Liberal reforms
In this essay I will show to what extent the Liberal Government of 1906 to 1914 set up a welfare state in Britain, why they were so concerned with the health of the nation, what reforms they introduced in order to improve the nation's health and why this was a period of major reform in Britain. A welfare state is a state with social services controlled or financed by the Government. These service aim to protect society's weakest members from the cradle to the grave. As Beveriage described it, a welfare state is the "provision of services for the prevention of disease, squalor, want, idleness and ignorance". (1) The social reforms seemed to run counter to the laissez-faire individualist ideology of the nineteenth century Liberal party. This held to the view that the less state regulation the better. In the 1906 general election the Liberal party won a landslide victory on the basis, not of a programme of social reform, but in defence of free trade. This was a traditional Liberal policy, which was challenged by the unionist's adoption of tariff reform or protection as a response to the rise of foreign competition. The Liberals success was due to the identification in the public mind of free trade with cheap food.
Taking Booth's idea of the "poverty line" he went on to distinguish between "primary" and "secondary" poverty. (3) GR Searle, The Liberal Party: Triumph and Disintegration. Lloyd George even visited Germany in 1908 to see how they had set up their social reforms. (2) J R Hay, The Origins of the Liberal Welfare Reforms. This was a cautious measure, successful in terms of the number of school meals provided; from three million in 1906 to fourteen million in 1914, but limited in that there was no compulsion in the Act until 1914 and by 1912 over half the local authorities had not set up school meals. Through the Sweated Trades Act and the Trade Boards Act of 1909, the Liberal Government set up boards to negotiate minimum wage levels for non-unioned "Sweated Trades". The issue of housing and education were not tackled, unemployment benefits were limited to a select few trades, and a National Health Service were merely hinted at by the establishment of the health insurance scheme. The scheme however did not cover the member of the employee's family and the employee. This was a reflection of the rise of socialism seen in the growth of the trade unions and of the new Labour Party. This Act was very successful in providing jobs for the unemployed; 1913 employed three thousand people employed through the scheme daily. Public conscience was also shocked by the fact that thirty-four per cent of recruits for military service in the Boer War failed to meet the army's standard of height, weight and eyesight, at a rejection rate of one in three. Welfare services would contribute to the efficiency of the workers. The Liberal government attempted to protect workers through reforms such as the Coal Mines act of 1908, which established an eight hour day for miners and the Shop Hours Act of 1911whcih entitled shop assistants to a weekly half day holiday, established a maximum working week of sixty hours and which provided washing facilities in every shop. In 1907 the Medical Inspectors Act dealt particularly with the problem of disease in schools. The following year saw the introduction of school medical inspection.
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Acceptance Essays
