democracy1850-1950revision

8/14/2019 Democracy1850-1950revision

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Revision notes: Britain 1850 1979: THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY page 1 .

THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY

1. Features of a democracy.

Universal suffrage (one man one vote)

A system which allows the unhindered use of the vote (secret ballot)

A system which gives equal weight to each vote (equal constituencies)

Regular elections

The right to participate in the political process (e.g. to stand for elections)

Government by elected representatives (House of Commons)

Government based on majority support

Basic freedoms (e.g. freedom of speech, assembly, worship)

2. The franchise in 1850 (the franchise is the qualification to vote)

Had been set by the 1832 Reform Act.

Franchise based on property (the amount paid in rates by property owners or in rent by tenantsdetermined whether someone could vote).

Voters were mostly from the upper, land-owning class, large tenant farmers and the uppermiddle-class. They were also male.

To be fair the Victorians did not claim that their system was democratic; rather it producedeffective government, it guaranteed liberty and it was representative. What it representeddirectly was those considered fit by reason of their independence, their material stake insociety, their education and political knowledge to exercise the right to vote with a positiveeffect upon political life. Men who spent their lives working so they could just survive wereunlikely to develop the capacity for political judgement thought the average voter and politicianin the 1850s.. Those elected to power represented the interests of the community as a whole.The political system was not designed to deal with ideas of the rights of the individual.

3. Other features of the electoral system in 1850. Voting was open which led to bribery and intimidation.

The south of England was over represented in terms of MPs. This did not reflect the spread ofthe population, which had altered due to the industrial revolution. New industrial towns in thenorth were poorly represented.

To be an MP you had to fulfil a property qualification, which meant you had to be a landowner

MPs had to have independent means as they were not paid a salary.

Elections were infrequent and often not a contest as the political parties had done a deal.Many constituencies returned two MPs (counties). One for each party, Liberal orConservative, was a deal that was often completed.

The House of Lords (a body made up of hereditary peers and spiritual lords) had considerablepower.

Although the male non-voter could not vote he could become involved in the political processby rioting, intimidating and marching on behalf of a candidate. This sort of behaviour meantthat the voting had to be extended over 2-3 weeks in order to allow the police to transferscarce resources from one group of constituencies to another. It was not until 1918 that theyfelt secure enough to allow voting to take place on one polling day only.

4. The Second Reform Act (1867)Minor re-distribution of MPs. 52 were taken from the most corrupt and smallest boroughs andgiven to the large counties.Number of voters increased. The following groups were now entitled to vote,Boroughs

all householders who paid rates and had lived in the property for at least one year all lodgers paying 10 a year


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Counties

owners of property valued at 5 for rates

tenants of property valued at 12 for ratesComment

the electorate increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million

1 in 3 men could vote now (before 1867 the ration was 1 in 7 men)

most new voters were in the boroughs (skilled artisans benefited the most)

largest increases were in the large industrial boroughs (eg Manchester and Leeds) In thecounties (Conservative strongholds) and smaller boroughs, the balance of political forcesremained the same landowners, tenant farmers and middle-class householders were still incontrol.

Right to vote still based on property and its value. Voting was a privilege not a right.

MPs still unevenly distributed, with too many in the counties and small boroughs. Highlypopulated new industrial areas such as the Lowlands of Scotland, Lancashire, Yorkshire wereseriously under-represented.

5. Dealing with corruption

Victorian elections were expected as a matter of course to be punctuated by excessive drinking,mob action ranging from exuberance to intimidation, an exchange of cash and the application offorce. Such influence was considered to be perfectly natural in certain cases, i.e. the influence oflanded gentry on their farmers was natural as they owed him loyalty. This is not democratic.

The Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone passed two laws to curb abuses.(i) The Ballot Act (1872)Introduced the secret ballot in response to a Parliamentary enquiry which had revealed the scale ofcorruption.Comment: Intimidation declined but corruption was not completely wiped out. Elections simplydid not have enough voters. Landowners who had traditionally controlled elections could stillapply influence on areas where the number of voters was small. E.g. in rural areas Conservative

landlords often stationed an estate manager or agent outside the polling station to take down thenames of those who had voted. Since ballot boxes were separately counted they simply observedhow many votes each village had cast for the other side.(ii) Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act (1884)Due to excessive levels of expenditure during the elections of 1868, 1874 and 1880 Gladstonesgovernment passed the above law. The act set maximum expenditure limits according to size ofthe electorate. Party Agents had to make a complete return of his candidates expenses.Comment: This did end some of the worst abuses of the system. It was reasonably thoroughand effective.Such practices, of bribery, etc dwindled essentially because they ceased to be an effective way toinfluence the voter. As the electorate increased and the number of voters in individualconstituencies increased so large-scale bribery became too expensive and too obvious. Once thefranchise was further extended in 1884 the reformed electorate found its independent voice.

6. Representation of the People Act (1884) The Third Reform ActThe basic change of this Act was to make the franchise in the counties the same as that in theboroughs since 1867. Although the Act rationalised the existing pattern of voting, due to thecomplex structure of seven distinct types of voting qualification there was an uneven spread ofenfranchisement across the country. As a consequence of this considerable uneveness persisteduntil 1914 in that residential towns like Oxford (75%) and counties like Cornwall (80%) enjoyedsubstantially higher enfranchisement than industrial boroughs like Oldham (63%).Comment

The total electorate doubled (up to 5 million)

2 out of 3 men could vote this was a move towards democracy


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the right to vote was still linked to a complex series of property related qualifications rather thansimply the democratic principle of universal suffrage.

The law excluded several important groups from voting

Women who had been eliminated since the 1832 Act which adopted the term male

persons for the first time.

Men such as lunatics, aliens, criminals, peers, receivers of poor relief, those guilty of

corruption practices in elections

Men such as sons living in their parents home and servants

Many who were technically qualified to vote still could not vote because they were unable toprove that they were qualified. And so could not get on the electoral register. It is estimatedthat 2.5 million men were in this situation mainly from the lower working class.

In 1913, only 63% of adult males registered to vote

Plural voting still existed (ie. The same person was allowed to vote in more than oneconstituency). In 1911, this accounted for 7% of the electorate. This system was less thandemocratic as it allowed voting many times if you owned property of the correct value in anumber of constituencies. Some men claimed as many as 10 votes. They were helped by theleisurely pace of polling which allowed men with multiple votes to move around the country and

vote in each constituency where they were qualified. Women not allowed to vote.

7. Redistribution of Seats Act (1885)

Aimed to make constituencies approximately equal.

The vast majority of constituencies now had only one MP (single member constituencies)

Boundaries were redrawn so that most constituencies had an approximate population of50,000.

Redistribution ended the old problem of too many MPs in the south of England as smallboroughs lost MPs and industrial areas in the north gained MPs.

This Act brought into being a recognisably, modern system of electoral representation.

8. The Effects of developing democracy on the Victorian political structure

One of the most striking features of mid-Victorian elections is that barely half the constituenciesactually experienced a contest. Since two members were frequently elected for an electoralconstituency, Liberals and Tories frequently agreed to nominate a single candidate each with aview to avoid the trouble and expense of a contest. After 1885 single member constituencieseliminated this sort of agreement and the advance of formal party organisation may bemeasured by the decline of unopposed returns at elections.

1859 383 unopposed returns1880 1091885 451892 63

In 1885 there were just 45 uncontested seats. This is the closest 19th century politics got to themid-twentieth century practice in which virtually every constituency is contested.

The challenges and problems raised by the new franchises, the redistribution, and therestrictions upon expenditure in the 1880s generated a permanent, framework of partyorganisations which eventually covered the whole country. Three important areas oforganised political party activity may be identified. the professional party agent became more common as a result of the complexity of the

franchise and registration process after 1885. An alert party agent could ensure theregistration of voters and object against the registration of voters sympathetic to theopposition.

