BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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the party like Walter Long, Leo Amery, Henry Page Croft, Lord
Willoughby de Broke, and Lord Halsbury who continued to stress one or
more of these themes, the emphasis was more forceful, expressing a
willingness, if necessary, to resort to extremes, in some instances
even civil war, in order to preserve established institutions
threatened by Liberal reforms.7
The Primrose League, for its part, was left uncomfortably
straddling the divisions within the party, unable either to support or
reject controversial
issues like tariff reform and women's suffrage
until receiving an unequivocal endorsement from the Conservative
leadership.
Consequently, the Grand Council found itself immobilized,
advising members to maintain "neutral" positions on contentious topics,
7 In the case of Long, Amery, and Croft their biographies and
diaries provide strong testimony to their efforts to achieve these
ends. Long was the founder and prime mover behind the Union Defense
League. He also served as President of the Budget Protest League in
1909 and Chancellor of the Primrose League between 1912 and 1913. Long
was the choice of the "Diehard" Tories in 1911 to replace Balfour
before Andrew Bonar Law was selected as the compromise candidate.
Viscount Long of Wraxall, Memories (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1923),
pp. 187, 189, 191, 193-94, 196-97, 202, 205-06. Minutes of the Grand
Council of the Primrose League, 16 May 1912.
Amery's diary entries, particularly those recorded under the
chapter headings "In the Wilderness" (1906-1910) and "To the Brink"
(1911-1914) suggest, along with the appropriate titled biography by
Croft, My Life of Strife, the mood of a younger, more militant
generation of Conservatives who favored a heightened emphasis on
national and imperial issues. The Leo Amery Diaries, 1896-1929, vol.
1, eds. John Barnes and David Nicholson (London: Hutchinson and Co.,
1980). Henry Page Croft, My Life of Strife (London: Hutchinson and
Co., 1948).
Their mood was matched in the House of Lords by Lord Willoughby
de Broke and Lord Halsbury and in varying degree the 110 other Diehard
peers who voted against the Parliament Act of 1911. For an analysis of
the social background and political outlook of this group in the House
of Lords, see Gregory Phillips. The Diehards: Aristocratic Society and
Politics in Edwardian England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1979).