The Liberal Reforms 1906-1914

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In January 1906 the liberals won the general by a land slide, by winning 397 seats compared to the Conservative Parties 157 seats. In the Liberals manifesto their main policy was to promote free trade, by removing import and export duty, but there was no indication of the introduction of reforms to create a welfare state in the manifesto, which is the concept of a government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens, as the ideology of the time was ‘Laissez Fair’ which is the principle that the state should not intervene in the lives of people. But in the early 20th they were concerns over national security, with Britain involve in the Boer War in South Africa, which was part of the British Empire at the time. Britain had a relatively small army and to swell rank numbers volunteer recruits were required, but alarmingly for the Government almost 25% of volunteers were physically unfit and rejected from serving in the armed forces. 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
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