BRITAIN AND IRELAND

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• Britain’s Victorian Age represented a period of prosperity, imperial greatness and the evolution of a true parliamentary democracy. Unlike the continent, reform in Britain was driven by the competing visions of two mass political parties

• Conservatives and Liberals

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• A. The reform bills of 1867 and 1884 further extended the franchise in Britain; political views and the party system became more democratic. Liberal and occasionally arrogant William Gladstone led the effort toward expanding opportunity and lifting religious and political restrictions on citizens.– Universal schooling– Secret ballots– Civil service exams– Legalized unions– Lifted religious requirements for universities

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• The conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli supported extending the vote. Conservatives pursued a philosophy of protecting workers from the worst effects of industrialization, passing acts to regulate public housing and sanitation.

• The Third Reform Bill 1884 gave the vote to almost every adult male.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• 1. Nevertheless, some like John Stuart Mill explored the problems of safeguarding individual differences and unpopular opinions.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• By 1900, the Liberal party had abandoned its laissez-faire economic approach, and in an effort to combat support for the new Labour Party moved toward the development of a social welfare state.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• B. Led by David Lloyd George, the Liberal Party ushered in social welfare legislation between 1906 and 1914 by taxing the rich.– Insurance for unemployment,

accident and old age– Progressive income tax and

inheritance tax

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• When the House of Lords attempted to block the legislation, its veto power was removed with the Parliament Act of 1911.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

• Despite these efforts, workers continued to agitate for improved working conditions, initiating a wave of strikes in 1911 and 1912.

• Women’s groups pushing for the vote, suffragettes, used military tactics to gain publicity for their cause and provoked embarrassing conflicts with police and government.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND• C. The issue of home

rule (self-government) divided Ireland into the northern Protestant Ulsterites, who opposed it, and the southern Catholic nationalists, who favored it. The issue helped to split the Liberal Party.

Isaac Butt

Parnell

BRITAIN AND IRELAND• 1. Gladstone supported

home rule for Ireland in 1886 and 1893, but the bills failed to pass. He had disestablished the Anglican Church in Ireland and assisted tenant farmers there.

• 2. The question of home rule was postponed because of war in 1914.