It calls a General Conference of the Party.
In 1883 the Federation took up energetically the extension of the franchise in the counties. It called a great conference of delegates at Leeds; acting on this occasion in coöperation with the National Reform Union of Manchester and the London and Counties Liberal Union, two rival organisations, which were, however, more local and less aggressive, and waned slowly before the greater vigour of the Federation.[509:2]The delegates met two thousand strong, representing more than five hundred associations, and adopted resolutions declaring that it was the duty of the government at the next session of Parliament to introduce bills to extend the county franchise and redistribute seats. Another conference in Scotland passed similar votes. "Taken together," the General Committee say in their annual report, "they represent the great bulk of the Liberal party throughout Great Britain . . . and . . . it is not too much to expect that such an expression of opinion will exercise decisive weight with the Members of the Government in the arrangement of their measures."
Its Claims at This Time.
These examples show the attitude and the activity of the Federation during the first Liberal ministry that held office after its formation. It claimed to represent, or perhaps one ought to say it claimed that it would when fully developed represent and that it could immediately evoke, the opinion of the whole Liberal party in the country. It was, therefore, convinced that it ought to exert a great influence upon the cabinet in the framing of measures; and it believed that it did so. There is no need of reviewing further the history of the Federation during this period, for its position remained unchanged until Mr. Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. But on two points the action of the Council is noteworthy in connection with its subsequent career. The resolutions passed at the annualmeetings began to cover a wider field. This was especially true after the downfall of the Liberal government, in 1885, when they assumed the proportions of a full programme of internal reforms.[510:1]Then again amendments to the resolutions offered were moved from the floor. In 1883, for example, an amendment in favour of woman suffrage was carried; and in 1885 another demanding local option in regulating the sale of liquor.
The Struggle over Home Rule.
Mr. Gladstone's ministry having resigned in consequence of a defeat on the budget, the Conservatives came to power in June, 1885, and the general election at the end of the year, with the political upheavals to which it gave rise, proved a turning-point in the history of the Caucus. The election left both parties without a working majority; for the Conservatives and Home Rulers together almost exactly balanced the Liberals. In January the Conservatives were beaten on the address with the help of Irish votes, and Mr. Gladstone, returning to office, prepared a bill for a separate Parliament in Ireland. Some members of the moderate wing of the party had already left him during the debate on the address; and in March, while the Home Rule Bill and its complement, the Irish Land Bill, were under discussion in the cabinet, several of the ministers, including Mr. Chamberlain, resigned, one of their chief stumbling blocks being the exclusion of Irish representatives from the House of Commons. A struggle began at once for the control of the National Liberal Federation. On one side stood Mr. Gladstone with his cabinet, the official leaders of the party; on the other Mr. Chamberlain, hitherto the hero and idol of the Caucus, which he had nurtured and made great, which had treated him as its special representative in the cabinet, and had passed each year a vote to welcome him when he came to make his speech. Hehad declared in Parliament not long before that he was not the Caucus,[511:1]but it certainly expressed his views, and he fought its battles. During the late election he had made the country ring with appeals for the reforms advocated in its programme, especially the demand for labourers' allotments, embodied in the cry for "three acres and a cow." The Caucus was the weapon of the Radical wing of the party, while he was the greatest Radical champion, and although Kitson, the president of the Federation, was against him, the majority of the officers were on his side, among them William Harris, the founder of popular party organisation in Birmingham and still the chairman of the General Committee.
Mr. Chamberlain is Defeated in the Council;
On April 6, two days before Mr. Gladstone brought in the Home Rule Bill, the officers sent a circular to the federated associations asking them to consider the proposals of the government, as soon as they were made known, with a view to an expression of opinion by the Liberal party. A special meeting of the Council was then summoned to meet in London on May 15. There Mr. Harris moved a resolution drawn up by the officers, and expressing Mr. Chamberlain's ideas. It approved of giving the people of Ireland a large control over their own affairs by means of a legislative assembly; but, while declaring the confidence of the Council in Mr. Gladstone, requested him to amend his bill by retaining the Irish representatives at Westminster. The resolution was met by an amendment moved by the followers of the Prime Minister, commending the Home Rule Bill, thanking him for it, and assuring him of support in the present crisis. After a long and eager discussion the amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority.
and Withdraws from the Federation.
