Politics and Significant Events
In the early years of the period, the Second Boer War in South Africa split Britain into anti- and pro-war factions. Great orators, such as the Liberal David Lloyd George, who spoke against the war, became increasingly influential although pro-war politicians, such as Unionist Joseph Chamberlain, held power. The Unionists proposed Tariff Reform (a form of protectionism) to make the British Empire an economic unit; the Liberals claimed this would make food dearer, and, in the general election of 1906, the Liberals won a landslide. The Liberal government was unable to proceed with all of its radical programme without the support of the House of Lords, which was largely Conservative. Conflict between the two Houses of Parliament over Lloyd George's 1909 People's Budget eventually resulted in a reduction in the power of the peers in the Parliament Act 1911. The general election in January 1910 returned a "hung parliament" with the balance of power held by Labour and Irish Nationalist members.
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Famous quotes containing the words politics, significant and/or events:
“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Grandparents can be role models about areas that may not be significant to young children directly but that can teach them about patience and courage when we are ill, or handicapped by problems of aging. Our attitudes toward retirement, marriage, recreation, even our feelings about death and dying may make much more of an impression than we realize.”
—Eda Le Shan (20th century)
“Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has no prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)