scholarly journals Daily Herald V. Daily Citizen, 1912–15

1974 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Holton
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Social Breakdown ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Labour ◽  
First World

The myth or reality of widespread social unrest in Britain in the period immediately before the First World War has attracted increasing attention among historians in recent years. Debate has centred upon two main themes, namely the character and impact of contemporary labour unrest, and the situation and prospects of the Liberal Party. Was British labour fundamentally disaffected from existing forms of industrial relations and from Parliamentary democracy? Was the pre-1914 Liberal Party already in decline and unable to withstand the advance of the Labour Party? Several recent writers have returned sceptical or largely negative conclusions to questions of this kind. In so doing they have sought to dispel a popularly held notion of incipient social breakdown and imminent social change, proposed amongst others by Dangerfield in The Strange Death of Liberal England.

Instinct and Organization: Intellectuals and British Labour after 1931

1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 677-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Dare
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Status ◽  
First World

In the years between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, the estimate outside Britain of the status of intellectuals in the British Labour movement grew to prodigal dimensions.

VII. The Liberal Party Divided 1916–1918

1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward David
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
First World War ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
British Politics ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Total War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

A great deal of published historical work has been devoted to establishing the causes and chronology of the demise of the Liberal party in British politics. The downfall of the Liberals has been ascribed to the inevitable outflanking development of the Labour party; to the mutilation of Liberal principles involved in waging the first ‘total’ war; to the personal rifts and feuds between the rival followers of Asquith and Lloyd George—and to various combinations of these factors. Yet there has been no detailed analysis of the division within the Parliamentary Liberal party during the First World War. Although at the end of 1916 obviously certain Liberals supported Asquith and others Lloyd George, no attempt has been made to examine the way in which the rifts in the party were reflected in political action in the House of Commons during the time of the second coalition government, nor to determine accurately the lines of division in the party. An answer to the question of ‘How did the Liberal party divide during the First World War?’ has proved elusive, although some historians of the period have been more successful than others.

scholarly journals Employers' Associations in the Port of Liverpool, 1890–1914

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Bean
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
Initial Strategy ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Areas Of Interest ◽  
New Unionism ◽  
First World

The most dramatic agitations and triumphs of the “new” unionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, together with its reversals and defeats by an organised employers' counter–offensive, occurred on the waterfront at British ports. The reasons for the revival and unsteady continuance of trades unionism in the ports at this period have been well detailed, but serious analysis of the origins and growth of countervailing employer interest groupings in labour matters, at a time when shipowners felt compelled to meet organisation with organisation, has been altogether more sparse. The initial strategy of many employers was to set their face against unions “to get back to what they believed to have been the golden age of British labour”, with freedom for men to work on their own terms without union interference or, if not openly attacking unions, at least refusing to acknowledge their existence and come to terms with them as bargaining agents. Conflict was endemic in the British shipping industry at this time, and employment relations were regulated unilaterally either by the employers or, in some cases where they were sufficiently strongly organised, by the unions. Yet, by the First World War employers had granted “recognition” and arrived at an accommodation with the unions over certain clearly defined areas of interest, with the result that henceforth industrial relations in the ports would be conducted via bilateral and joint regulation on a much more orderly and stable basis.

Yorkshire Liberalism during the First World War

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
George L. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
First World War ◽  
Market Mechanism ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Total War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
First World

For some time now, the narrative of the Liberal party's demise during the First World War has been fairly firmly defined. The war imposed strains on liberal ideology by forcing Liberals to compromise long-cherished policies such as free trade, a free market and a volunteer army. Concurrently, a growing division among Liberals emerged over how to conduct the war. H. H. Asquith and his supporters were increasingly reluctant to accept further compromises of voluntarism and the market mechanism for allocating resources; David Lloyd George and his supporters demanded massive government intervention in every aspect of the economy to mobilize the nation for total war. The replacement of Asquith by Lloyd George as prime minister in December 1916 marked the triumph of the latter approach. Traditional liberalism as a practical ideology of government was now discredited. The Liberal party was left with no unity or purpose. The leaders disliked and distrusted each other; there was no agreement on policy or the future direction of the party. Thus, it was in no position by the end of the war to compete with the resurgent Conservative and Labour parties for the allegiance of the British voter.

Labour's Rise and the Liberal Demise: A Quantitative Perspective on the Great Debate, 1906–1918

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
John D. Fair
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
World War I ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

It all started with George Dangerfield's classic description of the circumstances surrounding the demise of Liberal England prior to World War I. He summarily recognized “that the abandonment of respectable punctilios and worn conventions, which was such a feature of society after the war, had already begun before the war.” Though drawn largely within a social context, it was obvious that Dangerfield's portrayal, especially after the precipitate decline of the Liberal Party in the interwar period, was fraught with political implications. An incubation period of almost a generation followed, but by the early 1960s The Strange Death of Liberal England, by virtue of its brilliant style and sweeping interpretation, had gained international recognition and set the tone for historiography of the Edwardian era. In his 1985 assessment of Dangerfield's impact, Peter Stansky concludes that his “interpretation will not die; no matter how often it may be knocked on the head, it has shaped the way the period is viewed….There can be few works that are so vital after fifty years, as likely to survive for another fifty or as enjoyable to read.” At the outset of the new millennium, Strange Death has lost little of its incandescence.An important aspect of the book's magnetic appeal is the groundwork it provided for the great debate over the rise of the Labour Party and the decline of the Liberals. Did these phenomena occur suddenly as a result of the First World War or were they already well in place in the pre-war years, especially from 1910 to 1914? The foremost challenge to Dangerfield's thesis, thereby instigating the controversy, came from Trevor Wilson's 1966 study, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914–1935, which ascribes Liberal misfortunes largely to a crisis of leadership during the war.

