The chief business of the conference was the adoption--without amendment--of the const.i.tution which had been prepared beforehand. Mr.

Chamberlain was then elected president of the Federation with great enthusiasm. A number of vice-presidents were taken from other towns; but the treasurer and honorary secretary were also citizens of Birmingham, while Mr. Schnadhorst, the great organiser, whose hand had been at work throughout the movement, became at once the active secretary. In short, all the offices of any real importance were retained in the town that had given birth to the Federation and was to control its movements for some years to come.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's Benediction.]

[Sidenote: Aim of the Federation.]

The makers of the Federation had taken pains to secure for their plan the sanction of Mr. Gladstone, whose name, in spite of his resignation of the Liberal leadership, carried more weight than that of any one else in the party. He was present in Birmingham on the day of the conference, and in the evening addressed a public meeting. After stating that, in point of organisation, the Conservatives had for years been ahead, and would remain ahead so long as the Liberals adhered like them to a method of arbitrary selection of the representatives of party, founded mainly upon the power of the purse, he declared that it was, in his opinion, to the honour of Birmingham that she had "held up the banner of a wider and of a holier principle"; and he rejoiced that the large attendance of representatives of const.i.tuencies showed a disposition to adopt this admirable principle. Thus he gave the new organisation his blessing and bade it G.o.d-speed.[503:1] The public meeting ended with a resolution moved by Mr. Chamberlain, and adopted unanimously, which put into formal terms the aim of the movement, already so clearly set forth in debate.

It said that, as the opinion of the people should have a full and direct expression in framing and supporting the policy of the Liberal party, this meeting heartily approves of the proposal of a Federation of Liberal a.s.sociations. In short, it was made perfectly evident at every step in the genesis of the Federation, in the call for a conference, in the speeches made thereat, and in the final resolution which closed the proceedings, that the new organisation was intended to take an important, and perhaps the leading, hand in directing the policy of the party. It was expected to be, as Mr. Chamberlain expressed it, a Liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; not, indeed, doing the work of that body, but arranging what work it should do, or rather what work the Liberal members should bring before it, and what att.i.tude they should a.s.sume. By this process the initiative on all the greater issues, so far as the Liberal party was concerned, would be largely transferred from the Treasury Bench to the Federation. This was, indeed, expressly stated by some of the speakers as their princ.i.p.al desire, and with such an avowed object it is not surprising that the new machine for the manufacture of Liberal policy should have been popularly called the Caucus.

[Sidenote: Its Const.i.tution.]

[Sidenote: The Council.]

The const.i.tution adopted at the conference provided for a great representative a.s.sembly of the Federation, called the Council, composed entirely of delegates from the local a.s.sociations, roughly in proportion to the population of their towns or districts. If the population was under fifty thousand the a.s.sociation was ent.i.tled to five representatives; if between fifty and one hundred thousand to ten; and if larger still to twenty representatives. The Council was to hold an annual meeting at which the president, vice-president, treasurer, and honorary secretary, were to be elected. Special meetings could also be called by the officers. Each annual meeting was to decide upon the place at which the next should be held, and in order to awake enthusiasm for the party all over the country it has been the habit, from that day to this, to hold the annual meeting at one after another of the chief provincial towns.

[Sidenote: The General Committee.]

The const.i.tution set up one other body, partly but not wholly representative in character. It was called the General Committee, and consisted of the officers of the Federation; of delegates from the a.s.sociations, two in number if the town or district had less than fifty thousand people, three if it had between fifty and one hundred, five if it had over one hundred thousand; and finally of not more than twenty-five additional members chosen by the Committee itself. The princ.i.p.al functions of the Committee were: to aid in the formation of local a.s.sociations based on popular representation (no others being admitted to membership in the Federation); and to submit to the a.s.sociations political questions upon which united action might be considered desirable. Unlike the Council, which was to visit different places, the General Committee was to meet in Birmingham until it decided otherwise. It was empowered to elect its own chairman, and it chose Mr.

William Harris of that town, the father of the first representative a.s.sociation established there in 1868.

[Sidenote: The Federation Begins Actively.]

