The Conservative Party and Inter-War Dominance : An Investigation

The inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservatives can be attributed to several key factors that shaped the political period. Firstly, the unique situation presented after the Representation of the People Act in 1918, the rise of Labour, the disintegration of Liberalism and the changed nature of the political machine. These factors, coupled with the decision to restore the party system after the fall of the Lloyd George Coalition in 1922 proved a vitally significant decision for the future of the Conservative party. What was eventually restored in 1924 was a new party system much more favourable to the Conservatives than the old one - with Labour as the natural party of opposition. During the next seventy years, the Conservatives were to be out of power for only eighteen - this is revealing in assessing how generally positive the inter-war years were for the Conservatives. It would be generalising to claim that the Conservatives dominated for the whole period, the two labour regimes in 1924 and 1929 belie this fact, yet they emerged both times as the relatively uncontested majority party. Moreover, an unexpected opening in the party leadership with the death of Bonar Law in 1923 would be crucial in giving the party fresh impetus and ideas during the period. Stanley Baldwin himself must be considered a vital factor in the electoral dominance of the Conservatives. Baldwin was to be the pivotal figure in the government of Britain for the next decade and a half. Though his tenure was sometimes shaky, in the end he established an extraordinary grip on power. Maybe also there is something in the fact that the opposition to the Conservatives in the inter-war years was relatively weak. Labour was in a position to take government, but never did it hold onto power long, and the Liberals never really recovered from 1918 - despite some gains through the mid-twenties.

Therefore we can see two distinct shades of argument : one that the Conservatives (through a combination of leadership skills and electoral appeal) fashioned their own dominance ; one that situations and weakness of other parties aided this dominance. Certainly, the Conservatives showed tactical ineptitude in the 1923 election - Baldwin’s revival of the issue of tariff protection coming at a particularly bad time. But since the chain of events led to, within a year, an impressive consolidation of the Conservative position, Baldwin has largely been forgiven for the year out of office. Significantly, the Conservatives emerged from both Labour’s tenures stronger. The term ‘dominance’ must also be considered - total ‘dominance’ is never really possible within the political spectrum. The Liberal improvement in 1923 was substantial, showing surprising resilience in a party that had barely survived seven awful years. However, the major weakness now with the Liberals was that they had no real position to call their own. Labour had assumed the role of the major party on the Left, Conservatives on the Right. The Liberals fought on the Left in 1923 to oust Baldwin and then on the Right in 1924 to oust MacDonald. Therefore, there was no continuity to their policies - which undoubtedly cost them heavily with the electorate, who would much rather choose between Labour and Conservative. This can evidently be seen by the 1924 general election : what made it so significant to the fortunes of the Conservatives was the disaster which befell the Liberals. Their mere forty seats in Parliament wiped them off the political map in Urban England. Baldwin thus exerted an unprecedented amount of control - with over 400 MP’s, moreover his was a new Conservatism - seeking to establish a moderate consensus in opposition to Labour. This “New Conservatism” was determined to show itself as fit as any Labour government to legislate on social questions. This new, revised effort must be seen as crucial in the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.

