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I. The Transformation of Liberalism: Great Britain and Italy
In dealing with the problems created by the new mass politics, liberal governments often followed policies that undermined the basic tenets of liberalism; true in Great Britain and Italy
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Great Britain
- i. Demands of working-class movements caused Liberals to move away fro their ideals
- 1. Liberals were forced to adopt significant social reforms due to the pressure of two new working-class organizations: trade unions and the Labour Party
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Trade Unions
i. Frustrated by the government’s failure to enact social reform, trade unions began to advocate more radical change of the economic system, caling for “collective ownership and control over production, distribution, and exchange”
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"new unionism"
1. This “new unionism” also led to the union organization of many steel factory workers and to new confrontations in the streets of London as British workers struck for a minimum wage and other benefits
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Movement of laborers
- i. A movement for laborers emerged among a group of intellectuals known as the Fabian Socialists who stressed the need for the workers to use their right to vote to capture the House of Commons and pass legislation that would benefit the laboring class
- 1. Neither the Fabian Socialists nor the British trade unions were Marxist
- a. They didn’t advocate class struggle and revolution but instead favored evolution toward a socialist state by democratic means
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1900
- i. In 1900, representatives of the trade unions and Fabian Socialists coalesced to form the Labour Party
- 1. Although the new party won only one seat in 1900, it managed to elect 29 members to the House of Commons in 1906
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Liberals
i. The Liberals, who gained control of the House of Commons in that year and held the government from 1906 to 1914, perceived that they would need a program of social welfare or lose the support of the workers
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Policy of reform
- i. Policy of reform by David Lloyd George, a brilliant orator from Wales who had been deeply moved by the misery of Welsh coal miners and served as chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915
- 1. Liberals abandoned the classic principles of laissez-faire and voted for social reforms
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National Insurance Act of 1911
a. National Insurance Act of 1911 provided benefits for workers in case of sickness and unemployment, to be paid for by compulsory contributions from workers, employers, and the state
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Other reform
- a. Other reform: small pension for retirees over seventy and compensation for workers injured on the job
- i. To pay for the new program, Lloyd George increased the tax burden on the wealthy classes
- 1. Though both the benefits of the program and the tax increases were modest, they were the first hesitant steps toward the future British welfare state
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Liberalism and Lloyd George
- i. Liberalism, which was based on principle that government that governs least governs best, was transformed
- b. Lloyd George was forced to confront power of the House of Lords through social reform
- i. Composed to hereditary aristocrats, the House of Lords took a strong stance against Lloyd George’s effort to pay for social reform measures by taxes, however modest, on the wealthy
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1911
- a. In 1911, the Liberals pushed through a law that restricted the ability of the House of Lords to impede legislation enacted by the House of Commons
- After 1911, the House of Lords became largely a debating society
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Irish Problem
- a. Liberals also tried to solve the Irish problem
- i. Parliament finally granted home rule in 1914, but the explosive situation in Ireland= more problems
- 1. Irish protestants in n. Ireland wanted no part of an Irish Catholic state
- a. Outbreak of WWI enabled the British government to sidestep the potentially explosive issue and to suspend Irish home rule for the duration of the war
- i. Failure to deal with the issue= more problems
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Italy
- i. Liberals had great problems here
- ii. Some stability achieved when liberal leader Giovanni Giolitti served as prime minister
- 1. Giolitti was master of using trasformismo, or transformism, a system in which old political groups were transformed into new government coalitions by political and economic briberty
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In the long run, ...
- i. In the long run, his methods corrupted Italian politics even more corrupt and unmanageable
- 1. When urban workers turned to violence to protest their living and working conditions, Giolitti tried to appease them with social welfare legislation and universal male suffrage in 1912
- a. To strengthen his popularity, he aroused nationalistic passion sby conquering Libya
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Despite efforts
i. Despite efforts, worker unrest continued and in 1914 government troops had to be used to quell rioting workers
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