The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

CHAPTER XXX

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS

The Conservatives

Formation of the National Union of Conservative Associations.

Ten years before the National Liberal Federation was founded, a Tory organisation, called the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, had been started upon similar lines. After some preliminary meetings it was definitely formed at a conference in November, 1867, where delegates from fifty-four towns and the University of London were present.[535:1] Here a constitution was adopted, which, with the amendments made in the first few years, contained the following provisions. Any Conservative or Constitutional association might be admitted to the Union on payment of one guinea a year, and would then be entitled to send two delegates to the Conference. This last body was the great representative assembly of the Union. Like the Council of the National Liberal Federation it was to meet in a different place each year,[535:2] and was composed of the two delegates from each subscribing association, of the officers of the Union, and of such honorary members as were also members of the Council. The Council was the executive body of the Union, and consisted of the president, treasurer, and trustees; of twenty-four members elected by the Conference; of not more than twenty nominated by the principal provincial associations; and of such members of the Consultative Committee as were willing to act, the last being a body formed out of vice-presidents and honorary members to which difficult questions could be referred.

In order to attract money, it was provided that any one subscribing a guinea a year should be an honorary member of the Union, that the subscribers of five guineas a year should be vice-presidents with seats ex officio in the Conference, and that any one subscribing twenty guineas should be a vice-president for life. In order to attract titles provision was made for the election of a patron and ten vice-patrons of the Union. These methods of procuring the countenance of rank and wealth were not tried in vain. In 1869 Lord Derby became the patron of the Union, and on his death he was succeeded by the Duke of Richmond. In the report of the Council in 1872 we read, "the total number of vice-presidents is now 365, among whom are 66 noblemen, and 143 past and present members of the House of Commons." The honorary members at the same time numbered 219.

Objects of the Union.

It did not Try to Guide Party Policy.

Although the National Union was much older than the National Liberal Federation, it attracted far less notice. During its earlier years, indeed, the Conferences were very small affairs. At the second Conference, for example, in 1868, there were present only three officers and four delegates, and in the two following years respectively only thirty-six and thirty-five persons all told. The chief reason, however, why the Union made so much less stir than the Federation, lies in the nature of the work it undertook to do. The Federation was a weapon of militant radicalism, designed to carry into effect an aggressive public policy, and was considered a serious menace to old institutions; but the Union was intended merely as an instrument for helping the Conservative party to win victories at the elections. Its object was to strengthen the hands of local associations; while its work consisted chiefly in helping to form such associations, and in giving information.[537:1] For this purpose, it kept a register of all Conservative associations, so that it could act as their London agency; it offered suggestions, was ready to give advice, printed and distributed pamphlets, and arranged for speeches and lectures.[537:2] The Union made no claim to direct the policy of the party. At the meeting in 1867, when the Constitution was adopted, one speaker said that "unless the Union was managed by the leaders of the Conservative party it would have no force and no effect whatever," and this was given as a reason for making the honorary members eligible to the Council.[537:3] The matter was put in a nutshell some years later by Mr. Cecil Raikes, one of the founders, when he said that "the Union had been organised rather as what he might call a handmaid to the party, than to usurp the functions of party leadership."[537:4] In fact, for the first nine years the Conference passed no resolutions of a political character at all, and those which it adopted during the decade that followed expressed little more than confidence in the leaders of the party.