This was because there was a commonly held belief that the deprived were responsible for there poor living conditions, as they did not work hard enough – like the upper-class did, some would argue. Yet, the Liberals did pass reforms between 1906 and 1914 in order to tackle this problem. For example, the Old Age Pension Act of 1908 and Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906. Two social surveys were published during this time, that not only shocked the British public but changed popular opinion on the causes of poverty. They helped pave the way for a whole range of Government-led welfare reforms.
Compassionate reasons where one of the underlying reasons many historians argue upon the realise of the report on poverty from booth and rowntree in their study of the English town York , a town not normally associated with extreme poverty they found 29% of the population were well below the poverty line. Another reason was the very real fear workers were discouraged by the poor conditions and governments and may later turn against the government and form mass strikes or in serious cases rebellion or join the communist groups within Britain. Political self interest was high on the liberal’s agenda many historians argue. The franchise was being extended to the average man slowly and the liberals realised the average man did not benefit much from the government’s approach to peoples life’s and with the rise of the labour party and other parties many historians argue that it was out of desire to be re-elected that the liberals slowly brought about this change in reform. They didn’t get a majority government in 1910 like they did in 1906 which led them to think that social reform was the way to gain votes.
The troops would have felt let down as well, so therefore wanted reform and supported Mussolinis violence tactic. This also links in with the north south divide as the troops would be in the south and it hadnt industrialised as much as the north causeing a huge divide socially and economically. This demobalisation of the troops would have threated the higer classes as the troops could easily over power them for the land. Obviously the 5 million troops would have supported Mussolini and therefore caused a growth in his support. Another reason for Mussolinis success was the weakness of the political system.
In 1906 the Liberal government were being to realise the effect that poverty was having on the country as a whole including the Liberals ability to govern the country. Research carried out by reformers such as Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree influenced the Liberals and enlightened them to the state of poverty in our country. Looking at the research the Liberals saw that more than 30% of our population were living below the poverty line (that Booth had devised). From this they could clearly see that something needed to be done about this. The work of Booth and Rowntree had for the first time highlighted that fact that people were not in poverty just because they were lazy.
The Old Poor Law of 1834 was reformed because it could not cope due to the large numbers of people claiming poor relief. This was due to population rise, commercialisation of farming which left people with no jobs, decline of agricultural crafts, harvest failures, food shortages due to war, higher food prices and change in attitude to claiming social welfare as there was no stigma attached to being poor anymore. This led to different measures such as the introduction of the Speenhamland system of 1795. Having investigated the reasons for the reformation of the Poor Law, we will now focus on the reasons that led to the reform. There were six main reasons that led to the old Poor Law Reform to easily pass which were: a willing government, Tories were a minority, Climate change, objectors were not listened to, and a Report based on evidence collected by the commission of enquiry.
Most Americans feared socialism; they linked it to trade unions, mass immigration and anarchy. Socialists believed in equality Big business leaders were afraid of organised labour; the growth of for ‘social justice’ including causes such as women’s suffrage, direct election to the senate and conservation. Some Progressives were pacifists and anti-imperialists but most were strong nationalists. The Progressive wing of the Republican party reunited with the mainstream party in 1916. Progressivism achieved very little as a separate party but at one time, it seemed that it could achieve national support.
The law brought positive changes to the country encouraging more people to seek employment, “working people developed their own self-help movement”. Walsh M, et al, 2000. But also created some negative changes, working conditions were extremely harsh and families were split up. The amendment act was disliked by the poor population of the country because of the leissez-faire system the government had in place, the government’s approach on leissez-faire was to intervene as little as possible with the direction of economic affairs. This had an impact on the poor, it caused stigma and the poor had a mark of disgrace on their reputation.
The New Liberals desire for change was backed up by the social investigations of Booth and Rowntree. These men discovered that the main causes of poverty were outwith the control of the individual, such as old age; sickness; unemployment and low wages. However, did the burst of legislation carried out by the ‘Liberal government from 1906-1914 to help the young, the elderly, the sick, the unemployed and low earners successfully tackle the problem of poverty at the turn of the 20th
During 1906 to 1914 the Liberals passed reforms to try and improve the lives of the British people. Booth and Rowntree impacted the way people viewed the poor, they conducted a report which identified two areas of poor. Primary poverty was due to low wage, unemployment, sickness and old age. And secondary poverty was the source of laziness and citizens wasting money by spending it on drink and gambling. When the report was released, people began to see the true extent of poverty and that the British people couldn’t fulfil their basic needs and provide for themselves food, water, clothing and shelter.
This raised questions on whether Britain could survive a war or protect its empire from a stronger enemy than the Boers, which were Dutch farmers that lived in South Africa if its fighting stock was unhealthy by being so malnourished through living in extreme poverty. National efficiency was a concern, by the end of the 19th century Britain was no longer the strongest industrial nation and was facing threat from new industrial nation such as Germany. It was believed that Britain’s position as a strong industrial nation would be under threat if health and educational standards of workers got any worse. Also at this time there was an emergence of a new political opponent, the Labour Party whose manifesto contained high social content and the Liberals felt something had to be done to retain their working class voters. When in power the Liberals felt these issues