The result, so far as the Federation was concerned, was decisive. Six members of the General Committee, including Mr. Harris,[511:2]thereupon resigned; and several influentialpublic men, among them Mr. Chamberlain, withdrew from the organisation. But the mass of the people think on broad lines, delight in strong contrasts easily understood, and have little sympathy with a half-way group that stands between the two opposing parties in the state. Hence like the Peelites in 1846, and the Free Trade Conservatives in 1905, the Liberal Unionists in 1886 were a body in which the members of Parliament were many and their following in the country comparatively few. The personal secessions from the Federation were not numerous, and not a single local association left the fold.[512:1]But the break soon became incurable. The opponents of the Home Rule Bill ceased to be regarded by their former companions in arms as members of the party, and were constrained to leave the Liberal associations;[512:2]while Mr. Chamberlain in conjunction not only with his Radical friends, but with all the Liberals who could not follow Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, including even Lord Hartington and the Whigs, founded a new organisation upon the old model, called the Liberal Unionist Association.
New Position of the Federation.
The National Liberal Federation did not save Mr. Gladstone and his adherents from defeat at the general election of 1886; but they had obtained control of the organisation, and must find out what to do with it. If a power, it had also been a source of anxiety, and under the wrong management it might again be used to put pressure on the members of Parliament, and even on the leaders themselves. It was useful and must be cajoled; but it was also dangerous and must be kept in check. Like a colt, it must be treated kindly, but must be broken to harness, and above all the reins must not be allowed to get into strange hands lest it learn bad tricks.
Removal to London.
Obviously the offices of the Federation could remain no longer at Birmingham, because in spite of the loss of his organisation Mr. Chamberlain still controlled the city so completely that his candidates carried every seat there atthe election of 1886. The offices were, therefore, moved to London, where they were established in the same building with the Liberal Central Association—the body that acts in conjunction with the party whips—and what is more, M. Schnadhorst, the paid secretary of the Federation, who had taken Mr. Gladstone's side at the time of the split, was also appointed honorary secretary of the Association. This arrangement, which lasted until he retired in 1894, and has continued ever since under his successor Mr. Hudson, was not mentioned at the time in the printed reports of the General Committee, but its effects in bringing the leaders of the party into close touch with the management of the Federation can readily be imagined. Another link of the same kind was soon made. The General Committee had always been in the habit of distributing political literature, and in 1887 a publication department was created under the direction of a joint committee consisting of two representatives of the Central Association, and two of the Federation.[513:1]All these changes brought the Federation nearer to the party chiefs, and gave it also a more national stamp.
The Federation Broadened.
At the same time the constitution was slightly modified. The principal changes adopted in 1887 were: making the representation on the Council more nearly proportional to population; giving to each association for a whole constituency three votes in the General Committee, and to all others one vote apiece without regard to size; and lastly providing for district federations, especially for Wales, the Home Counties and London, which should be represented as separate organisations upon the governing bodies. The object of these changes appears to have been to make the Federation attractive to all Liberals throughout the country, for it had hitherto been regarded as preëminently an instrument of the Radical wing of the party, and many local associations had held aloof. The managers now tried to induce them to join in order to make the Federation asfully representative of the whole party as possible. In this they were successful in a high degree, as may be seen from the fact that the federated associations, which numbered in 1886, before the split over Home Rule, only two hundred and fifty-five, rose in two years to seven hundred and sixteen.[514:1]In carrying out this object there was no need of opening the door to local associations not framed upon a popular and representative basis, because societies of that kind had already been entirely superseded.[514:2]
Relation to the Party Leaders.
When the Federation, breaking away from Mr. Chamberlain, chose the side of Mr. Gladstone, the leaders of the party took it at once under their patronage, and began to show a keen interest in its proceedings. Not only did Mr. Gladstone address almost every year a great public meeting held in the evening during the session of the Council, as Mr. Chamberlain had been in the habit of doing before 1886; but other leaders of the party attended the meetings of the Council itself, and former cabinet ministers made speeches there in moving, seconding or supporting the resolutions. This practice magnified the apparent importance of the Federation, and lasted until the Liberals came into office again in 1892.
