The Relugas Compact - Liberal Imperialists and The Liberal League

Liberal Imperialists and The Liberal League

Asquith, Grey, Haldane and Rosebery were leading members of the Liberal Imperialists, a centrist faction within the Liberal Party in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. The Liberal Imperialists were in favour of a more positive attitude towards the development of the British Empire and Imperialism, ending the primacy of the party’s commitment to Irish Home Rule. In domestic affairs they advocated the concept of ‘national efficiency.’ This policy was never definitively set out, but the implication in the speeches of its leading lights was that the Liberal Party in government should take action to improve the social conditions, the education and welfare of the population, as well as to reform aspects of the administration of government so as to maintain British economic, industrial and military competitiveness.

Asquith and Grey were also tied to Rosebery through the Liberal League, a group set up in 1902 by Lord Rosebery and of which Asquith and Grey were vice-presidents. The membership of the Liberal League was eclectic however: according to H. C. G. Matthew it included “Liberal Imperialist MPs, a number of Fabians, Liberal landowners, imperialistically minded journalists and nonconformist ministers”. The Liberal League, which was a successor organisation to the Liberal Imperialist Council, had as its aim the promotion of Liberal Imperialism and the policy of the ‘clean slate’. In a speech at Chesterfield in 1901. Lord Rosebery had told the Liberal Party that, after successive general elections defeats, being out of office for six years and more to come, it had to wipe clean its slate and to write upon it something of relevance for the present and not hark back to old policies. He was of course referring mainly to Irish Home Rule but urged the adoption of the policy of ‘national efficiency’. The split between Rosebery and Campbell-Bannerman raised the possibility of the creation of a separate party of Liberal Imperialists led by Rosebery, based on the membership of the Liberal League but the ending of the Boer War in 1902 took a lot of the sting out of the opposition between the Liberal Imperialists and the mainstream of the party, although Rosebery himself never found it possible to reconcile himself to Campbell-Bannerman’s leadership. The Liberal League was eventually wound up in 1910.