Abstract
Lowe’s attitude to democracy, like his attitude to everything else, was utilitarian, utility in its turn requiring that no class interest dominated the others. Who should get the vote, therefore, depended on the balance of social forces as well as the level of education. In Australia, this led him to a highly provisional endorsement of general male suffrage:
Popular election is a great evil and is only to be endured because it is designed to work out a greater good. If we find the good does not exceed the evil, let us discard the principle altogether.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Gillian Knight, Illiberal Liberal: Robert Lowe in New South Wales, 1842–50, Melbourne, 1966, p. 242.
J. Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography, London, 1903, pp. 297–8.
James Winter, Robert Lowe, Toronto, 1976, p. 202.
R. Lowe, ‘Preface’, Speeches and Letters on Reform, London, 1867, p. 8.
A. Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England, Oxford, 1997, p. 152.
E.F. Biagini, ‘Popular Liberals, Gladstonian Finance and the Debate on Taxation, 1860–74’ in Eugenio F. Biagini and Alastair J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organized Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850–1914, Cambridge, 1991, p. 147.
R. Lowe, ‘Imperialism’, Fortnightly Review, 24, new series, 1 October 1878, p. 456.
Arthur Patchett Martin, Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke, London, 1893, vol. 2, p. 285.
R. Lowe, ‘Mr Gladstone on Manhood Suffrage’, Fortnightly Review, 22, new series, 1 December 1877, p. 740.
The Times, 23 May 1860, p. 9. Gladstone had already stated his desire that income tax payers should approximately correspond to the electorate. See Gladstone to J.L. Tabberner, 25 November 1859, quoted in H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Disraeli, Gladstone and the Politics of mid-Victorian Budgets’, Historical Journal, 22, 1979, p. 629. Matthew claims, without providing evidence, that Gladstone wanted this in order to make income tax easier to abolish.
Absurd or not, it united the Liverpool Financial Reform Association with most working-class radicals (see E.F. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880, Cambridge, 1992, p. 110).
Copyright information
© 2005 John Maloney
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Maloney, J. (2005). Democratic Economics or Gladstonian Finance?. In: The Political Economy of Robert Lowe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504042_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504042_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-52480-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-50404-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)