The Federation does not seem at first to have been universally attractive, even to the local a.s.sociations formed after the Birmingham pattern, for it was joined at the outset by only about half as many of them as had sent delegates to the conference. But by January, 1879, when the first meeting of the Council was held at Leeds, the number had risen to one hundred and one. In its report at that meeting the General Committee showed that it had been very active. It had held no less than five sessions, and on the subject of the Eastern question it had stirred up many public meetings, and had organised a great deputation of local delegates to the Liberal leaders in the two Houses of Parliament. The Committee believed that its labours had not been fruitless, for the report said: "In regulating the action of the Liberal party, both in and out of Parliament, in bringing about closer union between leaders and followers . . . the efforts of the Federation resulted in a great and important measure of success. . . . But for the Liberal action, largely stimulated and guided by the Federated Liberal a.s.sociations, we should unquestionably have been at war with Russia." Mr. Chamberlain in his presidential address at the meeting of the Council at Leeds, speaking of any possible attempt to avoid a programme of domestic policy, when the Liberals again came to power, remarked: "I think we shall be justified in saying to Lord Hartington[506:1] that concession is a virtue that gains by being reciprocal." At this time the Radicals and the Whigs, or Liberals of the older type, still formed mutually distrustful wings of the party, and the Federation was the organ of the former.

In its regular session the Council pa.s.sed no vote on public policy; but, at the public meeting in the evening, resolutions were adopted against the foreign policy of the Conservative government, and in favour of peace, retrenchment, and reform. At the meeting at Darlington in the following year a similar course was followed. Clearly the Federation was taking very seriously its mission as a spur to the Liberal steed; but equally clearly it was not as yet seeking to act as a parliament outside of the imperial legislature, and the centre of gravity was at this time not in the Council, but in the General Committee.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain Enters the Cabinet.]

Before the third meeting of the Council took place in January, 1881, an event had occurred that changed essentially the att.i.tude of the Federation. The general election of 1880 had placed the Liberals in office with Mr. Gladstone at their head, and Mr. Chamberlain had been given a seat in the cabinet. It is commonly stated that his connection with the Federation was not the cause of his selection, and this is no doubt perfectly true in the sense that it was not the direct reason for offering him the seat. It is, indeed, well known that the choice lay between him and Sir Charles Dilke.[507:1] But as Mr. Chamberlain had sat less than four years in Parliament, and had never been in the ministry, it can hardly be denied that his position at the head of the new Liberal organisation, which had attracted so much attention throughout the country, was one of the factors in the political prominence that brought him within reach of the cabinet. His new office necessarily brought a change in his relation to the Federation. It was obviously unfitting for him to remain the chief officer of a body that might be used to bring pressure to bear upon Parliament and even upon his colleagues. He therefore resigned the post of president, and was succeeded by his friend and fellow-citizen Mr. Jesse Collings;[507:2] but he continued until the Liberal split in 1886 to make the princ.i.p.al speech at the evening public meeting held in connection with the annual session of the Council.

[Sidenote: The Federation Begins to Act as an Outside Parliament.]

The Federation lost none of its momentum from the change of ministry. On the contrary its activity increased, and in fact it began at this time to try its hand at framing a programme for the party in a rudimentary way. At its meeting in Birmingham in January, 1881, the Council pa.s.sed, among other resolutions, one that urged upon the government the need of dealing at the earliest possible moment with various reforms, such as the amendment of the land laws, the extension of the franchise in rural districts, the redistribution of seats, and the creation of representative inst.i.tutions in the counties. Similar resolutions were pa.s.sed at the next annual meeting, which took place at Liverpool in October of the same year.

[Sidenote: It Puts Pressure upon Members of Parliament.]