Resolution of the Council
The Nottingham Programme.
Meanwhile the Council, meeting as before in one after another of the great provincial towns, continued to adopt a series of resolutions setting forth the policy of the Liberal party. The embarrassment that might come from this in the future was not fully perceived at the time, and there was at first no attempt to discourage it. In fact a statement of the objects of the Federation published with the new rules in 1887 repeated the words originally written ten years earlier: "the essential feature of the Federation is the participation of all members of the party in the formation and direction of its policy, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and progress to which priority shall be given."[514:3]The resolutions became, in fact, more and more comprehensive, because the Council was naturallyin the habit each year of reaffirming its previous votes about internal reforms, and adding new ones, the older expressions of opinion being after a while condensed into what was known as the "omnibus resolution." At the meeting held at Nottingham in 1887 a series of resolutions were adopted condemning coercion, urging Home Rule, the principle of one man one vote, registration reform, disestablishment of the Church in Wales, and the need of reform in the land laws, in labourers' allotments, county government, local option, London municipal government, and free education. The resolutions were talked about as a programme for the party, and the managers began to see that a danger was involved, but apparently as yet only the danger of splitting the party. The General Committee, therefore, in its next annual report, after speaking of the influence exerted by the Federation, remarked: "A force so great and so overwhelming requires to be directed with the utmost care and judgment, and your Committee asks for the support of the Federated Associations in applying it only to questions of a practical character, with regard to which there is a general consensus of opinion in the party. . . . Much has been said and written of the Nottingham programme. Neither the resolutions submitted at Nottingham, nor the resolutions which are submitted at the present meetings of the Council, are intended to constitute a political programme. The resolutions which were submitted last year, and those which will be submitted this year, refer to subjects upon which there is a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks. Every question added which is not thus approved tends to divide and to weaken the party."[515:1]
Amendments Ruled Out of Order.
The principle that resolutions on which there was not a general consensus of opinion ought not to be adopted by the Council was given a very definite application at that meeting. A motion stood upon the agenda in favour of one man one vote, and the payment out of the public rates of returning officers' expenses. The president, Sir JamesKitson, stated that a delegate wished to add the question of the payment of members, but he must rule that it should be sent up by one of the federated associations with a request for inclusion in next year's programme. As the agenda was prepared by the General Committee, the action of the president was in effect a ruling that a question not placed by that committee upon the paper could not be proposed from the floor. A little later in the meeting he took the same position when a member wanted to bring forward the grievances of the Scotch crofters.[516:1]
The ruling was a complete innovation, for amendments of a similar character had not only been adopted by the Council in former years, in 1883 and 1885, for example; but in the great struggle for the control of the Federation in 1886, the defeat of Mr. Chamberlain had been brought about by an amendment in favour of the Home Rule Bill, which was carried in the Council by a large majority. The conditions, however, had changed. A freedom of making motions that was harmless when the Federation contained only one extreme wing of the Liberals, became a very different thing when it comprised all the elements in their ranks, and the ruling was now essential if motions were not to be made that might divide or weaken the party. It was repeated the next year when a delegate sought to add to the omnibus resolution a rider on the question of the eight-hour day;[516:2]and it was confirmed by the new president, Dr. Spence Watson, in 1891.[516:3]In fact, Dr. Watson in his opening address at the meeting explained that in his opinion the exclusion of any alteration or amendment of the resolutions submitted to the Council arose from the very nature of the case;[516:4]and thereafter the rule was firmly established in the proceedings of the body.
Three matters, however, deserve a brief notice in this connection. First, the rule has never been applied to the General Committee. At its meetings amendments may be freely moved and carried; but then the General Committee has power merely to discuss public questions, not to express definitely the opinion of the party.[517:1]Second, the rule in the Council would seem to apply only to amendments that may provoke a difference of opinion. At the meeting of 1889, for example, immediately after the eight-hour day amendment had been ruled out of order, another declaring "that Welsh disestablishment and disendowment should be dealt with as soon as Irish Home Rule is attained," was adopted, without objection from the president, with the unanimous approval of the meeting.[517:2]Third, the rule in the Council applies only to resolutions affecting the Liberal programme. It has not been applied to such a matter as a revision of the rules of the Federation, and in 1896 and 1897 several motions to amend proposals relating to the rules were made, and one of them, which occasioned a count of votes, was carried by a narrow majority.[517:3]
Resolutions and Speakers Cut and Dried.
