Abstract
After 1870, the democratic reform of local government held centre stage.1 Radicals favoured the creation of democratic local bodies. Joseph Chamberlain, for example, maintained that great social questions would best be settled by participation of the people in the great urban centres. Similarly, John Morley considered that local bodies might be safely entrusted with powers that would be dangerous in the hands of the central government: ‘Municipal and local bodies know the conditions with which they have to deal. They understand local necessities, and they are better able to try local experiments without possible mischievous results.’2 Even moderate Liberal leaders had come around to favouring sensible, democratic decentralisation. Thus, in 1882, Gladstone impressed on Dodson, the President of the Local Government Board, the necessity of passing not only ‘a great Local Government Bill, but a great decentralisation Bill’.3 A decade later his final ministry aimed to establish ‘local parliaments’ in every village by virtue of its Parish Council Act. Nor were the majority of Conservatives necessarily averse to the idea of local devolution. Many disliked the growth of the central bureaucracy and wished to strengthen local administration in order to safeguard the position of traditional institutions and values.4
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Notes
Dilys Hill, Democratic Theory and Local Government ( London: Allen and Unwin, 1974 ) pp. 46–75;
B. Keith Lucas, The English Local Government Franchise: a Short History ( Oxford: Blackwell, 1952 ) pp. 82–115.
Chamberlain’s speech of 26 November, 1886, C. W. Boyd (ed.), Mr. Chamberlain’s Speeches, 2 vols (London: Constable, 1914 ) p. 114;
John Morley, Liberalism and Social Reforms ( London: The Eighty Club, 1889 ) p. 17.
R. M. Gutchen, ‘Local Improvements and Centralisation in Nineteenth Century England’, Historical Journal, 4, 1 (1961), pp. 85–96.
Robert Thorne, ‘The Movement for Public House Reform 1892–1914’, p. 232, in Derek J. Oddy and Derek S. Millar (eds), Diet and Health in Modern Britain ( Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1985 ) pp. 231–54.
Lilian L. Shiman, ‘The Church of England Temperance Society in the Nineteenth Century’, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 41 (1972), pp. 179–95;
Lilian L. Shiman, Crusade Against Drink in Victorian England ( London: Macmillan, 1988 ).
Brewers’ Guardian, 20 November, 1871, pp. 343–4; H. A. Bruce, Letters of the Rt. Hon. Henry Austin Bruce GCB, Lord Aberdare of Duffryn, 2 vols (Oxford: priv. printed, 1902 ), vol. 1, pp. 318 – 19.
Sir Algernon West, Recollections 1832–1886, 2 vols (London: Smith, Elder, 1899), vol. 1, p. 351.
Also Ethel Drus (ed.), ‘“A Journal of Events during the Gladstone Ministry, 1868–74” by John, First Earl of Kimberley’, Camden Miscellany, vol. 21 ( London: Camden Society, 1958 ) p. 30.
Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England 1815–1872 ( London: Faber and Faber, 1971 ) p. 263;
Lord Brabourne, Political Journal 1874–78, Kent County Record Office, U951/F27/5, ff. 10–12. For contemporary criticism of Bruce’s performance at the Home Office, see H. Fawcett, ‘The present Position of the Government’, Fortnightly Review, New Series 10 (November 1871), pp. 544–58.
Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, 206, col. 949 (17 May, 1871), quoted Henry Carter, The English Temperance Movement: a Study in Objectives ( London: Epworth, 1933 ) p. 164. See also Harrison, Drink, p. 269.
Paul Smith, Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 ) pp. 167–70.
Quoted R. C. K. Ensor, England 1870–1914 (Oxford University Press, 1936 ) P. 21.
Smith, Disraelian Conservatism, pp. 189–90; H. J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Gladstone and Disraeli ( London: Longman, Green, 1959 ) pp. 222–5;
E. J. Feuchtwanger, Democracy and Empire ( London: Edward Arnold, 1985 ) p. 78; Harrison, Drink, pp. 279–84.
Roy M. MacLeod, ‘The Edge of Hope: Social Policy and Chronic Alcoholism 1870–1900’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 22 (1967), pp. 218–22, upon which this account draws.