Meanwhile the activity of the General Committee about current political questions continued; especially in the form of inciting local a.s.sociations to constrain their representatives to vote with the cabinet. The annual report to the meeting of the Council at Liverpool said that some Liberals had been disposed to propose or support amendments which struck at the vital principle of the Irish Land Bill, while others abstained from voting. The Committee had thereupon decided that its "duty could be most properly and efficiently discharged by inviting the Liberal const.i.tuencies to bring legitimate pressure to bear upon those of their representatives, who, in a great national crisis, had failed to support the government." A circular was, therefore, issued to the federated a.s.sociations which excited much complaint amongst the members of Parliament, but produced the desired effect.[508:1] When the bill was threatened with amendments of the House of Lords a meeting of delegates was called to attack the peers. This, in the opinion of the Committee, also had an effect, and helped to pa.s.s the bill.[508:2]

The systematic obstruction by Mr. Parnell and his followers in the Commons, and Mr. Gladstone's plan in 1882 for a new procedure which would enable the House to cut off debate, gave a fresh occasion for bringing the pressure of the federated a.s.sociations to bear. A circular was sent out, and at once a large majority of them pa.s.sed resolutions in support of the government's plan.[508:3] The General Committee held meetings also in connection with the Irish Coercion Act of that year, and sustained the cabinet heartily, while at the same time suggesting amendments. Some of these were adopted, and as the Committee complacently remarked, "The Federation may thus claim the credit of having on the one hand strengthened and guided public opinion in support of measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of order; and on the other of having sought to mitigate the severity of the proposed enactments."[509:1]

[Sidenote: It calls a General Conference of the Party.]

In 1883 the Federation took up energetically the extension of the franchise in the counties. It called a great conference of delegates at Leeds; acting on this occasion in cooperation with the National Reform Union of Manchester and the London and Counties Liberal Union, two rival organisations, which were, however, more local and less aggressive, and waned slowly before the greater vigour of the Federation.[509:2] The delegates met two thousand strong, representing more than five hundred a.s.sociations, and adopted resolutions declaring that it was the duty of the government at the next session of Parliament to introduce bills to extend the county franchise and redistribute seats. Another conference in Scotland pa.s.sed similar votes. "Taken together," the General Committee say in their annual report, "they represent the great bulk of the Liberal party throughout Great Britain . . . and . . . it is not too much to expect that such an expression of opinion will exercise decisive weight with the Members of the Government in the arrangement of their measures."

[Sidenote: Its Claims at This Time.]

These examples show the att.i.tude and the activity of the Federation during the first Liberal ministry that held office after its formation.

It claimed to represent, or perhaps one ought to say it claimed that it would when fully developed represent and that it could immediately evoke, the opinion of the whole Liberal party in the country. It was, therefore, convinced that it ought to exert a great influence upon the cabinet in the framing of measures; and it believed that it did so.

There is no need of reviewing further the history of the Federation during this period, for its position remained unchanged until Mr.

Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. But on two points the action of the Council is noteworthy in connection with its subsequent career. The resolutions pa.s.sed at the annual meetings began to cover a wider field. This was especially true after the downfall of the Liberal government, in 1885, when they a.s.sumed the proportions of a full programme of internal reforms.[510:1] Then again amendments to the resolutions offered were moved from the floor. In 1883, for example, an amendment in favour of woman suffrage was carried; and in 1885 another demanding local option in regulating the sale of liquor.

[Sidenote: The Struggle over Home Rule.]

Mr. Gladstone's ministry having resigned in consequence of a defeat on the budget, the Conservatives came to power in June, 1885, and the general election at the end of the year, with the political upheavals to which it gave rise, proved a turning-point in the history of the Caucus.

The election left both parties without a working majority; for the Conservatives and Home Rulers together almost exactly balanced the Liberals. In January the Conservatives were beaten on the address with the help of Irish votes, and Mr. Gladstone, returning to office, prepared a bill for a separate Parliament in Ireland. Some members of the moderate wing of the party had already left him during the debate on the address; and in March, while the Home Rule Bill and its complement, the Irish Land Bill, were under discussion in the cabinet, several of the ministers, including Mr. Chamberlain, resigned, one of their chief stumbling blocks being the exclusion of Irish representatives from the House of Commons. A struggle began at once for the control of the National Liberal Federation. On one side stood Mr. Gladstone with his cabinet, the official leaders of the party; on the other Mr.