With no questions submitted, save those on which there was believed to be a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks, and no amendments allowed, serious dissent about the adoption of the resolutions never occurred. Nor was there much real discussion. In accordance with a common English custom an agenda paper was distributed before the meeting, which contained not only a list of the resolutions to be brought forward, but also the names of the proposer, the seconder, and sometimes a third or fourth man who would support each of them. Now these persons were expected to make speeches long enough to fill together nearly the whole of the sitting; and hence the other delegates, although at liberty to take part, did not often feel inclinedto make, upon an unopposed resolution, remarks that in the presence of one or two thousand people must be in the nature of an harangue. As a rule, therefore, the proceedings followed closely the agenda; a resolution was proposed, seconded, and supported as had been arranged, and was then carried unanimously.
Under such conditions the duty of preparing the resolutions for the Council, by drawing up the agenda, was of prime importance. If the Federation was no longer used, as in the days when it was guided from Birmingham, to press forward a policy upon which all Liberals were not agreed, it might now be supposed to speak with a more authoritative voice on behalf of the whole party; and while its votes were passed by common consent, the right to select the questions which should be presented for general acceptance conferred no small power. Nominally this function was intrusted to the General Committee, but that body, which was far too large for such a task, had been in the habit of delegating the preliminary work to a few of its own members under the title of the General Purposes Committee,[518:1]and in 1890 amendments to the rules of the Federation were proposed chiefly in order to confer the power definitely upon the smaller body. They provided that the General Purposes Committee should consist of the officers of the Federation, and of not more than twenty other members elected by the General Committee; that it should prepare the business for meetings of the Council, and generally carry on the affairs of the Federation. Although the change involved a concentration of power it was adopted at the time without opposition,[518:2]but was the cause of heart-burning at a later date.
The Process of Preparing Resolutions.
In his opening speech the next year the President explained the functions of the Council. "From the earliest time," he said, "it has been the practice and the rule of these meetings to make certain declarations. Some of us think those declarations are a little too numerous already. Some ofus are afraid that the declarations partake somewhat of the character of a programme. Some of us look back to the good old time when we took up one burning question and fought it, and fought it until we carried it into law. In the first place this is a business meeting for the purpose of receiving the report. In the second place it has come to be a meeting for making certain declarations. It is not—and I wish to be particularly clear upon this point—for the discussion of subjects. But you will say 'The National Liberal Federation not to discuss subjects!' Certainly it can, and certainly it does. It does not discuss them at the annual meeting. It does discuss them at the General Committee meetings, and at the conferences held from time to time.[519:1]Great dissatisfaction is found with the fact that there are rules affecting the Federation. No federation, no society of any kind, could ever exist without rules. There must be absolute rules of procedure, and one of the rules of the proceedings of these meetings has been that beforehand the General Purposes Committee sends out to every association which is federated—between 800 and 900—to ascertain what the wishes of that association may be. From the replies it receives, from prior resolutions, from the business which has been transacted at the General Committee meetings of the Federation and at the conferences, the General Purposes Committee prepares the resolutions which are submitted, and those resolutions are either accepted or rejected. They are not altered or amended. That arises from the very nature of the case. . . . It is absolutely impossible to discuss questions in which great numbers of men take a great interest and hold different views in a gathering of this character. The first discussion must take place in the individual associations. The individual associations must send up their delegates to our General Committee meetings and conferences, and the matter must be threshed out there, and there must beclear evidence as to the question having received general acceptance before it comes to a meeting of this kind." Then, after referring to the question of an eight-hour day, about which the associations showed a wide difference of opinion, he added: "Do you think we wish to stifle discussion? Why, discussion is the very life-blood of Liberalism. We long for discussion of all questions. We wish to have further discussion of this question, a discussion searching out to the very bottom of the matter. We don't want a hap-hazard discussion in a great meeting where it is absolutely impossible that men can give their real opinions, can argue the question out, and go down to the roots of the matter."[520:1]
Contrast with the Original Plan.
