‘Parnellism And Crime’, 1887–90

1974 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
F. S. L. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

The Home Rule crisis of 1885–86 is generally held to mark a water-shed in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. This it undoubtedly does, though not necessarily for the reasons commonly advanced. The crisis was certainly important in the sense that it obliged the Liberal and Conservative parties to define their attitudes towards Irish self-government and thus to demonstrate to the Irish nationalist party in the House of Commons that their main hope for the future lay with Mr Gladstone and those Liberals who had remained faithful to him after his declaration in favour of Home Rule. But the course of events during 1886 demonstrated just how far the Irish demand still was from being met. The inadequacies of the Home Rule Bill itself, the split in the Liberal party, the firm negative of the Conservatives, the violence of the Ulster Protestant reaction, the veto of the House of Lords which had not even to be deployed in 1886 but was there for future use when necessary—all these things suggested that Home Rule, if it came at all, would not happen overnight at the waving of any Parnellite wand, but would require years, perhaps decades, of labour before it came within sight of achievement.

Home rule and the liberal party, 1899–1906

1963 ◽  
Vol 13 (52) ◽  
pp. 316-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.W. McCready
Keyword(s):  
Party Politics ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Financial Measures ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
History Of ◽  
Liberal Reform ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Pros And Cons

Gladstone’s dramatic commitment of the liberal party to a policy of home rule for Ireland in 1886 was followed by the Grand Old Man’s two attempts at turning his policy into legislation. The first home rule bill, that of 1886, was defeated in the house of commons and then in a general election: the second, that of 1893, was overwhelmed in the house of lords and then dropped by Gladstone’s fourth government. Though the Gladstonian commitment remained and the liberal party continued to be a home rule party — and though the pros and cons of the union of 1800 remained the major structural feature of British party politics — it was not until 1912 that the liberals did anything further about their major Irish policy. For most of the period 1893-1912 they were, of course, impotent in opposition and consequently in no position to take the initiative on home rule. In 1906, however, they won a landslide victory over their unionist opponents and it is striking that this electoral victory and the great impulse it gave to one of the most dynamic governments in the whole history of British liberalism was not followed, as had the last two liberal victories under Gladstone, by the introduction of a third home rule bill. Had the liberal landslide of 1906 been put behind another home rule measure the whole history of the matter would certainly have been radically different. The house of lords would have been easily overwhelmed; the great advance in constitutional reform for Ireland would have been carried in a spirit of liberal reform rather than of political surrender; the development of Sinn Fein would have been frustrated or at least diverted. But the liberal victory of 1906 was not so used. Home rule was postponed and sidetracked and was taken up again only when the liberal party once more desperately needed Irish votes in the budget election which followed the rejection of Lloyd George’s financial measures by the lords in November 1909. The home rule banner was hoisted afresh by Asquith, the prime minister, in his Albert Hall speechof 10 December 1909 and the third home rule bill appeared in due course in 1912 in direct — and significant — succession to the budget and the parliament act for both of which the Asquith government needed Irish support in the commons.

Isaac Butt and the Home Rule Movement: A Study in Conservative Nationalism

1960 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-95
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. McCaffrey
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
British History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Eventual Collapse

The formation of the Irish Home Rule movement was a significant factor in influencing subsequent Irish and British history. Irish Federalism produced a political party that often controlled the balance of power in the House of Commons; split the Liberal party on the question of Irish self-government, a prelude to its eventual collapse; secured extensive agrarian reform for Irish tenant farmers, the first serious blow to traditional property rights in the British Isles; and was instrumental in destroying the political power of the House of Lords.

John Redmond and federalism in 1910

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (127) ◽  
pp. 343-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wheatley
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Court Proceedings ◽  
Weekly Journal ◽  
Political Radicalism

In early August 1910 readers of Reynolds’s Newspaper, a radical weekly journal noted as much for its detailed coverage of divorce court proceedings as for its political radicalism (and in 1911 one of the ‘immoral’ English Sunday papers targeted by Irish ‘vigilance committees’), may have perused the weekly political column written by T.P. O’Connor. ‘T.P.’, the M.P. for Liverpool Scotland, was anything but a disinterested columnist, and with John Redmond, John Dillon and Joseph Devlin formed the inner leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Ireland’s nationalist movement.Throughout the political crisis of early 1910 O’Connor had been the main London-based conduit for communications between the Irish Party and Asquith’s cabinet, and in particular Lloyd George and the Liberal chief whip, the Master of Elibank. The outcome of the January 1910 general election, which had given the balance of power in the House of Commons to the Irish nationalists, and John Redmond’s use of that power to force Asquith to act to end the veto powers of the House of Lords over parliamentary legislation, had enhanced both Redmond’s status in Ireland and the importance of home rule as an issue that had to be resolved.