Chamberlain, hitherto the hero and idol of the Caucus, which he had nurtured and made great, which had treated him as its special representative in the cabinet, and had pa.s.sed each year a vote to welcome him when he came to make his speech. He had declared in Parliament not long before that he was not the Caucus,[511:1] but it certainly expressed his views, and he fought its battles. During the late election he had made the country ring with appeals for the reforms advocated in its programme, especially the demand for labourers'

allotments, embodied in the cry for "three acres and a cow." The Caucus was the weapon of the Radical wing of the party, while he was the greatest Radical champion, and although Kitson, the president of the Federation, was against him, the majority of the officers were on his side, among them William Harris, the founder of popular party organisation in Birmingham and still the chairman of the General Committee.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain is Defeated in the Council;]

On April 6, two days before Mr. Gladstone brought in the Home Rule Bill, the officers sent a circular to the federated a.s.sociations asking them to consider the proposals of the government, as soon as they were made known, with a view to an expression of opinion by the Liberal party. A special meeting of the Council was then summoned to meet in London on May 15. There Mr. Harris moved a resolution drawn up by the officers, and expressing Mr. Chamberlain's ideas. It approved of giving the people of Ireland a large control over their own affairs by means of a legislative a.s.sembly; but, while declaring the confidence of the Council in Mr. Gladstone, requested him to amend his bill by retaining the Irish representatives at Westminster. The resolution was met by an amendment moved by the followers of the Prime Minister, commending the Home Rule Bill, thanking him for it, and a.s.suring him of support in the present crisis. After a long and eager discussion the amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority.

[Sidenote: and Withdraws from the Federation.]

The result, so far as the Federation was concerned, was decisive. Six members of the General Committee, including Mr. Harris,[511:2] thereupon resigned; and several influential public men, among them Mr.

Chamberlain, withdrew from the organisation. But the ma.s.s of the people think on broad lines, delight in strong contrasts easily understood, and have little sympathy with a half-way group that stands between the two opposing parties in the state. Hence like the Peelites in 1846, and the Free Trade Conservatives in 1905, the Liberal Unionists in 1886 were a body in which the members of Parliament were many and their following in the country comparatively few. The personal secessions from the Federation were not numerous, and not a single local a.s.sociation left the fold.[512:1] But the break soon became incurable. The opponents of the Home Rule Bill ceased to be regarded by their former companions in arms as members of the party, and were constrained to leave the Liberal a.s.sociations;[512:2] while Mr. Chamberlain in conjunction not only with his Radical friends, but with all the Liberals who could not follow Mr.

Gladstone's Irish policy, including even Lord Hartington and the Whigs, founded a new organisation upon the old model, called the Liberal Unionist a.s.sociation.

[Sidenote: New Position of the Federation.]

The National Liberal Federation did not save Mr. Gladstone and his adherents from defeat at the general election of 1886; but they had obtained control of the organisation, and must find out what to do with it. If a power, it had also been a source of anxiety, and under the wrong management it might again be used to put pressure on the members of Parliament, and even on the leaders themselves. It was useful and must be cajoled; but it was also dangerous and must be kept in check.

Like a colt, it must be treated kindly, but must be broken to harness, and above all the reins must not be allowed to get into strange hands lest it learn bad tricks.

[Sidenote: Removal to London.]

Obviously the offices of the Federation could remain no longer at Birmingham, because in spite of the loss of his organisation Mr.

Chamberlain still controlled the city so completely that his candidates carried every seat there at the election of 1886. The offices were, therefore, moved to London, where they were established in the same building with the Liberal Central a.s.sociation--the body that acts in conjunction with the party whips--and what is more, M. Schnadhorst, the paid secretary of the Federation, who had taken Mr. Gladstone's side at the time of the split, was also appointed honorary secretary of the a.s.sociation. This arrangement, which lasted until he retired in 1894, and has continued ever since under his successor Mr. Hudson, was not mentioned at the time in the printed reports of the General Committee, but its effects in bringing the leaders of the party into close touch with the management of the Federation can readily be imagined. Another link of the same kind was soon made. The General Committee had always been in the habit of distributing political literature, and in 1887 a publication department was created under the direction of a joint committee consisting of two representatives of the Central a.s.sociation, and two of the Federation.[513:1] All these changes brought the Federation nearer to the party chiefs, and gave it also a more national stamp.

[Sidenote: The Federation Broadened.]

