Terrance L. Lewis
History Program, Social Sciences
Southern University at New Orleans
Many monographs seek to change the way historians view historical
episodes or processes. Some works which seek to change standard
approaches end up merely testing the readers' patience; other
attempts challenge readers' notion of order, and either the readers
accept and incorporate the new ideas into a realignment of their
thinking on the subject or they reject the ideas but have honed
their theories on the subject, understanding their own positions
better for having had them challenged. "Country Before Party,"
fortunately, falls into the latter group.
In the classroom, historians of post-1885 British politics tend to
emphasize the development of mass political parties in the late
1800s, stressing the differences in the parties and their
modernization over the last century. The material mostly falls
into easily recognizable periods, often relying on vibrant and
interesting personalities to keep the students' attention. The
development of the political parties and their differences is
extremely well-documented at all levels, adding to the appeal of
this approach for the instructor of both traditional lecture
classes and seminars.
Yet the problem with concentrating on the differences between the
political parties has always been that while those differences have
been colorful and well-documented, the party system itself was not
always successful. Between 1885 and 1945, it was more common to
have an informal alliance of major and minor parties or even a true
coalition of major parties than government by one party alone.
Traditionally, these alliances and coalitions have been ignored or
explained away -- with some difficulty -- as mere adjustments to
the system. Searle instead seeks to describe the forces which
drove those ideas of temporary coalitions and of a united
"national" party from the period of Gladstone through the Alliance.
Searle's descriptions of each of the major periods (1885 through
World War I, World War I through World War II, post-War) work well.
The major players (and many minor ones) and many of the policies
which shaped the successive governments and political movements are
well inter-woven (although somewhat sparsely noted). His arguments
for the power of pressures pushing for coalition and against pure
party interests are cogent, and scholars of British government will
easily recognize the effectiveness of using at least some of
Searle's ideas with their advanced students.
The importance of alliance, limited or not, in British politics
cannot be easily argued away. From the Liberal reliance on the
Irish Nationalists and the Conservatives' alliance (and later
fusion) with Chamberlain's Unionists and reliance on Ulster
Unionists before World War I, to the coalitions of the World Wars
and the pseudo-coalitions and minority governments of interwar
Britain, to the appeals and attempts for center political policies
and parties since World War II, the evidence is there. Searle's
descriptions of the political problems and pressures tending
towards alliances and center coalitions are powerful for each case.
The one way the work falters is in the attempt to link all the
instances. It is true that, because the language calling for the
centralist non-party approach and/or call to coalition has been so
similar for over a hundred years, an outside observer "might almost
be tempted to assume the existence of some 'Ur-Text' from which
they had been copied" (p. 270). Searle wants to show how similar
the cases were in the conclusion. Instead, by his own evidence, he
actually demonstrates how different each instance was, for only the
rhetoric remained similar.
In conclusion, this work is not for introductory students of
British politics, who would likely be confused by the rush of names
and events referred to in passing. Theoretical historians will be
left dissatisfied and will be challenged to come up with a set of
theories which will either prove or disprove Searle's premise of
'the power of the tendency to coalition,' because those seeking a
strong unified theory with which they could use to replace the more
traditional party/class theories of modern British politics will
not find it in this work. Historians working from a more
descriptive tradition may not find this to be a major problem, but
throughout the work Searle often seems to be on the verge of
outlining such a theory -- only to recount the next episode
instead. In any event, Searle's individual arguments cannot easily
be ignored, even though, in the end, the reader is left with no
convincing reasons why the pressures for coalitions and 'National
Governments' have recurred so often.
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