BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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Council in an ex officio capacity during these years.
There they
maintained a watchful eye over the operations of the Primrose League,
paying particular attention to its political and electoral activities.
The task of acquiring the Primrose League was made all that
much easier by the apparent lack of resistance from Churchill, who, for
all
intents and purposes, ceased attending functions sponsored by the
League after April, 1885.
By the fall of 1885, Salisbury was named,
along with Northcote, Grand Master.
He consolidated his ties with the
League by regularly presiding over meetings of the annual Grand
Habitation beginning in 1886.
There Salisbury addressed enthusiastic
delegates, gathered from all over the country.
He praised their
efforts and directed the League toward the promotion of interests most
vital to the Conservative cause.
Salisbury's influence was made all
that much more potent by the presence of his wife and daughter on the
executive of the LGC, respectively, as President and Honorary
Treasurer, beginning in 1885.
Between 1880 and 1886 Salisbury addressed over seventy meetings
throughout the country.
Although Disraeli seldom utilized the public
forum as a means for popularizing parliamentary policy, Salisbury
proved to be a more modern orator, seeking through these gatherings to
establish a direct link between himself and the electorate.*
In this
way he hoped to circumvent the growing powers of the House of Commons
and the caucus, thereby restoring the Lords to undisputed primacy while
1
Cecil, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3, p. 3.
Marsh, The Discipline of Popular Government, p. 42. Corinne C. Weston,
"Salisbury and the Lords, 1868-1895," The Historical Journal, vol. 25,
no. 1 (March 1982), pp. 105-08.