Democracy’s March

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 670, 23 May 1929, Page 16

Democracy’s March

THREE BRITISH PARTIES Origin and Development ( Written for THE SVN by P. L. Sotjak.} NEVER before in the history of the Empire has there been brought under public review a more pregnant issue than that involved in the forthcoming British election, which must be ranked as one of the most important political polls in modern times. Three distinct parties, with representatives recruited from every walk of life, and with every facility that science can offer to a campaign unprecedented in its intensity, are to be subjected to an historic experimental test of a record electorate of 28,000,000 voters, which includes every sane wan and woman over 21 years of age. This marks the latest triumph of democracy in a political development that covers several centuries of British history.

A POLITICAL PARTY," in the "*■ words of Burke, “is a body of men united for the promotion by their joint endeavour, of the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.” The history of party can he definitely traced as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, when certain Puritan members opposed the Queen’s advisers in Parliament on matters of religious and political interest. Under the Stuarts the growing spirit of independence caused a clear-cut division of Parliament into two factions, whose disputes were marked by great bitterness and animosity, resulting finally in civil war. In the Cavaliers we see the upholders of Royalty and the Estab•lished Church, while the Roundhead party represented those who distrusted monarchy and claimed the recognition of Nonconformist beliefs. On the restoration of Charles 11. the Cavaliers were all-powerful, but after a few years, opposition began to manifest itself, and a party, hostile to the King, slowly grew in strength. In the disputes on the Exclusion Bill of 1679 the epithets "Whig” and “Tory” were first used in reference to the two factions. The Scottish Covenanters who rebelled against Charles I. had gained the former nickname from the word “whiggamore,” a West Lowlands peasant, and the term was in time applied to all enemies of the Stuart monarchy. The name “Tory,” from the Irish “toraidhe,” a robber rebel, was on the other hand fastened upon the supporters of James 11. The distinction, originally sectarian, eventually became purely political in nature. The Tories, then, were the upholders of absolutism, while the Whigs desired a monarchy restricted by Parliament. Catholics, High Churchmen, the landed gentry-—all these were attached to the Tory Party; while the Whigs represented the Nonconformists, the commercial aristocrats and business interests in the city. WHIGS’ LONG REIGN With the Revolution of IGSS came the general acceptance of Whig principles, and the Tories lost ground through their suspicious connection with the exiled Stuarts. The reign of Anne was marked by a revival of Toryism, whose advocates, Swift, Defoe and Bolingbroke, gained the victory in a brilliant literary war with Steele and Addison, the Whig pamphleteers. But the accession of the Hanoverian George I. in 1714 brought the fall of the Tory Government and a lasting triumph for the Whig party, which ruled till near the end of the century. The history of Cabinet runs side by side with that of the party system. This powerful executive is, theoretically, unknown to the constitution, and w'as originally an irregular committee of the Privy Council, summoned to consultation by the Tudor monarchs. Charles 11. went a step farther by forming a select committee, called the Cabal or Cabinet, which met regularly to discuss all matters of State. William 111. was the first to select his Cabinet from the two Parliamentary parties, and in 1693 he formed a Ministry exclusively of Whigs, called the “Junto.” In the reign of Anne we find “mixed” Cabinets, whose Ministers were responsible to the Crown rather than to Parliament. But with the House of Hanover came constitutional monarchy as we now know it, the Cabinet being dependent on the majority support of the House, and answerable to Parliament for the policy of the Crown. George 1., knowing little English, did not attend Cabinet meetings, and his place was taken by Robert Walpole, the first Premier with real authority. The prolonged rule of the wealthy Whigs had made of the English Government a “Venetian oligarchy,” which gradually became reactionary in policy and corrupt in administration. With the support of the Tories, the ambitious George 111. successfully fostered dissension within the Whig party; all that influence, bribery and corruption could do he turned to account for the furtherance of his aims. The Government’s final downfall was due to the younger Pitt, who formed a great new Tory party, resting on popular support as well as on that of the Crown, and opposed to all revolutionary changes in domestic affairs. But Pitt also asserted the powers of Cabinet, and as Prime Minister assumed the authority with which we are now familiar. COMING OF THE LIBERALS The Opposition party also underwent a change. Fox was the founder of the new Whigs, who professed an admiration for the French Revolution, and were the progenitors of the modern Liberal party. Their principles triumphed in the Electoral Reform Bill of 1832; but the discredit still attaching to the old Whigs caused the progressists to borrow from Continental politics the term Liberal as a better designation of their party. The Tories followed suit in discarding their old nickname for the new title Conservative, by which the party has become generally known. From this period we see an alternation of parties, with Disraeli and Gladstone in the forefront of Conservative and Liberal achievement respectively. Since 1830 there have been 30 British Ministries; of these 16 have been Liberal and 12 Conservative, the last of which has just gone to the country under the leadership of Mr. Baldwin: there have also been Mr. Lloyd George’s Coalition Cabinet of the war period, and the 1924 Labour Ministry. The Conservatives stand for “conserving what is,” though their policy does not exclude reform. The Liberal Party, with no separate “interest” now backing it, rests almost solely on personalities and ideas. Both its rivals naturally assert that it cannot regain the public confidence.

Meantime it enjoys a degree of favour among leading economists. THE LABOUR GROUP

The history of the British Labour Party, amazing alike in the rapidity of its growth and the increasing wideness of its appeal, is closely interwoven with the rise of trades unionism. The Industrial Revolution resulted in a post-Reformation revival of the trades guilds, while the gradual extension of the franchise further aroused the democratic consciousness. Founded by Robert Owen, trades unionism became a definite industrial organisation on the collapse of Chartism in 1848, w-hile the foundation of a Congress and Parliamentary Comtnittee in 1871 emphasised its growing political nature. The elections of 1874 saw the return of Thomas Burt and Alexander Macdonald, the first working men in Parliament. The ’eighties mark the beginnings of Liberal-Labourism, and during this decade the working-class group within the Liberal Party rose to 11 members. The death of Gladstone resulted in a falling away of Labour support to Liberalism, and the spread of Socialism, through the agency of G. B. Shaw, Sidney Webb and others, brought about the foundation in 1900 of the Labour Representation Committee, with J. Ramsay MacDonald as secretary. Its two Parliamentary members were Richard Bell and Keir Hardie, father of Scottish Socialism and supporter of the feminine suffragists. The party adopted its present title in 1918, when 57 members were returned, as compared with 40 in 1910 and 29 in 1906. First elected in the latter year, Ramsay Macdonald has led the party since 1922, when Labour became the official Opposition with 142 members. The accession of a Labour Ministry in 1924 marked the climax to a bare 25 years of political development. With a constitution modelled Strictly on that of Britain, the New Zealand Parliament, in the history and present state of its three political parties, bears a remarkable likeness to the older English assembly. In no other part of the Empire, indeed, could so close an analogy be drawn. One factor, however, remains undecided. Will the British elections result, like the New Zealand poll of last November, In the defeat of Conservatism? Politicians have made varying predictions. The decision lies in the lap of the gods—and still more eo —of the ladies.