Decline and Opposition
The Liberals were defeated in 1905 after over thirty years in power. The party had grown tired and arrogant in government and became increasingly cautious. As well, a growing anti-Catholic sectarian sentiment hurt the Liberals, particularly in Toronto where they were unable to win a seat from 1890 until 1916. The Liberals continued to decline after losing power, and, for a time, were eclipsed by the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) when the Liberals were unable to attract the growing farmers' protest movement to its ranks.
Debates over the party's policy on liquor divided the membership, forced the resignation of at least one leader, Hartley Dewart, and drove away many reform minded Liberals who supported the federal party under William Lyon Mackenzie King but found the provincial party too narrow and conservative to support. The party was so disorganized that it was led for seven years (and through two provincial elections) by an interim leader, W.E.N. Sinclair, as there was not enough money or a sufficient level of organization, and too many divisions within the party to hold a leadership convention. By 1930, the Liberals were reduced to a small, rural and prohibitionist rump with a base in south western Ontario.
Read more about this topic: Ontario Liberal Party
Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline and/or opposition:
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)