ABSTRACT

By 1904 it was becoming steadily clearer that the sitting Tory Ministry would be heavily defeated whenever a General Election should come. That was why the Liberal leadership was so intent on keeping up maximum electoral pressure and why its efforts to prevent by-election rivalry between Liberal and Labour, from which only the harassed and divided Tories could gain, sometimes enlisted even “Independent Labour” support. In view of the obvious importance of the personal story of Keir Hardie in the forcing of a definite cleavage between “Labour” and Liberalism, even of the Radical kind, this chapter might well terminate with the shortest of biographical notes upon him. Distrust of the “agitator” still exists, of course, and not, as once, mainly in employing circles, seeing the troubles worked up, even in “socialized” industries, by “unofficial strike” leaders whose public and private ambitions are sometimes suspect.