It would be difficult to express more forcibly the change that had come over the Federation, in the functions, and still more in the aims, of the Council meetings. According to the original plan the Federation was to be a true Liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; and it was a far cry from that conception to a body voting, without amendment or real debate, ratifications of measures prearranged by a small committee, and found by previous inquiry to express the universal sentiment of the party. If the Federation, with its General Purposes Committee, its General Committee and its Council, still remained a shadow of a Liberal parliament, it was one somewhat after the model of Napoleon's legislature with its Council of State, its Tribunate, and its Legislative Assembly, where one body prepared the laws, another debated, and a third voted them.[520:2]
The Newcastle Programme.
As the General Purposes Committee placed upon the agenda for the Council only resolutions on which the party was believed to be united, it is not strange that they wereinvariably carried, and almost always with substantial unanimity. The surprising thing is the number of questions on which the whole body of Liberals appeared to agree; but it must be remembered that the party was in Opposition, so that neither the leaders, nor any one else, could make any effort at present to put into effect the resolutions that had been voted. They expressed merely aspirations, and the impulse of every one was to assent to any proposal for a reform to which he had no fixed objection. This was the more true because all assemblies of that kind are attended most largely by the ardent or advanced members of the organisation, the more moderate elements caring far less to be present. The resolutions, therefore, increased until they reached high-water mark at the very meeting of 1891,[521:1]where Dr. Spence Watson in his opening address said he thought them too numerous already. From the town where the Council met that year the resolutions became known as the "Newcastle Programme." At the evening meeting Mr. Gladstone took up, one after another, most of the subjects included therein, and dwelt upon the importance of each of them; but before doing so he remarked that when the Liberals came to power they would want the additional virtue of patience, because with the surfeit of work to be done it would be difficult to choose proper subjects of immediate attention.[521:2]
The virtue of patience was needed very soon. The Council had met at Newcastle in October, 1891. Owing to a change in the date of meeting, it was not called together again until January, 1893; and in the meanwhile a Liberal ministry had come into office. The Council took up no new questions, and passed a single modest resolution relating to the party policy, saying "That this Council confirms the series of Resolutions known as 'the Newcastle Programme,' and confidently expects that Mr. Gladstone's government will promptly introduce into the House of Commons Bills embodying Reforms which have beendeclared again and again by this Council to be essential to the welfare of the people of the United Kingdom."[522:1]As the reforms contained in the Newcastle Programme could hardly have been embodied in statutes in less than ten years by a cabinet with a large and homogeneous majority, the demand that bills upon all those subjects should be promptly introduced by a ministry with a very narrow majority, and depending for its life upon the support of Irish votes, showed the need of patience rather than its presence. In fact most of the speakers at the meeting emphasised the reforms in which they were especially interested, and the rest urged the importance of the whole array.
Its Effects.
The wealth of the programme speedily caused embarrassment to the leaders of the party. Home Rule, as every one admitted, was entitled to the first place; but after that had been put on the shelf by the House of Lords difficulties arose, for the Liberals in the House of Commons were not all of one mind. Some of them were more interested in one reform, some in another, and each had an equal right to feel that his subject had been accepted as an essential part of the Liberal policy deserving immediate attention. People said that the traditional division into parties was passing away, that the parties were falling apart into groups, like those in continental legislatures. The assertion was frequently repeated, although it was disproved by the constancy with which the ministers were supported by their followers in a House of Commons where the defection of a dozen members at any moment would have turned the scale. Month after month the whips came regularly to the table with their slight margin of Liberal votes. In fact the government defeats on minor matters were less frequent than in Mr. Gladstone's previous administration; and no defeat on a question of political importance occurred until June, 1895, when it was accomplished by the trick of bringing Conservatives secretly into the House through the terrace. After that defeat the ministers resigned, not because theirfollowers had ceased to vote with them, but because they were weary of a hopeless struggle. Nevertheless the Newcastle Programme with its magnificent promises had been a source of weakness to them. It restrained their freedom of action, and forced their hands. In short, it hampered their initiative in party policy, and it caused disappointment among their followers.
Lord Rosebery's Criticism.
