Second Salisbury Ministry (1886-1892)

The second Salisbury ministry endeavored to conciliate Ireland: in 1887, by reducing rents; and in 1888 and 1891, by appropriating money to enable tenants to buy their lands. A permanent land commission was appointed, and in the decade that followed, many tenants made application for loans from the government. The policy had a good effect, and certainly was followed by a decrease of crime in Ireland. This result was due in part to the disruption of the Irish party, brought about by the death of Parnell in 1891.

Among the most important measures of the Salisbury ministry was that of 1888 reorganizing local government. This new act supplemented the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, by taking the control of the counties out of the hands of the local aristocracy or country gentlemen, and giving it to governing boards elected by the ratepayers.

LORD SALISBURY. From a photograph.

The importance of the change lay in this, that whereas hitherto nearly every person intrusted with local administration had been, theoretically at least, appointed by the crown, by the new law he was to be elected by the ratepayers. Such a change amounted to a revolution. The powers conferred on the counties in 1888 were extended to the parishes in 1894, and that which was at first done for England was finally extended to Scotland and Ireland also.

The Second Attempt to grant Home Rule to Ireland

The local government acts were in part a concession to the growing radical and socialistic elements that for a decade had been gaining strength in Great Britain. The most noteworthy victory of the Progressists, as these Radicals were called, was in London, where in 1892 they gained control of the London County Council. Though they lost their majority in 1895, they were again successful in 1898 and 1901. Side by side with the Progressists appeared the Labor party, of which the most remarkable leader was John Burns. But neither of these parties won many seats in parliament, though some of their members sat as Liberals. In the elections of 1900 only two, Keir Hardy and Bell of Derby, were returned as avowedly Labor members, John Burns standing as a Liberal.

When parliament was dissolved in 1892, the Liberal party made home rule and the improvement of the condition of labor its chief issues before the country. The elections resulted in a Liberal majority of forty, but a majority wholly dependent on Irish votes. True to his promise, Gladstone, on February 13, 1893, presented his second home rule measure. He demanded for Ireland a legislature of two houses, with power to make laws, and an executive, like a colonial governor. He demanded that Irish peers should sit in the British House of Lords and eighty Irish members in the British House of Commons. The home rule thus granted was somewhat less extensive than that provided for in 1886. In the House of Commons the debate on this measure continued for three months, and the opposition did all in its power to prevent the passage of the bill. The long strain, the bitter feelings aroused, the attempts of the government to check debate, ended in a pitched battle on the floor of the house, July 29, which resulted in battered hats and torn clothing. The bill was finally carried by a majority of thirty-four; but the House of Lords, feeling that so small a majority, entirely made up of Irish votes, hardly represented the wishes of the British people, defeated the bill by a large majority.

Elections of 1895

This act of the peers aroused against them the animosity of the Liberals. Gladstone, Labouchere, and others denounced the House of Lords, and carried on a veritable campaign for its abolition. Gladstone resigned in March, 1894; and, to the great dissatisfaction of Radicals like Labouchere, who did not want a leader from the House of Lords, Lord Rosebery became the acknowledged head of the Liberal party. But Rosebery's tenure was brief. Defeated on a small matter in June, 1895, he resigned; and at once his successor, Lord Salisbury, dissolved parliament and appealed to the country. The elections of 1895 were full of interest. The Liberals were disheartened. During their three years of power, they had not only accomplished very little, but they had failed to deal effectively with any of the great social problems. They had wasted time on the home rule question, and had got from it no adequate return. The great promises of their earlier programmes had not been fulfilled. At the polls they suffered heavy defeat, and the Conservatives obtained a majority greater than at any other time in their history. Even without the Liberal Unionists, who, since 1886, had been their ardent allies, they would have had full control of the House of Commons.

Disruption of the Liberal Party

The new ministry was made up of Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, and remained firmly intrenched in office for five years. The Liberals gradually underwent disruption. The withdrawal of the Liberal Unionists had deprived them of some of their ablest members. Gladstone had retired, leaving them without a leader in whom all had faith, and they formed a disunited party, without fixed and definite policy, and without harmony among themselves. Their Irish allies, who had divided into hostile groups after the death of Parnell, were estranged because of the failure of the home rule policy, and were angry when the Liberals refused to place home rule any longer in the front of their programme. During the years between 1895 and the general elections of 1900, one Liberal leader after another came to the front. Rosebery resigned in 1896; Sir William Harcourt took his place, but in 1898 withdrew from the leadership of a party that was “rent by sectional disputes and personal interests." Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman became Harcourt's successor; but before 1900 the party itself seemed completely demoralized. A group of Liberal Imperialists, supporters of the imperial policy of the Conservatives, and led by Sir E. Grey and Lord Brassey, broke away from the party and formed a separate group by themselves. This left the Little Englanders, that is, those who opposed the enlargement of the empire by the acquirement of new territory, in full control. The Conservative party never seemed stronger or more united, and never better able to carry out its policy with efficiency and despatch than in the year 1900.

Social and Industrial Tendencies

The Conservative government, maintaining the traditions of its predecessors, gave its attention to the demands of the industrial and agricultural classes, and tried to bring about social reform. It dealt with the matter of factories, and endeavored to bring more industries under the operation of the law. It concerned itself with hours of labor, but was unsuccessful in carrying an eight-hour law for miners. It passed a bill providing for compensation for accidents, which increased the workingman's opportunity of enforcing claims against employers ; it tried to check disease among cattle and swine, to prevent adulteration of drugs and food, to prevent explosions in mines, and to enable occupiers of small dwellings to purchase their homes. It supplemented the land purchase acts for Ireland, and created a department of agriculture for that country; and, in some ways, its most important work was its attempt to create a uniform school system. It extended the government's ownership of telegraphs and telephones ; and, in other ways, increased the government's control of public conveniences. It must not be supposed that these legislative activities were confined to the Conservatives only. All governments since 1868 had been regulating private activities and extending the authority of the state in matters relating to the welfare of the masses.