The local party sponsored club. (especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire where workingmens clubs were a long standing feature.

Party growth showed itself in the development of formal political party constituencyassociations based upon individual membership running into hundreds of thousands. This


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provided the centre for volunteer activists whose time and efforts provided free, much of thecanvassing, transport previously paid for on an ad hoc basis.Representative constituency bodies were pioneered by the radical Liberals it was dubbedthe caucus system who gave it institutional form in the National Liberal Federation (NLF)of 1877. Rank and file conservatives encountered greater opposition from landed andparliamentary patrons who saw a threat to their own control of the party. However, after a

slow start in 1867 the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations(NUCCA) attained official approval and grew during the mid 1880s, under the control ofConservative Central Office.

By building up habitual party loyalties the politicians hoped to replace older forms ofcommunity and group influence in voting with institutional, political ones.

However, the House of Commons remained dominated by gentlemen of means, due to thefact that MPs were still not paid a salary, until 1911, so had to have independent means.

9. Developing political parties (another result of the extension of the franchise)Political parties had to build up distinctive ranges of policies in order to attract the increasednumber of voters. The Liberal Party was descended from the Whigs and nonconformist radicals. Gladstone was

leader of the first government (1868-74) generally called Liberal. Gladstonian Liberalism wascommitted to removing restrictions on political, religious and economic life which involvedabolishing the privileges of the Church of England and promoting laissez-faire. The Liberalparty became more radical in the late 19th century due to the support of for Irish Home Rule in1886. Many in the party who did not support Irish Home Rule stood as Liberal Unionists andsided with the Conservatives.

The Conservative Party generally believed that the role of the state should be minimal.Benjamin Disraeli developed the reform image of the Conservatives to appeal to the newvoters and, helped to identify the party with Empire and putting Britain first. This appealed toa wide range of voters as they were seen to be patriotic.

A new political party emerged in 1900, called the Labour Representation Committee then the

Labour Party in 1906, to represent the needs of the new largely working class, voters who feltthat the existing political parties did not represent their views. This subject will be dealt with inmore detail in a later unit but you should be aware that this means greater choice for voters,which means more democracy.

10. Representation of the People Act (1918)

This Act should rightly be seen as a very significant step on the road to democracy:

It simplified voting qualifications 6 months residential qualification for all men over 21

8.5 million women over 30 were given the vote

plural voting was greatly reduced

the distinction between county and borough was ended

the entire country was now single member constituencies There were as increased number of MPs for industrial cities.

Comment

The electorate had trebled )from roughly 7 million to 21 million

The industrial classs became, for the first time, the majority in a mass electorate

This was to play a part in a changed political identity, as it helped the Labour Party to grow.

11. Further franchise reform

1928 female franchise made the same as men i.e 21 and over

1969 voting age reduced to 18

12. The Parliament Act (1911) The problem in terms of Britains developing democracy was that the unelected House of Lords

was blocking legislation passed by the elected representatives of the people i.e. the MPs in the


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House of Commons e.g. Franchise Bill (1884), Liberal legislation on education (1906) and theLiberal Peoples Budget of 1909. After a struggle the Liberals managed to pass the above Actwhich meant that,

The lords could not stop Bills to do with finance (taxation and government spending)

They could only delay other Bills for a maximum of 2 years

General Elections were to be held at least every 5 years

13. Payment of MPs

Established a salary of 400 per year for MPs

A democracy issue since everybody should have the right to be a representative as well as an

elector.

14. Ongoing democratic issues

All votes should be represented even where cast for a losing candidate so that each vote

matters.

(Proportional Representation)

the people to be consulted on important issues between elections (argument for referendums)

less government by unelected representatives (arguments for the abolition of the House of

Lords or an elected second chamber; more accountability of top civil servants)

less Government secrecy (arguments for a Freedom of Information Act)

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