At the same time the const.i.tution was slightly modified. The princ.i.p.al changes adopted in 1887 were: making the representation on the Council more nearly proportional to population; giving to each a.s.sociation for a whole const.i.tuency three votes in the General Committee, and to all others one vote apiece without regard to size; and lastly providing for district federations, especially for Wales, the Home Counties and London, which should be represented as separate organisations upon the governing bodies. The object of these changes appears to have been to make the Federation attractive to all Liberals throughout the country, for it had hitherto been regarded as preeminently an instrument of the Radical wing of the party, and many local a.s.sociations had held aloof.

The managers now tried to induce them to join in order to make the Federation as fully representative of the whole party as possible. In this they were successful in a high degree, as may be seen from the fact that the federated a.s.sociations, which numbered in 1886, before the split over Home Rule, only two hundred and fifty-five, rose in two years to seven hundred and sixteen.[514:1] In carrying out this object there was no need of opening the door to local a.s.sociations not framed upon a popular and representative basis, because societies of that kind had already been entirely superseded.[514:2]

[Sidenote: Relation to the Party Leaders.]

When the Federation, breaking away from Mr. Chamberlain, chose the side of Mr. Gladstone, the leaders of the party took it at once under their patronage, and began to show a keen interest in its proceedings. Not only did Mr. Gladstone address almost every year a great public meeting held in the evening during the session of the Council, as Mr.

Chamberlain had been in the habit of doing before 1886; but other leaders of the party attended the meetings of the Council itself, and former cabinet ministers made speeches there in moving, seconding or supporting the resolutions. This practice magnified the apparent importance of the Federation, and lasted until the Liberals came into office again in 1892.

[Sidenote: Resolution of the Council]

[Sidenote: The Nottingham Programme.]

Meanwhile the Council, meeting as before in one after another of the great provincial towns, continued to adopt a series of resolutions setting forth the policy of the Liberal party. The embarra.s.sment that might come from this in the future was not fully perceived at the time, and there was at first no attempt to discourage it. In fact a statement of the objects of the Federation published with the new rules in 1887 repeated the words originally written ten years earlier: "the essential feature of the Federation is the partic.i.p.ation of all members of the party in the formation and direction of its policy, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and progress to which priority shall be given."[514:3] The resolutions became, in fact, more and more comprehensive, because the Council was naturally in the habit each year of reaffirming its previous votes about internal reforms, and adding new ones, the older expressions of opinion being after a while condensed into what was known as the "omnibus resolution." At the meeting held at Nottingham in 1887 a series of resolutions were adopted condemning coercion, urging Home Rule, the principle of one man one vote, registration reform, disestablishment of the Church in Wales, and the need of reform in the land laws, in labourers' allotments, county government, local option, London munic.i.p.al government, and free education. The resolutions were talked about as a programme for the party, and the managers began to see that a danger was involved, but apparently as yet only the danger of splitting the party. The General Committee, therefore, in its next annual report, after speaking of the influence exerted by the Federation, remarked: "A force so great and so overwhelming requires to be directed with the utmost care and judgment, and your Committee asks for the support of the Federated a.s.sociations in applying it only to questions of a practical character, with regard to which there is a general consensus of opinion in the party. . . . Much has been said and written of the Nottingham programme. Neither the resolutions submitted at Nottingham, nor the resolutions which are submitted at the present meetings of the Council, are intended to const.i.tute a political programme. The resolutions which were submitted last year, and those which will be submitted this year, refer to subjects upon which there is a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks. Every question added which is not thus approved tends to divide and to weaken the party."[515:1]

[Sidenote: Amendments Ruled Out of Order.]

The principle that resolutions on which there was not a general consensus of opinion ought not to be adopted by the Council was given a very definite application at that meeting. A motion stood upon the agenda in favour of one man one vote, and the payment out of the public rates of returning officers' expenses. The president, Sir James Kitson, stated that a delegate wished to add the question of the payment of members, but he must rule that it should be sent up by one of the federated a.s.sociations with a request for inclusion in next year's programme. As the agenda was prepared by the General Committee, the action of the president was in effect a ruling that a question not placed by that committee upon the paper could not be proposed from the floor. A little later in the meeting he took the same position when a member wanted to bring forward the grievances of the Scotch crofters.[516:1]