined Britain's international geo-political pre-eminence.…”

The labour process and labour history∗

“…Nor were the ideas of cooling-off periods, or compulsory strike ballots new to the early 1970s. There are clear suggestions that the Liberal government in 1913 was actively considering these exact same breaches of non-prescriptive, voluntarist conventions (Emy, 1973). In addition, the more visible tradition of efforts to enforce union accountability for membership actions possesses a lineage that dates back at least to the 1860s, was first articulated in Taff Vale and modernized by the Heaton and Howitt cases of 1972.…”

The Board of Trade and Industrial Relations 1896–1914

“…11 State arbitration and conciliation were designed, it was argued, to perpetuate the false consciousness of old unionism, to alienate public opinion from the more militant leaders and rank-and-file 5 H. V. Emy, Liberals, radicals and social politics J892-/9/4 (1973), p. 270. 6 See, e.g., The Times, 9 Dec. 1897; Liberty Review, vm (1899), p. 57 of the labour movement, and to legitimize the prevailing structure of income inequality. 12 By institutionalizing industrial conflict and maintaining conventional criteria of wage determination it sought to secure profit margins, deflate labour costs, and depress the share of wages in national income.…”

“…56 Even the New Liberalism, while supporting trade unionist attempts to enlarge labour's share of the 'surplus within distribution', still believed 'in the basic factors of supply and demand governing prices and costs within a competitive economy', and opposed state interference in the labour market unless it strengthened the capitalist system. 57 Under the direction of Lloyd George, the Board of Trade did adopt a more forceful policy towards industrial unrest, but the claims of labour were clearly incidental to Lloyd George's primary concern to enhance his political reputation by averting economic dislocation and protecting the security of capital. 58 In 1905 his concept of social reform was still dominated by 'faddism' and rural radicalism.…”