Neville Chamberlain, 1869 - 1940

1941 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 731-734
Keyword(s):  
British Politics ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Financial Loss ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time

There were, in two generations, three Chamberlains in the first rank of British politics. Joseph, the greatest of them in personality and in the special gifts that qualify for the highest success in public life, would almost certainly have succeeded Gladstone in the leadership of the Liberal party had they not separated in 1886 on the question of Home Rule for Ireland. O f his two sons, Austen was educated for a public career and Neville for business. Austen twice, of deliberate choice, declined a course that might and probably would have led to the Premiership. It was to the younger son Neville that the great prize came, though he had no Parliamentary ambitions during the larger part of his life, and did not enter the House of Commons till he was within a few months of fifty. He did not go to the university as Austen had done but, on leaving Rugby, returned to his home in Birmingham and, after a short time at Mason College, entered an accountants’ office. In 1890 his father bought land in the Bahamas for the cultivation of sisal which, he was advised, would produce the best quality of hemp. Neville went out at the age of twenty-one to take charge of the estate. He lived plain and worked hard for seven years and then had to admit failure. The soil was too thin and, after heavy financial loss, the enterprise was abandoned.

The politics of the enabling act (1919)

1975 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 383-392
Author(s):  
David M. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Single Person ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Continuous Stream ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Success ◽  
A Current

I doubt whether any event in the constitutional history of Church and State (wrote Randall Davidson in February 1921) has ever been wrought out with so little friction, and on so smooth a current as this great change ... I think it is indisputable that if we had failed in December 1919 to get through Parliament what is popularly known as the Enabling Bill, we might have waited for it for many a long year with increasing and most harmful loss of enthusiasm, and growth of irritation among the progressive groups. Instead of this we have had a continuous stream of praise and thankful gratulation at the way in which the new system has begun to work.These words are a useful reminder that contemporaries were surprised at the easy passage of the enabling act, and that its success therefore requires explanation. The ‘rightness of the cause’ has tended to obscure the fact that right causes often fail. Moreover subsequent criticisms of the act, and particularly the disappointment of the life and liberty movement with what followed, have tended to minimise the significance of the changes it made. Nevertheless the charisma of William Temple and Dick Sheppard seems to have led even the critics to attribute the act’s success to the life and liberty movement; viscount Wolmer’s church self-government association has been relegated to the sidelines; and the verdict of bishop Bell (who in 1919 was Davidson’s chaplain) that ‘Its achievement was due to Randall Davidson more than to any other single person’ has been forgotten. In this paper I shall argue that the political success of the enabling act requires a political explanation, that parliamentary tactics in both the house of commons and the house of lords are therefore of prime importance, and that the significance of the success is enhanced by a fact which has never been discussed before - the initial opposition of the government of the day.

Parnell's fall and the nonconformist conscience

1960 ◽  
Vol 12 (46) ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
J.F. Glaser
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Critical Phase ◽  
History Of ◽  
Catalytic Role ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
English Politics ◽  
The Relationship

The fall of Charles Stewart Parnell as a result of the O'Shea divorce case in late 1890 is a dramatic episode of lasting human interest and an event of the first importance in the history of Ireland and of British politics. The story of the crisis has often been told, usually from the perspectives of the two Homeric protagonists, Parnell and Gladstone. While it is generally agreed that the English nonconformists played a decisive part in the dethronement of ‘the uncrowned king of Ireland’, their catalytic role has never been clearly, accurately, or fully explained. The problem is of special interest because it was during this controversy that ‘the nonconformist conscience’ entered the English language as a popular phrase as it had long before entered English politics as a potent reality. It is the purpose of this article to study the Parnell affair from the vantage point of English nonconformity and, in so doing, to re-examine the origin of the famous phrase and to throw light on the relationship of nonconformity and the liberal party in a critical phase of the home rule movement.

The House of Lords

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhodri Walters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the history of the House of the Lords in Great Britain during the twentieth century. The findings indicate that, in the twentieth century, the House of Lords could no longer vie with the House of Commons to be the forum of the nation, and that it was quite clearly a very different place at the end of the century from the House of the early 1900s. However, it became engaged in different tasks and performed a different role. In addition, the House became largely nominated and plutocratic, as a result of the Life Peerages and House of Lords Acts.

The Canadian Election of 1926

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-113
Author(s):  
Walter R. Sharp
Keyword(s):  
General Election ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Clear Majority

For the second time within twelve months, the continuing parliamentary tangle in Canada gave rise, on September 14, 1926, to a general election which not only was one of the most bitterly contested in years, but was focused, on the surface at least, upon a constitutional crisis without precedent in the history of the dominion. The outcome, however, proved to be considerably more decisive than the conflict of a year before, the Liberal party winning 119 seats—only four short of a clear majority in the House of Commons—which, with its Progressive and farmer allies, should mean that it will be able to restore relatively stable party government to Canada for the next few years.

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