Lord Rosebery, who had succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894, felt the bad effects of the Newcastle Programme. At the public meeting, held when the Council met in January, 1895, he spoke of the function of the Federation in threshing out the issues lying before the party, and that of the cabinet in winnowing them, selecting from a vast field the bills to be brought forward in the session. "Now, this programme," he went on, "as it stands now, without any addition, would require many energetic years in which a strong Government, supported by a united and powerful Liberal Party, would have to do their best to carry into effect (sic). But what is sometimes forgotten is this—that we cannot pass all the measures of this programme simultaneously. . . . Whilst this process of winnowing is going on, all Cabinet Ministers are subject to a bombardment of correspondence . . . by appeals, some of them menacing, some of them coaxing and cajoling, but all of them extremely earnest, and praying that the particular hobby of the writer shall be made the first Government Bill. . . . Any delay in pushing forward each measure that has been recorded in what is called the Newcastle programme implies, we are told, the alienation of all the earnest and thoughtful members of the Liberal Party—in fact, the backbone of the Liberal Party. And I have come to the conclusion that the Liberal Party is extremely rich in backbones."[523:1]
At the public meeting in the following year, after the fall of his government, he spoke even more plainly. He said there had been complaint that officialdom had crept into the National Liberal Federation. His own experience was thatit played a very subordinate part there, and if he had a secret hope on the subject, it was that officialdom might have a little more to do with the organisation. "I remember two occasions on which the National Liberal Federation took the bit between its teeth and, certainly uninspired by officialdom, took very remarkable action. The first occasion was when it made at Newcastle a programme, a very celebrated expression of faith which, I confess, was in my opinion too long for practical purposes."[524:1]Later in alluding to the fall of his ministry he asked: "Why did it fall? It fell because, with a chivalrous sense of honour too rare in politics, and with inadequate means, it determined to fulfil all the pledges that it had given in Opposition. It had, I think, given too many pledges—partly owing to you, Dr. Spence Watson. It had, I think, assumed too many responsibilities, it had taken a burden too heavy for its back, or the back of any Government or any Parliament, to bear."[524:2]
The Programme Cut Down after 1894.
The lesson of the Newcastle Programme had not been in vain. Already in 1895 the "omnibus resolution," which, by way of comprehensive reform, threatened the interests of the landlord, the manufacturer, the mine owner, the Church, and the House of Lords, had been omitted, although most of the matters covered by it were made the subject of special votes. The next year the programme was left out altogether. Apart from resolutions criticising the Conservative government for its foreign policy in Armenia and Egypt, and stating on what terms an education bill ought to be based, the only vote dealing with the policy of the Liberal party declared simply, "That this Council reaffirms its adherence to the principles for which the Federation has always contended," a confession of faith not likely to cause acute discomfort to a future cabinet. As the years went by the pressure for specific reforms was too strong to be resisted, and resolutions dealing with themwere adopted; but they have never again reached anything resembling the range, the well-nigh revolutionary proportions, or the suicidal capacity, of the Newcastle Programme.
Complaints that the Whips Control the Federation.
A political, like a military, defeat is apt to cause mutual recriminations. If Lord Rosebery lamented that the leaders in Parliament had been overburdened by the programme of the Federation, there were Radicals aggrieved by the control which, in their opinion, the leaders, acting through the whips and the Liberal Central Association, had acquired over the Federation. The complaints were so loud, and so much discussed in the press, that Dr. Spence Watson felt constrained to deal with them in his presidential address. The charge was that by having the same quarters, and the same secretary (Mr. Hudson) the Federation had been fused with and merged into the Central Association. This, he insisted, was absolutely incorrect, the two organisations having duties which lay quite apart one from the other; and he defended the existing connection between them as a good business arrangement, which had resulted in much better work.[525:1]The charge in another form was that the General Purposes Committee, in preparing the resolutions for the Council, was swayed by the whips by means of Mr. Hudson. Of this he said: "We are told that the resolutions are not genuine; that they are forced upon us by the Whips through the secretary, Mr. Hudson. No man admires the work of Mr. Hudson more than I do, because no man sees more of his work. I think Mr. Hudson, if he were so disposed, which I imagine is very far from his disposition, would find it very difficult to impose the will of the Whips upon us. We are not exactly the men to be dealt with in that way. Now, gentlemen, I wish to put this quite plainly. There is not a grain of truth in it. I have written down these words because I wish to be precise. I assert that not a single resolution has ever, at all events since 1886, been suggested, hinted at, drawn, altered, or manipulated by any Whip or leader whatsoever."[525:2]
Power Concentrated in an Executive Committee in 1896.