It would certainly take a very different leader than Bonar Law to catapult the Conservative party into the national favour of the new electorate. The competition between Curzon and Baldwin showed a yearning for a new age of democratic politics - headed by the skilled, not the wealthy. Stanley Baldwin has an ability to communicate which made him both a shaper and an interpreter of opinion, a political skill becoming more and more important. Neville Chamberlain conceded that his leader, “provided something vital in retaining the floating vote.” The importance of this “floating” vote must not be brushed aside - Baldwin’s key skill lay in the cultivation of mood, something which would prove most important to ensuring Conservative dominance through the turbulent twenties and thirties. Furthermore, the BBC began broadcasting just five months before Baldwin first became Prime Minister and his career at the top coincided with the rise of radio as a major medium of national communication. He was thus the first British politician ever to become truly familiar to the voting public, a crucial factor in the over-riding dominance of his party. Significantly, he felt he had a vocation - “that is the binding together of all classes of our people in an effort to make life in this country better in every sense of the word.” In the European world of the totalitarian dictators of the 1930’s. this grounding of Baldwin’s appeal in the very ordinariness old English provincial life was in itself a contribution to the cause for democracy, at a time when it was most under threat. Baldwin’s Conservative party geared itself up for (successfully) a more democratic time ushered in by the completion of the extension of the franchise in 1928 - by opening its ranks to a wider participating membership than the party had ever known. Moreover, it is important to emphasise the extremely efficient and proactive members of Baldwin’s Cabinet, most notably Neville Chamberlain on Social Reform and Winston Churchill at the Exchequer. Some accounts suggest that whatever Baldwin’s role in high politics and internal party affairs, he was irrelevant to the party’s electoral fortunes. Yet Baldwin did present a positive appeal which commanded admiration across party divides, this in itself constituted a tremendous electoral asses for the Conservatives. Baldwin’s anxieties were shared by almost all Conservatives in the 1920’s : that the emergence of independent working class politics in the context of a ‘new electorate’ might condemn their party to permanent minority. Baldwin’s response to this must be seen as the crucial factor in accounting for the Conservative dominance in the inter-war period : to adopt an inclusive attitude towards the new voters.

Baldwin’s ‘non-political’ persona also magnified his ability to achieve political objectives. Though merciless to the Labour party electorally he was amicable to Labour politically. He did not speak of workers merely as factors of production nor as an underclass, but as fellow countrymen. He treated them as a legitimate part of the political and industrial systems - perhaps the most example coming from his conciliatory gestures towards the trade unions in 1925, which left a favourable impression in potentially unfavourable circumstances. This readiness to see good in the ‘other’ side, and the over-riding desire to end conflict, gave Baldwin a strong appeal to the people as a whole. Furthermore, the work done under Baldwin gave significant leverage to the Conservative pull to the new voters. Income tax was further reduced by Churchill in 1926 and most of the government’s social programme, initiated by Chamberlain, worked out according to plan. Even when faced with serious agitation, the Conservatives seemed to emerge relatively unscathed. Baldwin’s will to win the dispute of the “General Strike” was absolute and he used his communicative skills to great effect in radio broadcasts. Significantly, the Prime Minister also prevented hawkish ministers like Churchill from stirring up anti-socialist sentiments and further inflaming the situation. Baldwin thus gained much credit for the defeat of the strikers after nine days - a potentially fatal situation had been diffused brilliantly. Yet when seeking re-election in 1929 the party had no unifying theme except “Safety First”, despite Labour moving back to moderation after the failure of the strikes. With hindsight, the 1929 election was a good one to lose, yet the example of 1923 and 1929 had shown that there was enough residual loyalty to Liberalism and enough trust in MacDonald’s Labour despite this so-called Conservative dominance. However, the fate of the second Labour government was largely bound up with the performance of the economy - the Wall Street Crash that same year would severely test Labour to the extremes. The ‘workshop of the world’ had fallen on hard times - it was little surprise therefore that the impetus went away from Free Trade towards protectionism. This may well be considered circumstantial for the Conservatives and to an extent this is true. The Great Depression initiated by the Wall Street Crash created a wave of protectionist sentiment in 1930-31 that would have been unheard of in the previous quarter-century.

Since everything turned on confidence, a Labour government that did not inspire confidence on Wall Street was not in a strong position. MacDonald did the right thing : save the country at the cost of Labour’s independence. Conservative hegemony would return under the face of the National Government. Therefore, the economic situation had been favourable to the Conservatives - this much is certainly true, their policies would appear much more favourable in a time of economic depression. Baldwin’s decision to accept the Lord Presidency rather than the Premiership of the National Government would prove to be crucial : the Conservatives would come out of the crisis in a good light. The crisis atmosphere rallied support to a government which promised to take a grip on the situation, the initiatve had passed to the Conservatives. Significantly, the National Government was like the Coalition in 1918 that its majority was largely compose of Conservative MP’s. The election in 1931 pitted Labour against the rest - and outside the industrial coalfields, Labour was destroyed - its reputation tarnished by the events in 1929 as the Liberals during the Great War had been. Everything now pointed towards the tariffs - the Conservatives’ principles and protectionist sentiment could be found all over the country. Furthermore, lowering unemployment and the maintenance of higher average real income provided a serviceable platform for the National Government when it came to fight a general election. Further social reforms included tightening factory legislation, setting up the London Passenger Transport Board and providing the first national slum clearance campaigns. Expectedly Baldwin triumphantly returned in 1935 at the head of 429 MP’s. The government’s success in 1935 certainly owed something to the continuity disarray of Labour, which took a considerable time to recover from the loss of office. If the 1935 results are compared with those of 1929 the net effect of the 1929 crisis becomes apparent - Labour stayed fairly level, while the Conservatives had put 10% on their vote at the expense of the Liberals. The change to a more or less two party system put the Conservatives into a commanding position. Under Baldwin, the Conservative party had made a more effective, broad-based appeal to the public than a opposition which crucially still lacked credibility.

