VII. The Impact of Financial Policy on English Party Politics before 1914

Abstract

Critical research into the motivation and content of Liberal social policies before 1914 has qualified much of the credit the party's accomplishments originally received. Yet such qualifications may go too far and in the struggle to do justice to all the facts, historical accuracy may suffer both from tendencies to look for dominant motifs or patterns, and from the temptation to emphasize the ‘real’ empirical nature of politics, so losing sight of all purposes and patterns – especially value-patterns. For example, the emphasis upon nineteenth century administrative development may certainly correct the previously overdrawn distinction between, firstly, individualism and the negative state, and secondly, collectivism and the positive state, but if such emphasis is carried too far it may appear that the social reforms passed after 1906 were no more than the logical continuation of a legislative trend already well-established. It may appear through the simple cataloguing of administrative growth, in conjunction with the attention focused on the rise of the Labour movement and the ensuing attempt to place both in a long-term historical perspective, that the Liberal party was largely the passive instrument of movements and ideas which passed around and about the party, rather than through and within it; and, this being so, that interpretations such as those of Laski, dating the emergence of ‘fundamental’ party divisions from post-1914, may be too easily accepted.

Politics and National Security: The Battles for Britain

“…To secure Britain's interests at the least cost, internationalists favored alliances and rapprochement with the United States, France, Japan, and even imperial Germany and Russia. The primary concern of the City of London (including banking, finance, overseas merchanting, and shipping), the Bank of England, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and top civil servants trained in the Gladstonian tradition) was that tension and hostility spirals would trigger a financial crisis, threaten orthodoxy, result in gold flight, and lead to new or increased tariffs to raise revenue (Emy, 1972). To avoid spiraling defense estimates, other constituents such as the Liberal and Labour Party supported the goals of the 1899 Hague Conference to discuss disarmament and peace, including naval force limitations for a fixed period, which met stiff resistance from the Conservative Party and navalists (Marder, 1940, 341-343).…”

Debate: The 'second wave' of Weberian historical sociology - The historical sociology of the state and the state of historical sociology in international relations

“…In the early twentieth century, the British Liberal Party, in government at the time, favoured the income tax mainly as a way of attracting working-class support to maintain its electoral hegemony (Sykes, 1978;Emy, 1972), though the higher income tax rates scally penalizedindeed they went against the long-run scal interests of -the dominant economic classes. Paradoxically, cooperating with the working and lower middle classes was crucial in strengthening state scal capacity.…”