Lesson 6: Britain's Twilight Years
In this lesson you will read of the beginnings of decline in Britain's industry and its place as world leader unable to keep up with the new nations and completely knocked back on its heels by World War One and the onsuing depression.
Skeletons in the Closet
Queen Victoria died in l903. Britain had undergone enormous changes in the sixty years of her reign; it had become the workshop of the world. Commerce was flourishing, industrial productivity was booming, exports were soaring; the nation led the world in manufacturing, the Empire had expanded across the globe. Yet there were many cracks in the wall and many skeletons in the closet.
Victoria was succeeded by Edward V11, who reigned for nine years (l90l-l9l0) and who became known as Edward the Peacemaker for his diplomacy in Europe. The image of splendid and carefree easy living portrayed by their jovial, avuncular King was in direct contrast to growing forces of discontent.
Edwardian England existed in a twilight zone; the balance of power in so many areas was shifting in a Europe in which the decisive factor was the rise of a united Germany, and in a world in which the United States would soon dominate. Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister l902-l905, saw that Britain needed to advance its educational system and to strengthen its defenses.
Balfour carried out the reforms made necessary after the humiliations of the Boer War. He improved Britain's naval defenses; and under John Fisher, the Admiralty began building the Dreadnought, a new type of heavily-armed warship. Balfour, however, was completely unable to prevent the inevitable. There had already been ominous warnings of Britain’s decline before l9l0.
In Wales, conditions in the tin plate industry had been severely depressed by the l89l McKinley Tariff of the United States; the deplorable conditions endured by coal miners led to the creation of a new force in British politics: the trade union.
In l834, when Robert Owen had attempted to improve factory conditions and the lives of the workers through his Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, six English farm laborers were sentenced to deportation for secretly forming a branch of the GNCTU (the famous “Tolpuddle Martyrs”). In Lancashire, in l869, the formation of the Amalgamated Association of Miners led to fierce resistance from coal owners and it was forced to disband.
In Newport, South Wales, the Miner's Federation of Great Britain began in l896. When judgment was given in favor of the owners and against the striking workers in the Taff Vale Railway Company dispute of l900, the unions saw clearly that they had to have legislation to guarantee their rights, and thus they needed representation in Parliament.
The formation of the Labour Representative Committee answered their needs. In l906, it became known as the Labour Party, but it took many years before it could muster enough strength to offer a worthy challenge to the Liberal and the Conservative Parties.
