Liberal Unionist Party - Split Over Free Trade

Split Over Free Trade

From the start, there was tension within the Liberal Unionists between the moderate Whigs, such as Devonshire, and the more radical Chamberlainites. While both factions opposed Home Rule, there was little else that united them, and a separate Liberal Unionist identity was hard to define in the politics of the late 1890s. Weak local party associations were encouraged to merge with their Conservative allies, though Devonshire's wish to merge fully was rejected by Chamberlain.

Despite these tensions, the Liberal Unionists more or less managed to stay together until 1903, when in a surprise move, Chamberlain dramatically launched Tariff Reform with a speech in his Birmingham political homeland. This departure from Free Trade (i.e. no tariff barriers) caused immediate problems within the Unionist alliance, but especially with the Devonshire section of the Liberal Unionists. Rejecting Tariff Reform, Devonshire and other supporters of Free Trade left the Liberal Unionist Association in 1904 in protest. Chamberlain took over the party's leadership, but this didn't stop a large number of disgruntled Liberal Unionists, including a few MPs, migrating back to the Liberal party. As for Devonshire and his allies, they put their political efforts into the Free Food League which included a sizeable minority of Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) (and, for a few months, Conservative MP Winston Churchill before he too defected to the Liberals in 1904). Most of them eventually left the party while Devonshire ended his political career estranged from both main parties and sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.

In the 1906 General Election, the Liberal Unionists (both Free Traders and Tariff Reformers) shared the same fate as their Conservative allies, with a big reduction in their parliamentary strength. They now numbered only 23 MPs (or 25 according to other calculations) in a combined Unionist alliance of just 157 in the new House of Commons - though in Birmingham the Liberal Unionist and Conservatives were triumphant.

With a few exceptions, the remaining Liberal Unionists were now firm supporters of tariffs, as were now the majority of the Conservative MPs. Indeed, for a short period in early 1906, Chamberlain was the de facto leader of the Unionist alliance in the House of Commons, as the Conservative party leader, and former Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour had lost his seat in the election (though he soon managed to return to parliament after a conveniently-arranged by-election).

It is possible that at this stage Chamberlain could have become leader of all the surviving Unionists (at least all those in favour of Tariff Reform) and forced Balfour to resign, but even protectionist Tories were reluctant to choose Chamberlain as their leader, not having forgotten how, as a Liberal, in the 1880s, he had been one of their sternest critics. Also, in an age when religious identification still mattered, Chamberlain was not a member of the established Church of England but belonged to the minority Unitarians.

Chamberlain could, perhaps, have led the Unionists despite these drawbacks, but in July 1906 he suffered a stroke, which left him physically crippled. He remained politically active and continued as the official leader of the Liberal Unionists, but his son Austen Chamberlain and Landsdowne effectively acted on his behalf in both the party and the Tariff Reform League.

Devonshire died in 1908 but,despite the loss of the party's two most famous standard bearers, the Liberal Unionists were still able to increase their parliamentary representation in the two 1910 General Elections to 32 and then 36 MPs.