DEMOCRACY, CAPITALISM AND EMPIRE IN LATE VICTORIAN BRITAIN,

Transcription

1 DEMOCRACY, CAPITALISM AND EMPIRE IN LATE VICTORIAN BRITAIN,

2 Democracy, Capitalism and Empire in Late Victorian Britain, E. Spencer Wellhofer Professor of Political Science University of Denver Colorado

3 First published in Great Britain 1996 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOl / First published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y ISBN Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wellhofer. E. Spencer, Democracy, capitalism and empire in late Victorian England I E. Spencer Wellhofer. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN I. Great Britain-Politics and govemment Great Britain-Politics and govemment Imperialism--Great Britain-History-19th century. 4. Capitalism--Great Britain -History-19th century. 5. Democracy-Great Britain-History-19th century. I. Title. DA560.W dc CIP E. Spencer Wellhofer 1996 Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

4 For Susan

5 Contents List of Figures List of Tables Preface xi xii xiii 1 'One Step Broken, The Great Scale's Destroyd' 1 The Eighteenth-Century Republican Ideal: Harmony, Hierarchy and Mutual Obligation 3 The Enduring Ideal 5 Challenges to the 'Vast Chain of Being': Class, Mass and the Savage Celt 7 Expanding the Political Community 15 Conclusion 19 2 'A Deity of Equality' and 'Even a Safer Class of the Population': Debates on Expanding the Polity 21 'Look not to Parliament, look only to yourselves' 23 'Of the "enlargement of the franchise", and other vagaries' 25 The First Reform Act of 'It was said he paid a thousand pounds for five votes' 28 The Second Reform Act of The Ballot Act of The Reform Acts of The Elimination of Corrupt Practices Act, The Third Reform (Franchise Expansion) Act, The Registration Act of The Redistribution Act of Reactions to the 'Deity of Equality' 39 The Conservatives and democracy 39 The Liberals and democracy 43 Conclusion 46 3 'Not only a Bad Metaphor': Classes, Masses and Races in late Victorian Politics 48 The Backdrop to late Victorian Politics 49 Religion, Class and Empire in late Victorian Britain 49 Political Issues in late Victorian Britain: Religion and Politics and the Triad of Es: Establishment, Education and Entertainment 50 vii

6 viii Contents The Limits of the Religious Interpretation of Politics: Empire and Class 51 Empire and the territorial structuring of politics 52 Religion and class in late Victorian Britain 54 The nature of the working class 57 Religion, Class and Ethnicity: Cross-cutting and Reinforcing 61 Observing religious, class and ethnic divisions in late Victorian Britain 62 Electoral Reform and the Expression of Religion, Class and Ethnicity 63 Organisational responses 65 Electoral and Party Alliances 70 Conclusions 77 4 'Comfortable Contemplations': The Effects of Franchise Expansion on Long Term Social-Partisan Alignments 79 Expressions of Religion and Class in late Victorian Voting, The Unionist Coalition and Conservatism 82 Conservatism versus Unionism 85 The Dilemmas of Liberalism and Realignment 91 The Rise of Labour 95 The Rise and Fall of Lib-Labism 96 Summary 98 Conclusions 'Our Best Friends': Short-Run Changes in Issues and Party Alliances 103 Models of the Structure of Change 105 The Political Context of Short-Run Change 105 Religious issues: establishment, entertainment and education 106 Class 109 The Unionist Coalition and the Conservatives 111 The Liberal Party 121 The Strange Death of the Liberal Party and the Rise of Labour 124 Conclusions 'There are Races, as There are Trees': Challenges to Domestic Empire in Late Victorian Politics 135 Democracy, Salisbury and the Primrose League 137

7 Contents The Territorial Dimensions of Empire: Cores and Peripheries 138 The Politics of Empire: Core and Periphery in late Victorian Britain 140 The Politics of Empire: Core and Counter-Core Mass Politics 146 The Politics of Peripheral Dissent 147 Politics in the Core 160 Liberal imperialism 160 The Working Classes and Empire 164 Conclusions Philosophers, Porters, Parsons and Parvenus 168 The Origins of the Labour Aristocracy Controversy 169 The Recurrent Debate over the Labour Aristocracy 172 The On-going Debate 174 Measuring Fragmentations of Interest and Rank 174 Long run Trends in Intra-Working Class Politics 176 Nationalism, Empire and the Working Class 181 The Labour Aristocracy Thesis in Simplex Models 182 Conclusion 'Men Make their own History, but... ' 'the Chain is Absolutely Continuous and Unbroken': Continuity and Change in the Transition to Mass Politics 187 Democratic Transition: British Exceptionalism and the European Experience 191 The New Institutionalism and the Study of Democratic Transition 193 Appendix 1: Units of Analysis, Data Description and Sources 198 Units of Analysis 198 Sources 201 Appendix II: Analytical Techniques 202 Latent Variable Path Analysis 202 The Statistical Algorithm: Latent Variable Partial Least Squares 203 The basic method 203 The PLS algorithm 204 An applied example 205 Missing Data Procedures 212 Reconstruction of missing data 212 Model Testing Procedures 213 ix