scholarly journals Het tumultueuze politieke leven van Leo Augusteyns. Radicaal-liberaal en Vlaamsgezind volksvertegenwoordiger (1906-1919), activist, Vlaams-nationalist, antifascist

2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-173
Author(s):  
Harry Van Velthoven
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Liberal Group ◽  
First World ◽  
Member Of Parliament

Tot vlak voor 1914 stond de liberale arbeidersbeweging, mee opgebouwd door vader Augusteyns, in Antwerpen sterker dan zijn socialistische en christendemocratische concurrenten. Toen het ziekenfonds Help U Zelve zich onder de naam Liberale Volkspartij als politieke deelgroep organiseerde en in 1906 binnen de liberale partij het recht op een volksvertegenwoordiger afdwong, schoof zij Leo Augusteyns naar voren. Hij zou zich als radicaal liberaal, republikein en flamingant doen gelden, wat tot grote spanningen met de Antwerpse liberale boegbeelden leidde. De Eerste Wereldoorlog betekende een keerpunt. Augusteyns zou blijk geven van een gematigd activisme. In 1919 werd hij veroordeeld en verloor hij zijn politieke rechten. Hij werd in eerste instantie Vlaams-nationalist. Maar ook binnen die beweging nam hij een aparte positie in, want hij zou de fascistische wending ervan tot op het laatst fel bekampen. Tevergeefs en zijn politieke relevantie werd steeds kleiner. Zijn houding tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog had overigens de Liberale Volkspartij zwaar verdeeld. Binnen het Antwerpse liberalisme verloor ze veel van haar voordien contesterende en rebelse houding.________The tumultuous political life of Leo Augusteyns: radical-Liberal and Pro-Flemish Member of Parliament (1906-1919), activist, Flemish-nationalist, antifascistUntil just before 1914 the liberal workers' movement, which father Augusteyns helped to develop, was stronger in Antwerp than its Socialist and Christian-Democrat competitors. When the health insurance 'Help U Zelve' ('Help yourself') organised itself into a political subgroup named the Liberal People's Party and enforced its entitlement to a Parliamentary representative within the Liberal Party, they put forward Leo Augusteyns. He was to assert himself as a radical liberal, a Republican and Pro-Flemish, which was to create major tensions with the Antwerp liberal standard bearers. The First World War signified a turning point. Augusteyns was to display a moderate activism. In 1919 he was convicted and he lost his political rights. At first he became a Flemish-Nationalist. But even in that movement he occupied a separate position, for he was to fight against the fascist turn of the party until the end. It was in vain and his political relevance continued to diminish. In fact, his attitude during the First World War had caused great divisions within the Liberal People's Party. Within the Antwerp Liberal Group it lost much of its previously contesting and rebellious attitude.

‘A Powerful Weapon for the Employers’?

2019 ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
Vanessa Caru
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Situation ◽  
First World

In the aftermath of the First World War, Bombay witnessed workers’ upsurges on an unprecedented scale. In order to cope with this new situation, the colonial authorities and the millowners alternated between repression and acclimation of methods, which had proven to be successful in England to abate social unrest. Building quarters to house the workers was one of them. This chapter begins by setting colonial intervention in its wider context, questioning the very limited role private employers played in the field of workers’ housing. It then studies how intervention of the authorities had unexpected effects that totally contradicted the initial aim of their building programed, which was to regulate workers’ unrest. It rather encouraged the development of solidarities that opened up new spaces of politicization and arenas of struggle.

Military Recruiting and the British Labour Force during the First World War

1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. Dewey
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Recruiting ◽  
Compulsory Military Service ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Government ◽  
First World

During the First World War, Britain was obliged for the first time for over a century to raise a mass army. Initially, this seemed to raise no insuperable problem; by the end of 1914, slightly over one million men had enlisted. Thereafter, however, civilian enthusiasm waned, and the government had to employ other means to stimulate the flow of recruits – alteration of the military service age limits and, later, the introduction of compulsory military service. Taken together, voluntary recruiting and conscription permitted the raising and maintenance of a mass army. By the time of the armistice on 11 November t 1918, almost five million men had entered the army, and a further half million had entered the two other services.

scholarly journals The Radical Right and the Crisis of Conservatism before the First World War

1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Sykes
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
First World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Local Government Level ◽  
First World ◽  
Government Level

The study of the Edwardian Conservative party is rapidly becoming as much of a minefield as that of the Edwardian Liberal party. Both parties were in serious difficulties in the years immediately preceding the First World War. But whilst the condition of the Liberal party is at least openly acknowledged as a disputed area, its perils clearly marked, the condition of the Conservative party is treacherous ground, the hazards uncharted. From one point of view, ‘it would be easy to give an account of Edwardian politics in which the emphasis fell on “the crisis of Conservatism” and on the parlous state of the Conservative party on the eve of the War… The fundamental weakness of the Conservative party lay in its inability to win elections.’ Alternatively, ‘Both at the local-government level and in national by elections in 1912 and 1913, what was at work was not so much “The Strange Death of Liberal England” as “The Strange Revival of Tory England”. The most likely outcome, moreover, was not apocalyptic, merely a Conservative triumph in the general election scheduled for 1915.’ By a curious coincidence, or perhaps editorial perversity, these two views are juxtaposed on consecutive pages of the same collection of essays.

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