The National Government was therefore also of crucial importance in maintaining Conservative dominance, albeit in different form and under a different name, during the interwar years. Significantly these years were unlike any before them since social and political change caused primarily by war and electoral reform transformed the contours of party debate. MP’s contemplated their new audience, almost acknowledging that politics could never be the same again. Many Conservatives wondered whether their party could ever successfully appeal to the more assertive and militant working class they believed the war to have created. The inter-war period does represent a fundamental disjuncture in the development of Conservative attitudes to class and the wider relationship between themselves and the people. A more pluralistic interpretation of class politics became central to Baldwin’s New Conservatism. This transition crucially underpinned the development of Baldwin’s supremacy. The widespread belief that the Representation of the People Act had ushered in a new political world, dominated by working class potential Labour voters played a critical role in shaping Conservative orientation during the inter-war years. The importance of electoral reform to the Conservatives related to the construction of a central framework of reference in the transformation of a party ideology. Too close a public identification with property ownership rendered the party vulnerable to socialist accusations of defending inequality. Therefore in predominantly working class areas, candidates met Labour’s ‘proletarian’ rhetoric with assurances of their own working class credentials. Critical to this change of Conservative consciousness was the enfranchisement of women in 1918 and 1928. Whatever the intellectual shortcomings of women , female suffrage proved a uniquely effective way of diluting the political power of organised labour. The vast expansion of personal taxation during the war opened up the possibility of the same at national level, the claim that socialism would cost voters money would be an effective propaganda machine. The Conservatives learnt to distinguish the component elements of the working class, and to appeal to specific interest groups - examples including trade unionists undercut by foreign imports, housewives and small savers. The Conservative party prevailed by spreading its defence of vested interests to encompass the whole community. For example, the party committed itself to the defence of working class property from confiscatory socialist taxation. Such working class inclusive policies must be considered a key factor in the Conservatives’ electoral appeal.

The inter-war period represented a critical turning point in the history of Conservative popular politics. Most Conservatives believed that the rules of the political game had been irreversibly changed in 1918. Thus forced to confront their political demons, Conservatives began to take an increasingly critical look at their political message and its intended audience. As they did so, they liberated themselves from the decaying Edwardian Unionism that had played favourably into the hands of the Liberals. The new context of taxation, perceptible evidence of working class vested and the enfranchisement of women convinced the Conservatives that there was no single elusive working class electorate to capture. The heterogeneity and inclusiveness of the post-war electorate opened up many political doors - recognising this, the Conservatives articulated a more sophisticated language of class in their policy making - one that acknowledged the diversity of its new audience.

This perhaps might well be the biggest factor in the dominance of the party in the inter-war years, but we must not forget the contribution of Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister. Churchill remarked in 1935 that Baldwin was, “a statesman who has gathered to himself a greater volume of confidence and goodwill than any public man I recollect in my long career”. It is a combination of the two, coupled with some fortunate circumstances which conspired against Labour (1929 for example) that best account for the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.


Bibliography

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M. Bentley : Public and Private Doctrine : Essays in British History
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J. Ramsden : An Appetite for Power : The Conservative Party since 1900
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D. Jarvis : British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 1920’s : English Historical Review, (cxi 1996)
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