8 X Contents Models of Change Processes 213 Ecological Analysis and Inference 215 Notes 217 Bibliography 246 Index 258

9 List of Figures 3.1 Latent variable measurement models for social configurations Latent variable measurement model for organizational density Changes in party vote Party votes latent growth curves Conceptual model of electoral change LVPA model for Unionist vote trend LVPA model for Unionist and Conservative vote trend L VP A model for Liberal vote trend L VPA model for Labour vote trend L VP A model for Lib-Lab vote trend and LVPA Simplex model of Conservative vote L VPA model of Unionist vote , controlling for Conservatism LVPA simplex model of Liberal vote , controlling for Conservatism LVPA simplex model of Lib-Lab vote , controlling for Liberal, Labour and non-voters LVPA model of peripheral vote trends L VPA model of core vote trends The working class and party vote trends Working class and party vote trends : Unionist vote, controlling for Conservative vote trend 183 A.II.1 A simple conceptual model of class voting 206 A.II.2 Measurement model of class voting 207 A.ll.3 Growth of the Labour Party vote A.II.4 Labour Party latent growth curve A.II.5 L VPA model of class vote XI

10 List of Tables 6.1 A.I.l A.II.l A.II.2 A.II.3 Goodness-of-fit tests for core-periphery differences Data means, standard deviation and cases Manifest variable co-variance matrix Latent variable loading pattern LVPA path coefficients xii

11 Preface This project is an outgrowth of a long standing fascination with institutional responsiveness, adaptation and change. In one sense the project began when a graduate student returning from field research in Argentina found himself with a wealth of gathered information but little sense of a clear substantive problem. The events which followed in the Spring of 1968 at Columbia University concentrated the mind as a year and a half of field research had been unable to do. The subsequent work reflected those heady days with its focus on different facets of institutional responsiveness while developing an increasing concentration on political parties and democratic transition. Several questions underpinned these efforts: under what conditions do institutions become rigid, unable to accommodate the needs or demands for change? What do patterns of organisational evolution and elite recruitment have to tell us about the sources of and resistances to institutional responsiveness? A more immediate impetus for this current project, however, lies in much more recent events in Europe and the former Soviet Union. As 1989 unfolded, I found myself, like most students of politics, deeply involved in discussions and debates on the likely outcome of the burgeoning efforts at democratic transition. These discussions were wide ranging and touched on all the current explanations and approaches to the study of democratic transition. However, one thought haunted me during these discussions: the historical and cultural boundaries of our language. As my efforts turned to the current project and I indulged myself in the history of late Victorian Britain, it became increasing clear that the political leaders and intellectuals of that age faced conditions not unlike those more contemporary ones. Like ourselves, the singular question of the age centred on institutional responsiveness as demands for change followed the collapse of the previous ages' social ordering principles. Second, but of equal importance, however, these leaders and intellectuals were equally bound by the dominant ideas of their epoch as expressed in its contending languages. These languages provided the 'Flesh-Garment, the Body, of thought'. They determined the formulation of the questions, problems as well as the proposed solutions. Certainly some language reflected narrow economic or class or partisan interests, but more than crude determinism was at work. Language provided the conceptual tools and these were inadequate to the tasks at hand. Despite the apparent need for new social ordering priciples, the interpretations of the age continued to employ Xlll

12 xiv Preface contending languages and make predictions based on their logics, phrased in their words and cast up in their images. The current project owes much to others for their assistance and support; indeed there are those without whom it would not have been possible. Friends and fellow scholars aided and encouraged the effort in numerous ways. Ken Wald generously shared his previous research and provided technical assistance for adding new data to his past efforts. Alan Ware of Worcester College, Oxford, and Lars Svsand of the Institute of Comparative Politics of the University of Bergen, Norway, encouraged the project with their interest and comments. James Caporaso, then of the University of Denver and now of the University of Washington, provided stimulation and advice both as Editor of Comparative Political Studies and as friend and colleague. Jack McArdle of the University of Virginia was most patient as I learned Latent Variable Path Analysis (L VPA). Closer to home Gregg K vistad, Chair of the Department of Political Science, Marshall Haith, Director of Research, and William Zaranka, then Dean and now Provost, aided the effort by their financial support. Harold Perkin of Northwestern University kindly read some initial portions of the manuscript and his excellent comments formed the basis for revisions in the final work. During various stages of the project financial support was provided by the Ford Foundation and the University of Denver. Major financial support for the project, however, was provided by the National Science Foundation under grant SES That funding underwrote a larger project of data acquisition as well as funding initial papers and articles of which this book is one component. The Foundation's continued support is gratefully acknowledged. E. SPENCER WELLHOFER