1906 election

Question 1

1906 election results

Answer 1

labour: 30 (321k)
conservative: 157 (2.4m)
liberal: 400 (2.7m)

Question 2

why did the liberals win the 1906 election

Answer 2

-the Boer war: victory revealed atrocities
women and children in concentration camps
expensive
portrayed tories in bad light
Emily Hobhouse
-chinese slavery: britain wanted to rebuild South African economy
recruited Chinese workers to mine gold
lived in terrible conditions
fear Chinese labour could be used to solve labour shortages
taff vale: damaged power of unions and interest of working class
-education act 1902: extended education provision to 2nd. church schools to receive financial rates for teachers pay, anglican and Catholic Churches provided building. non-conformists angry and called it ‘Rome on the rates’. hoped church schools would wither away but were being strengthened
-lib-lab pact: ensured anti conservative vote be split in more than 30 ways. liberals not competing with labour
-tarriff reform 1903: big loaf little loaf, tories portrays as greedy introducing stomach tax
-first past the post system: disguised reality of elections. percentage closer than what seats represent. would not have been landslide if was proportional
-campbell-bannerman: britians first and only radical prime minister, believer in free trade home rule and improvement of social conditions, unified liberals in opposition to education act and tariff reform