D. A. Hamer, The Politics of Electoral Pressure: a Study in the History of Victorian Reform Agitations ( Hassocks, Harvester: 1977 ) pp. 184–99.
David W. Gutzke, Protecting the Pub: Brewers and Publicans Against Temperance ( Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989 ) p. 9.
G. O. Trevelyan, Five Speeches on the Liquor Traffic ( London: Partridge, 1872 ) pp. 21–2.
Speech to the Tynemouth Liberal Association, December 1879, E. R. Jones, The Life and Speeches of Joseph Cowen, MP (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington [1886]) p. 146.
James B. Brown, ‘The Temperance Career of Joseph Chamberlain, 1870–1877: a Study in Political Frustration’, Albion, 4, (1972), pp. 33–4.
E. E. Gulley, Joseph Chamberlain and English Social Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926 ).
S. Wieselgren, The Gothenburg System: its Origins, Objects and Effects, (Gothenburg, 1886 );
E. R. L. Gould, The Gothenburg system of Liquor Traffic (Washington: US Department of Commerce and Labour, 1895 ).
For Example, T. E. Ellis, Speeches and Addresses, A. J. Ellis (ed.), (Wrexham: Hughes, 1912 ) p. 183.
For detailed analysis, see W. R. Lambert, ‘The Welsh Sunday Closing Act’, Welsh History Review, 6, no. 2, (1872), pp. 161–87.
P. T. Winskill, The Temperance Movement and its Workers: a Record of Social, Moral, Religious and Political Progress, 4 vols (London: Blackie, 1890–92) vol. 4, pp. 145–6; Alliance News, 1 December, 1887, p. 817. The initiative characteristically collapsed after further internal disputes among the breakaways. This was the culmination of a lengthy period of disputes about whether local direct veto parties should be formed in constituencies, Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, pp. 243–55.
National Temperance League, Temperance Congress, Liverpool June 1884, ( Liverpool: N. T. L., 1885 ); Alliance News, 5 July, 1884, pp. 421–2.
Quoted William Saunders, The New Parliament, 1880 ( London: Cassell, 1880 ) p. 43.
There were, however, several instances of vigorous Trade support for Conservatives at the local level where the Liberal was a strong temperance supporter. An example is the Southwark by-election of 1880, Sir Edward Clarke, The Story of My Life ( London: Murray, 1918 ) pp. 154–60.
G. B. Wilson, Alcohol and the Nation: a Contribution to the Study of the Liquor Problem in the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1935 ( London: Nicholas and Watson, 1940 ) p. 380.
John Newton, W S. Caine, M. P. A Biography ( London: Nisbet, 1907 ) p. 195.
Nancy E. Johnson (ed.), The Diary of Gathorne Hardy later Lord Cranbrooke, 1866–1892 (Oxford University Press, 1981) p. 111.
Sir Richard Temple, Life in Parliament: being Experiences of a Member in the House of Commons from 1886 to 1892 Inclusive ( London: Murray, 1893 ) p. 272.
W. S. Caine, ‘The Attitude of the Advanced Temperance Party’, Contemporary Review, 63, (January 1893), pp. 54–5. See also Alliance News, 5 August, 1892, p. 505.
S. L. Gwynn and G. M. Tuckwell, The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W Dilke, Bart., M.P., 2 vols (London: Murray, 1917 ), vol. 2, p. 566.
Peter Stansky, Ambitions and Strategies: the Struggle for the Leadership of the Liberal Party in the 1890s (Oxford University Press, 1964).
G. R. Askwith, Lord James of Hereford (London: Benn, 1930 ).
Dudley W. R. Bahlman (ed.), The Diary of Sir Edward Hamilton (Hull University Press, 1993 ), entry 30 April, 1895, p. 297; Dingle, Campaign for Prohibition, pp. 166–8.
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Greenaway, J. (2003). Drink becomes a Party Political Issue, 1870–95. In: Drink and British Politics since 1830. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510364_3
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