This session examines the other European states in this era as they struggle with obstacles to democratic practices.

1. Nineteenth Century Europe
PART 3
1871-1914
session 13
FROM LIBERALISM TO DEMOCRACY:
POLITICAL PROGRESS IN WESTERN EUROPE

2. “From what has been said in the previous chapter, it will be easy to guess that the political
history of the countries of western Europe was far from placid in the years after 1871. The
governing classes were under steady pressure to extend political freedom to the masses
and to alleviate the social conditions in which they lived and labored; and in most
countries, although sometimes only after protracted political struggles, they acknowledged
this and instituted measures of political and economic democracy before 1914. The
country that made the most conspicuous progress in that respect was, indubitably, Great
Britain; but several of the lesser nations showed an equal ability to adjust their policies and
institutions to the changing conditions of the times. Unfortunately, others—their number
included Italy and Spain—showed a greater willingness to imitate the forms than to be
inspired by the realities of British parliamentary and social institutions.”
Gordon A. Craig in 1991
Craig, op. cit., p.286

3. Great Britain
BROADENING THE FRANCHISE
DEPRESSION, PARTIES AND PARLIAMENT
TOWARD A LABOR PARTY
REVIVAL AND RELAPSE OF LIBERALISM
THE IRISH QUESTION FROM GLADSTONE TO WW I
BRITISH DEMOCRACY IN 1914
Belgium, The Netherlands and
Switzerland
Northern Europe
DENMARK
NORWAY
SWEDEN
Southern Europe
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
ITALY
Today’s Major Themes

4. Great Britain

5. Ibid.
“As a result of the reforms of the 1860s Great Britain was already far advanced on the road
to political democracy, and she now carried this to its logical conclusion.The Reform Act
of 1867 had given the franchise to nearly all the male urban population.…”

8. The Broadening of the Franchise

10. DEPRESSION, PARTIES AND PARLIAMENT
Slum housing in
London’s East End
in the 1890s—Bing

11. The Long Depression, 1873-1896

12. born to a wealthy Unitarian ship-owning
family in Liverpool
after a prosperous international business
career, he became a philanthropist
he walked London with policemen collecting
data on the poor
he included his cousin Beatrice Potter Webb
in his work
Labour and Life of the People, 1889
How to deal with the growing poverty?
A scientific approach

13. Map of Whitechapel
from Charles Booth’s
Labour and Life
of the People.
Volume 1: East London
(London: Macmillan, 1889).
The streets are colored to represent
the economic class of the residents:
Yellow (“Upper-middle and
Upper classes, Wealthy”),
red ("Lower middle class -
Well-to-do middle class”),
pink ("Fairly comfortable
good ordinary earnings”),
blue ("Intermittent or
casual earnings”), and
black ("lowest class…
occasional labourers,
street sellers, loafers,
criminals and
semi-criminals")

25. EMPIRE AND LIBERTY

31. TOWARD A LABOR PARTY

37. The “Khaki” Election of Oct 1900 •
The 1900 UK general election was…also referred to as the Khaki Election …, [because] it
was held at a time when it was widely believed that the Second Boer War had effectively
been won (though in fact it was to continue for another two years). The Conservative Party,
led by Lord Salisbury with their Liberal Unionist allies, secured a large majority of 130 seats,
despite securing only 5.6% more votes than Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Liberals. This was
largely owing to the Conservatives winning 163 seats that were uncontested by others. The
Labour Representation Committee, later to become the Labour Party, participated in a general
election for the first time. However, it had only been in existence for a few months; as a
result, Keir Hardie and Richard Bell were the only LRC Members of Parliament elected in
1900.).
This was the first occasion when Winston Churchill was elected to the House of Commons.
He had stood in the same seat, Oldham, at a by-election held the previous year, but had lost. It
was also the final general election of the Victorian era and the 19th century.
Wikipedia

40. The October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively;
total expenses for the election only came to £33. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but
two were successful; Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.[

44. Although, English law does not provide a 'right' to strike in the strict sense, it is better seen as
providing immunity from tortious liability should certain substantive and procedural
requirements be met.—Wikipedia

66. The First “All Big Gun” Battleship
HMS Dreadnought

72. THE IRISH QUESTION
FROM GLADSTONE TO WORLD WAR I
Sir Edward Carson
signing the Ulster Solemn
League and Covenant, 1912

75. “The Irish unrest that had marked Gladstone’s first ministry was aggravated in the years
that followed. The coming of the agricultural depression to Ireland and the precipitous fall
of agricultural prices destroyed most of the good effects of Gladstone’s Land Act and led
to widespread misery, 2110 families being evicted for failure to pay rent in the year 1880
alone. This led to renewed agitation in favor of comprehensive reform to provide not
merely fixed peasant tenure but actual peasant ownership of the land.…”
Craig, op. cit., p.300

99. British army camp just north of Dublin

100. Built during the 19th century “Troubles”

107. Belgium
The Netherlands
Switzerland

126. Northern Europe

139. Southern Europe

140. Southern Europe

141. Southern Europe

142. “In most of the countries discussed … [so far], substantial progress toward democracy had
been registered by 1914 and, even where there was a tendency towards an increased use of
violence in politics, it was not so marked as to threaten the existing political regimes, most
of which had shown the ability to adjust themselves successfully to changed needs and
new problems. None of this was true of the states of southern Europe, where progress
toward democracy was minimal, violence uncontrolled, and the stability of established
government always in question.”
Craig, op. cit., p.308

151. Craig, op. cit., p.312

152. “…the highest in Europe, far in excess of job opportunities, and this
led to the emigration of the most enterprising elements of the labor
force (350,000 emigrated in 1900; 530,000 in 1910) and to a high
degree of social distress and unrest among those who remained.”
Ibid.

