期刊名称：Cercles : Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone
电子版ISSN：1292-8968
出版年度：2011
期号：21
页码：27-38
出版社：Université de Rouen
摘要：This paper examines the relationship between the Liberal Party, Liberalism and the trade unions in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The historiography of the early twentieth-century Liberal Party has been ineluctably shaped by the debate over its electoral decline. Whilst the literature on Liberals and trade unions is far from extensive, it too is dominated by the narrative of decline. Given the trajectory of Liberal electoral performance, this is scarcely surprising or indeed unreasonable. However, while recent years have seen a shift towards more contingent accounts of Liberal decline, accounts of the relationship between Liberals and trade unions often still present a rather stylised picture of Liberal inability to accommodate trade unionism that does not capture the full complexity of either the Liberal Party or the trade union movement. This in part reflects the relative lack of attention given to debates about trade unionism within the rich body of work on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Liberalism that has done much to alter our appreciation of the resources with which Liberals faced the challenges of government and opposition. This essay seeks to integrate Liberal ideas more fully into the history of relations between the Liberal Party and trade unions in the first part of the last century
