CHAPTER XXX THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS The Conservatives National tive Asso TEN years before the National Liberal Federation was Formation founded, a Tory organisation, called the National Union of of the Conservative and Constitutional Associations, had been Union of started upon similar lines. After some preliminary meetings Conservait was definitely formed at a conference in November, 1867, ciations. where delegates from fifty-four towns and the University of London were present.1 Here a constitution was adopted, which, with the amendments made in the first few years, contained the following provisions. Any Conservative or Constitutional association might be admitted to the Union on payment of one guinea a year, and would then be entitled to send two delegates to the Conference. This last body was the great representative assembly of the Union. Like the Council of the National Liberal Federation it was to meet in a different place each year, and was composed of the two delegates from each subscribing association, of the officers of the Union, and of such honorary members as were also members of the Council. The Council was the executive body of the Union, and consisted of the president, treasurer, and trustees; of twenty-four members elected by 2 'The reports of the first three Conferences are found only in the manuscript minutes of proceedings. Reports of the fourth to the ninth Conference inclusive were printed. Since that time only the reports of the Council and the programmes for the Conferences have been published. In the original constitution it was to meet every third year in London, but this was changed in 1868. It will be observed that the Conference corresponds to the Council of the National Liberal Federation; and the Council, although a much smaller body, to the General Committee of the Federation. Objects of the Union. the Conference; of not more than twenty nominated by the principal provincial associations; and of such members of the Consultative Committee as were willing to act, the last being a body formed out of vice-presidents and honorary members to which difficult questions could be referred. In order to attract money, it was provided that any one subscribing a guinea a year should be an honorary member of the Union, that the subscribers of five guineas a year should be vice-presidents with seats ex officio in the Conference, and that any one subscribing twenty guineas should be a vice-president for life. In order to attract titles provision was made for the election of a patron and ten vicepatrons of the Union. These methods of procuring the countenance of rank and wealth were not tried in vain. In 1869 Lord Derby became the patron of the Union, and on his death he was succeeded by the Duke of Richmond. In the report of the Council in 1872 we read, "the total number of vice-presidents is now 365, among whom are 66 noblemen, and 143 past and present members of the House of Commons." The honorary members at the same time. numbered 219. Although the National Union was much older than the National Liberal Federation, it attracted far less notice. During its earlier years, indeed, the Conferences were very small affairs. At the second Conference, for example, in 1868, there were present only three officers and four delegates, and in the two following years respectively only thirty-six and thirty-five persons all told. The chief reason, however, why the Union made so much less stir than the Federation, lies in the nature of the work it undertook to do. The Federation was a weapon of militant radicalism, designed to carry into effect an aggressive public policy, and was considered a serious menace to old institutions; but the Union was intended merely as an instrument for helping the Conservative party to win victories at the elections. Its object was to strengthen the hands of local associations; while its work consisted chiefly in helping to form such 1 Try to associations, and in giving information. For this purpose, it kept a register of all Conservative associations, so that it could act as their London agency; it offered suggestions, was ready to give advice, printed and distributed pamphlets, and arranged for speeches and lectures.2 The Union made It did not no claim to direct the policy of the party. At the meeting Guide Party in 1867, when the Constitution was adopted, one speaker Policy. said that "unless the Union was managed by the leaders of the Conservative party it would have no force and no effect whatever," and this was given as a reason for making the honorary members eligible to the Council.3 The matter was put in a nutshell some years later by Mr. Cecil Raikes, one of the founders, when he said that "the Union had been organised rather as what he might call a handmaid to the party, than to usurp the functions of party leadership.' In fact, for the first nine years the Conference passed no resolutions of a political character at all, and those which it adopted during the decade that followed expressed little more than confidence in the leaders of the party. Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Gorst, who had presided at the first Conference in 1867, was appointed in 1870 principal agent of the party—that is, the head, under the whips, of the Conservative Central Office and in order to connect the new representative organisation with the old centralised one he was made the next year honorary secretary of the Union.5 The policy was soon carried farther. In their report for 1872 the Council said: "Since the last conference, an arrangement has been made by which the work of the Union has been more closely incorporated with that of the party generally, and its offices have been removed to the headquarters of the party in Parliament Street. This arrange 'Cf. Statement made at first Conference, 1868, and Rep. of the Council at the Conference of 1875. 'Cf. Leaflet No. 1, 1876. Manuscript minutes, p. 57. Rep. of the Conference of 1873. 5 Rep. of the Council for 1871. He held the post of principal agent through the general election of 1874 which his efforts helped much to win. In 1881 he took the position again, and at that time was made a vice-chairman of the Council so as to bring the Union into coöperation with the whips' office. (Rep. of the Council for 1881.) Its Relation to the Party The of 1872. ment has been productive of the most satisfactory results, not only by having brought the Union into more direct contact with the leaders of the party, and thereby enhancing the value of its operations, but also by greatly reducing its working expenses." At an early stage of its existence, therefore, the Union took for its honorary secretary an officer responsible through the whips to the leaders of the party in Parliament, and this was openly proclaimed an advantage. No secret was made of the fact that the Union was expected to follow, not to lead; for at the banquet held in connection with the Conference that same year the Earl of Shrewsbury, in proposing a toast to the Army, said, "The duty of a soldier is obedience, and discipline is the great characteristic of the army and navy, and I may also say that in a like manner it is characteristic of the Conservative Union." The Conference held in 1872 seems to have been the first Conference that attracted much public attention, and it was notable for two things. Mr. Disraeli had insisted that the working classes were by nature conservative, and that the extension of the franchise would bring an accession of strength to his party. His opponents, assuming that Liberalism was a corollary of democracy, had laughed at the idea; and although his followers had expended much energy in organising Conservative workingmen's associations, the results of the election of 1868 appeared to have disproved his theory. But the meeting in 1872 showed that among the artisans Tories were by no means rare. In connection with the Conference, which was held in London, a great banquet was given at the Crystal Palace, and this caused Mr. Cecil Raikes, the chairman of the Council, to remark: "a few years ago everybody said "that if a Conservative workingman could be found he ought to be put in a glass case. We have found for him the largest glass case in England to-night.” The banquet was also notable for a speech by Mr. Disraeli, which was ridiculed at the time on account of the characteristically grandiloquent phrase, "You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people." Nevertheless it was a remarkable speech, for it laid down the main principles of Tory policy for the next thirty years and more, a feat that is probably without parallel in modern history." that the Union was sentative. Although the Conservative party carried the country at Complaints the general election of 1874, and Mr. Disraeli, for the first time, came into power with a majority at his back, popular not Repreinterest in the Union grew slowly. As late as 1878 not more than two hundred and sixty-six out of the nine hundred and fifty Conservative associations were affiliated to the Union, and delegates from only forty-seven of them attended the Conference. Yet complaints were already heard that foreshadowed the strife to come in the future. In 1876 Mr. Gorst, the honorary secretary, but no longer the principal agent of the party, proposed to reorganise the Council by making it more representative in character. His suggestion was opposed by Mr. Raikes, and was voted down. The next year, however, he returned to the subject, moving first to abolish the Consultative Committee altogether, and then that its members should not sit on the Council. He withdrew these motions on the understanding that the Council would consider the matter; and although other persons also urged that the Council should be strengthened by becoming a more representative body, the only action taken at this meeting was to provide that the Council itself should not propose for reëlection more than two thirds of its retiring members. 'Punch made the expression the subject of a cartoon. 2 Curiously enough he suggested one principle which has only recently been taken up seriously by Conservative leaders. Among the three great objects of the party he placed the upholding of the empire, and in speaking of this he said that when self-government was given to the colonies, it ought to have been with provisions for an imperial tariff, common defence, and some representative council in London. 'Rep. of Conference of 1878. But many of the local associations may have been branches with less than one hundred members, and therefore not admissible under the rules. The need of a reorganisation of the party on a more popular basis was afterward urged by Mr. Gorst and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff in an article entitled "The State of the Opposition," Fortnightly Review, November, 1882. |