ABSTRACT
The tariff debate and the other controversies which disrupted Edwardian Conservatism were a product of the break-down, for a variety of reasons, of the Salisburyian integration strategy and the search for a workable alternative approach. The structure and content of the tariff debate show that tariff reform cannot be seen in a straightforwardly instrumentalist or determinist light. The historiography of the Conservative party has seen great emphasis placed on the role of individual politicians. That the history of the Edwardian Conservative party should help dispose of one of the most curious, themes in Conservative historiography, namely that the Conservative party is not an ideological party and that ‘Conservatism is not a political system, and certainly not an ideology’. The notion of Conservatism as a ‘non-ideology’ should be taken seriously only insofar as it is in itself an aspect of Conservative ideology. Between 1880 and 1914 the British economy developed into what one economic historian has called ‘an import economy’.