Although the statement was no doubt true, and would perhaps continue to be true, the efficiency of the party might well depend upon having the resolutions of the Council prepared by a small body of men of proved discretion, who would insert nothing embarrassing to the leaders. In view of the experience with the Newcastle Programme it might be wise to take even greater care in the selection of men who could understand the situation of the front bench, and to increase their powers. At a meeting of the General Committee, at Leeds, in December, 1895, a vote was passed instructing the General Purposes Committee "to consider whether the machinery of the Federation can be made more representative and democratic." Democracy is a principle in whose name strange things are done; and in accordance with this vote a plan was reported for a revision of the rules, in which the principal changes proposed would strengthen the hands of the General Purposes Committee, renamed the Executive Committee. That body was directed to invite expressions of opinion from the federated associations about the subjects to be brought before the Council; was confirmed in its power to frame the resolutions to be submitted;[526:1]and was given authority to decide any questions of procedure that might arise during the sessions of the Council.[526:2]In order, as the General Committee said in their report, to "afford an opportunity for the ventilation of views upon subjects not dealt with in the resolutions," it was provided that upon the motion to adopt the annual report "the Council shall be open for the free discussion of any matter affecting the policy and principles of the Liberal party." A mere chance to talk supplies a useful safety valve, without doing harm; and in this case the talk could not be followed by an expression of opinion on the part of the Council, for no vote would be in order save to accept, or reject, or refer back, the annual report.[526:3]The discussion would be like thatin the House of Commons on the motion to adjourn over Easter.
Hitherto the action of the General Committee had been entirely free, but the revised rules intrusted the Executive Committee with the duty of preparing the business for that body as well as for the Council; not, indeed, in the same absolute way, for any federated association could propose an amendment or further resolution, provided they gave notice thereof to the secretary five days, at least, before the meeting. Moreover the Executive Committee was given power to nominate its own members. Every association had also a right to make nominations, but these were not, like those of the Executive Committee, circulated among the local associations before the meeting.[527:1]
Members of Parliament Excluded Therefrom.
Finally, members of Parliament were declared ineligible to the Executive Committee. To a question why they were excluded, the chairman of the General Committee "replied that it had always been considered desirable that when a man became a Member of Parliament he should retire from the Executive, and that they should be free from all thought of outside influence."[527:2]The answer does not make it perfectly clear whether the object of the provision was to free the members of Parliament from the influence of the Committee, or the Committee from the influence of the members. Both results were in fact attained. The members of the House were left to the sole tutelage of the whips, so far as the Federation was concerned, for since 1886 it had ceased altogether from the practice of stirring up localassociations to bring pressure to bear upon their representatives;[528:1]and, on the other hand, the new rule removed any opportunity for a member of Parliament to use, or appear to use, the Committee for his own political advancement.[528:2]Lord Randolph Churchill's doings in the National Union of Conservative Associations—to be related in the next chapter—was still fresh in men's minds. It is, indeed, a striking fact that from the time when the Liberals came to power in 1892 the leaders ceased for some years to attend even the sittings of the Council, which were left wholly to the lesser lights.[528:3]One of the chiefs spoke at a public evening meeting; but they all stayed away from the Council itself where business was transacted, thus depriving it of the weight that came from having its words sanctioned by the presence of the real leaders of the party.
Opposition to the Changes.
During the debate on the new rules in the Council,[528:4]a number of amendments were moved, which aimed at preventing the concentration of power in the hands of the General and Executive Committees. Of this nature were motions that the Executive Committee should be chosen by the Council; that amendments to the agenda and further resolutions might be proposed at Council meetings; that the agenda should be prepared by the General, instead of the Executive, Committee; and that the Executive Committee should not have power to nominate its own members. As these amendments struck at the very root of the revision, none of them were carried, and in fact the new rules were adopted without substantial alteration.