Gladstonian Liberalism

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Gladstonian Liberalism is a political doctrine named after the British Victorian Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstonian Liberalism consisted of limited government expenditure and low taxation whilst making sure government had balanced budgets. Gladstonian Liberalism also emphasised free trade, little government intervention in the economy and equality of opportunity through institutional reform.

Gladstonian financial rectitude had a lasting impact on British politics and the historian John Vincent contends that under Lord Salisbury's premiership, he "left Britain's low tax, low cost, low growth economy, with its Gladstonian finance and its free trade dogmas, and no conscript army, exactly as he had found it...Salisbury reigned, but Gladstone ruled."[John Vincent, 'Reigning not ruling', The Spectator, 24 July, 1999.] Ernest Bevin remarked upon becoming Minister of Labour in 1940: "They say that Gladstone was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930". The first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, had Gladstonian Liberal economic views. This was demonstrated in his first Budget in 1924; government expenditure was curtailed, taxes were lowered and duties on tea, coffee, cocoa and sugar were reduced. A.J.P. Taylor has written that this budget "would have delighted the heart of Gladstone."A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945 (OUP, 1990), p. 212.

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