Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

In national politics the suffrage was wide and practically unrestricted, but the upper classes possessed a right to vote twice because they were allowed to vote at their place of business or their university as well as at their residence. Members of Parliament were, for years, restricted to the well-to-do by the expenses of office and by the fact that Members of Parliament were unpaid. Payment for Members was adopted first in 1911 and fixed at £ 400 a year. This was raised in 1936 to £ 500 with an additional £ 100 for expenses. But the Member’s expenses in Commons were so great that a Conservative Member would need at least £ 1,000 a year additional income and a Labour Member would need about £ 350 a year additional. Moreover, each candidate for Parliament must post a deposit of £ 150, which is forfeited if he does not receive over one-eighth of the total vote. This deposit amounted to more than the total annual income of about three-quarters of all English families in 1938, and provided another barrier to the great majority if they aspired to run for Parliament. As a result of these monetary barriers, the overwhelming mass of Englishmen could not participate actively in politics unless they could find an outside source of funds. By finding this source in labor unions in the period after 1890, they created a new political party organized on a class basis, and forced the merger of the two existing parties into a single group also organized on a class basis.

From this point of view the history of English political parties could be divided into three periods at the years of 1915 and 1924. Before 1915 the two major parties were the Liberals and the Unionists (Conservatives); after 1924 the two major parties were the Conservatives and Labour; the decade 1915-1924 represented a period in which the Liberal Party was disrupted and weakened.

Until 1915 the two parties represented the same social class—the small group known as “society.” In fact both parties—Conservatives and Liberals—were controlled from at least 1866 by the same small clique of “society.” This clique consisted of no more than half-a-dozen chief families, their relatives and allies, reinforced by an occasional recruit from outside. These recruits were generally obtained from the select educational system of “society,” being found in Balliol or New College at Oxford or at Trinity College, Cambridge, where they first attracted attention, either by scholarship or in the debates of the Oxford or Cambridge Union. Having attracted attention in this fashion, the new recruits were given opportunities to prove their value to the inner clique of each party, and generally ended by marrying into one of the families which dominated these cliques.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the inner clique of the Conservative Party was made up almost completely of the Cecil family and their relatives. This was a result of the tremendous influence of Lord Salisbury. The only important autonomous powers in the Conservative Party in 1900 were those leaders of the Liberal Party who had come over to the Conservatives as a result of their opposition to Gladstone’s project for Home Rule in Ireland. Of these, the most important example was the Cavendish family (dukes of Devonshire and marquesses of Harrington). As a result of this split in the Liberal Party, that party was subjected to a less centralized control, and welcomed into its inner clique many newer industrialists who had the money to support it.

Since 1915 the Liberal Party has almost disappeared, its place being taken by the Labour Party, whose discipline and centralized control bears comparison with that of the Conservative Party. The chief differences between the two existing parties are to be found in methods of recruitment, the inner clique of the Conservative Party being built on the basis of family, social, and educational connections, while that of the Labour Party is derived from the hard school of trade-union politics with a seasoning of upper-class renegades. In either case the ordinary voter in Britain, in 1960 as in 1900, was offered a choice between parties whose programs and candidates were largely the creations of two small self-perpetuating groups over which he (the ordinary voter) had no real control. The chief change from 1900 to 1960 was to be found in the fact that in 1900 the two parties represented a small and exclusive social class remote from the voters’ experience, while in 1960 the two parties represented two antithetical social classes which were both remote from the average voter.

Thus, the lack of primary elections and the insufficient payment for Members of Parliament have combined to give Britain two political parties, organized on a class basis, neither of which represents the middle classes. This is quite different from the United States, where both the major parties are middle-class parties, and where geographic, religious, and traditional influences are more important than class influences in determining party membership. In America the prevalent middle-class ideology of the people could easily dominate the parties because both parties are decentralized and undisciplined. In Britain, where both parties are centralized and disciplined and controlled by opposing social extremes, the middle-class voter finds no party which he can regard as representative of himself or responsive to his views. As a result by the 1930’s the mass of the middle classes was split: some provided continued support for the Liberal Party, although this was recognized as relatively hopeless; some voted Conservative as the only way to avoid Socialism, although they objected to the proto-Fascism of many Conservatives; others turned to the Labour Party in the hope of broadening it into a real progressive party.

A study of the two parties is revealing. The Conservative Party represented a small clique of the very wealthy, the one-half percent who had incomes of over ^2,000 a year. These knew each other well, were related by marriage, went to the same expensive schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, controlled the civil service, the empire, the professions, the army, and big business. Although only one-third of one percent of Englishmen went to Eton or Harrow, 43 percent of Conservative members of Parliament in 1909 had gone to these schools, and in 1938 the figure was still about 32 percent. In this last year (1938) there were 415 Conservative M.P.’s. Of these, 236 had titles and 145 had relatives in the House of Lords. In the Cabinet which made the Munich Agreement were one marquess, three earls, two viscounts, one baron, and one baronet. Of the 415 Conservative M.P.’s at that time, only one had had poor parents, and only four others came from the lower classes. As Duff Cooper (Viscount Norwich) said in March, 1939, “It is as difficult for a poor man, if he be a Conservative, to get into the House of Commons as it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle.” This was caused by the great expenses entailed in holding the position of Conservative M.P. Candidates of that party were expected to make substantial contributions to the party. The cost of an electoral campaign was £ 400 to £ 1,200. Those candidates who paid the whole expense and in addition contributed £ 500 to £ 1,000 a year to the party fund were given the safest seats. Those who paid about half of these sums were given the right to “stand” in less desirable constituencies.

Once elected, a Conservative M.P. was expected to be a member of one of the exclusive London clubs where many important party decisions were formed. Of these clubs the Carlton, which had over half of the Conservative M.P.’s as members in 1938, cost a £ 40 entrance fee and 17 guineas annual dues. The City of London Club, with a considerable group of Conservatives on its rolls, had an entrance fee of 100 guineas and annual dues of 15 guineas. Of 33 Conservative M.P.’s who died leaving recorded wills in the period before 1938 all left at least £ 10,000, while the gross estate of the group was £ 7,199,151. This gave an average estate of £ 218,156. Of these 33, 14 left over £ 100,000 each; 14 more left from £ 20,000 to £ 100,000; and only 5 left between £ 10,000 and £ 20,000.