159. “I’m pointing the way, but people keep staring at my finger.”—Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori was an Italian feminist and pioneering educator. Her revolutionary ideas
about child-centered education have continued to win devotees more than a century after
her visits to America. She was the first woman to graduate from an Italian medical college.
She developed a methodology to teach ‘idiots,’ who were considered hopeless by the
educational establishment. When some of her students passed the standard tests, she
decided to try her methodology on ‘normal’ students. The impressive results won
worldwide interest in her Method by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century.
After the bloodbath of 1914-18 she placed even more emphasis on education for peace.
Her progressive stance of respect for the child ill accorded with the rise of Italian fascism
and its militaristic education. She found better opportunities in democratic societies around
the English-speaking world.
I include this aside as an example of the presence of a great resource for preparing the
way for democracy in this region which Craig rightly agues was the least democratic part
of Western Europe.
jbp

161. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) •….”

162. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) •….”

163. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),•….”

164. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),• who mercilessly exposed
the inadequacies and the shams of Giolittianism and, in something of the spirit of Sorel, called
for a new elite, versed in the ways of power, who would lead society out of its present
materialistic swamp. This coincided with the formation, in 1910, of a new Nationalist party…”

166. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),• who mercilessly exposed
the inadequacies and the shams of Giolittianism and, in something of the spirit of Sorel, called
for a new elite, versed in the ways of power, who would lead society out of its present
materialistic swamp. This coincided with the formation, in 1910, of a new Nationalist party •
which was frankly monarchist, antiparliamentarian, and imperialistic. Its most outspoken
leader, Enrico Corradini (1865-1931),• announced in his speeches the themes elaborated on by
the Fascist movement after the war:….”

167. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),• who mercilessly exposed
the inadequacies and the shams of Giolittianism and, in something of the spirit of Sorel, called
for a new elite, versed in the ways of power, who would lead society out of its present
materialistic swamp. This coincided with the formation, in 1910, of a new Nationalist party •
which was frankly monarchist, antiparliamentarian, and imperialistic. Its most outspoken
leader, Enrico Corradini (1865-1931),• announced in his speeches the themes elaborated on by
the Fascist movement after the war:• the heroic qualities of combat, the insignificance of life
when the cause of the nation was at stake, modern Italy’s legacy from ancient Rome, the
necessity of subordinating the concepts of liberty and equality to those of discipline and
obedience, and the moral satisfaction that came from living dangerously.
“The fact that the youth of Italy in particular should have turned to this kind of thing
shows how far Giolitti’s • cynicism had succeeded in draining the idealism out of Italian
politics. This also explains the remarkable vogue of the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio
(1863-1938),…”

168. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),• who mercilessly exposed
the inadequacies and the shams of Giolittianism and, in something of the spirit of Sorel, called
for a new elite, versed in the ways of power, who would lead society out of its present
materialistic swamp. This coincided with the formation, in 1910, of a new Nationalist party •
which was frankly monarchist, antiparliamentarian, and imperialistic. Its most outspoken
leader, Enrico Corradini (1865-1931),• announced in his speeches the themes elaborated on by
the Fascist movement after the war:• the heroic qualities of combat, the insignificance of life
when the cause of the nation was at stake, modern Italy’s legacy from ancient Rome, the
necessity of subordinating the concepts of liberty and equality to those of discipline and
obedience, and the moral satisfaction that came from living dangerously.
“The fact that the youth of Italy in particular should have turned to this kind of thing
shows how far Giolitti’s • cynicism had succeeded in draining the idealism out of Italian
politics.…”

169. Op. cit., p. 315.
“Among the intellectuals on the extreme right there was a growing interest in the theories
of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) • and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941),• who mercilessly exposed
the inadequacies and the shams of Giolittianism and, in something of the spirit of Sorel, called
for a new elite, versed in the ways of power, who would lead society out of its present
materialistic swamp. This coincided with the formation, in 1910, of a new Nationalist party •
which was frankly monarchist, antiparliamentarian, and imperialistic. Its most outspoken
leader, Enrico Corradini (1865-1931),• announced in his speeches the themes elaborated on by
the Fascist movement after the war:• the heroic qualities of combat, the insignificance of life
when the cause of the nation was at stake, modern Italy’s legacy from ancient Rome, the
necessity of subordinating the concepts of liberty and equality to those of discipline and
obedience, and the moral satisfaction that came from living dangerously.
“The fact that the youth of Italy in particular should have turned to this kind of thing
shows how far Giolitti’s • cynicism had succeeded in draining the idealism out of Italian
politics. This also explains the remarkable vogue of the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio
(1863-1938),• who in 1900 had foresworn the politics of the extreme right…announcing
grandiloquently that ‘as a man of intellect, I shall move toward life.’ By 1909, in poetry whose
content was increasingly empty but whose rhetoric increasingly exhilarating, he was calling on
young Italy to seek life, not in politics but in violent action that would make an end of the
dullness and mediocrity of the existing regime….”

171. Just as we see the Industrial Revolution spreading across Europe from west to east in the
nineteenth century, so the political transformation which it nurtures. Both promise a
desirable transformation of human existence if implemented wisely. But as we continue to
trace this last third of the century, storm clouds gather.
But that’s another story…
jbp