Lord Rosebery : the limitations of experience
Date
1968
Authors
Coates, Ronald Calvin
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Abstract
On Gladstone's retirement in 1894 his ministry continued, almost unchanged, under the leadership of Lord Rosebery. The new Prime Minister was one of the most promising politicians of his generation. HE was supported by the Queen, was brilliant, wealthy, and had a wide appeal to the public, particularly in Scotland. Within his own part he was looked upon as 'the man of the future'. As the first Chairman of the London County Council the new generation of radicals, interested in social reform, looked to him as a guarantee that the Liberal part intended to carry on its tradition of reform.
In his short tenure of office Rosebery proved to be one of the most unsuccessful Prime Ministers in British history. His contemporaries have dwelt on the gap between his promise and his performance; to a large extent this preoccupation has been shared by historians. The concern of this paper is the validity of the expectations of Rosebery's performance as Prime Minister.
There is a large volume of secondary material available on the period of late Victorian England. Official biographies of most of the principal members of the Liberal Ministry of 1892-1893 have been written. Several of the principals have themselves struggled into print. A study of the Liberal leadership from 1894 to 1895 has been published. All of this material was readily available for this paper. Primary sources available were largely of a public or official nature. These included Hansard, the Times of London, and the majority of the political periodicals of the period.
Rosebery's connection with active politics began when he acted as political and social host to Gladstone during the Midlothian campaign of 1880. HE did not accept office until offered one connected with Scotland, but resigned from this when his ideas for the conduct of Scottish affairs were not implemented. He joined Gladstone's second Cabinet after the Gordon disaster. In Gladstone's third Cabinet he replaced Lord Granville as Foreign Secretary. In 1892, despite his wish to disassociate himself from politics and his commitment to Conservative foreign policy, he became Foreign Secretary in Gladstone's fourth ministry--largely as the result of royal pressure.
Gladstone's fourth Cabinet was never united, due partly to the lukewarm enthusiasm of most of its members for Home Rule and partly to Gladstone's almost complete withdrawal from contact with it. The Cabinet rapidly became a group of ministers rather than a corporate body. Rosebery became one of the most isolated of these as he pursued a foreign policy with which few of his colleagues were in sympathy and to which several were actively opposed. Rosebery's policy prevailed however, due to the divided nature of the Cabinet, his threats of resignation, and his own lack of qualms about actively subverting Cabinet policy.
On Gladstone's retirement Rosebery and Harcourt, the acrimonious Chancellor of the Exchequer, emerged as the contenders for the leadership. Rosebery became Prime Minister largely due to the antipathy of the other members of the Cabinet to Harcourt. Taking over a divided Cabinet, Rosebery continued to carry out foreign policy without consulting his colleagues and proceeded to formulate a policy to unite the party, also without consultation. He was attempting to follow the example of Gladstone and the heroic cause. When he failed to do so he attempted to rally the Cabinet by the threat of resignation. This gave an illusion of success but was also a failure. Rosebery was unable to pursue any other tactic to re-unite the Cabinet and party as these were beyond his experience.