The Parties in Transition, 1903–22

Abstract

In May 1903 Joseph Chamberlain made a speech in Birmingham calling for the end of free trade in the interest of consolidating the British Empire. The speech was a great sensation and it opened up a wide split in the Conservative Party. In the same year, Captain Middleton, the guiding force behind the Conservative Party organisation since the 1880s, retired. The party was to suffer three consecutive defeats in general elections and would not win an election independently of other parties until 1922. In February 1903 the ‘Newcastle Resolution’ passed at the Labour Party conference stated that members of the party should not identify themselves with or forward the interests of the Conservative and Liberal Parties. Yet in the same year a secret agreement with the Liberals was a recognition that the Labour Party, for all its independence, would need the co-operation of the Liberal Party to return members to the House of Commons. In January 1906 the Liberal Party scored one of the greatest electoral triumphs in modern times.