BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

marked the establishment of the newspaper England; devoted, like the
168
Primrose League, to restoring British national
interests at home and
abroad. Given the general politicization of the press during this
period, papers 1 ike The Morning Post and local conservative
publications also served as universal carriers of the Conservative
message.75
As important as the Conservative strategy was in forcing public
attention on the need for a strengthened national and imperial policy,
it is doubtful that it would have triumphed without the continual
threat of Irish Home rule which dominated the politics of the 1880*s
and the 1890's.
It was Salisbury's genius to realize the singular
importance of the issue and to play continually upon public fears while
reforging a multi-class alliance with which to base the establishment
of the modern Conservative party.
The years 1885 to 1888 constituted
the crucial phase in this "realignment."76
The most interesting
75 For a more general discussion of the evolution of the
nineteenth century political press, see Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall
of the Political Press in Britain (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1981).
76 in using the term realignment, I accept the position taken
by Pelling, Blewett, Cornford et al. that the 1885-86 elections
constituted a restructuring of British politics, at least for the
period preceding the 1906 election. Wald is certainly correct in
pointing to the limitations of employing inter-election correlations as
a means by which to justify this conclusion. However, the validity of
a realignment need not be measured solely on the basis of the strength
of statistical voting correlations in either inter- or intra-election
periods. The key works around which this debate is centered are the
following. Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections 1885­
1910 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967). Neal Blewett, The Peers,
the Parties and the People (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1972). James Cornford, "Aggregate Election Data and British Party
Alignments, 1885-1910," Mass Politics, eds. Erik Allardt and Stein
Rokkan (New York: Free Press, 1970). Kenneth Wald, "The Rise of Class-
Based Voting in London," Comparative Politics vol. 9 (1976-1977), pp.
219-29. Idem, "Realignment Theory and British Party Development: A