A Study of Conservatism 1890-1911

Abstract

This thesis attempts to show the development of the forces making up the Right Wing Opposition in politics between 1890 and 1911. New Zealand historians like J.B. Condliffe, W.D. Stewart and L. Webb have laid down the main lines, the revitalising of the Conservative group of the nineties by the support of the small farmer class in the new century both inside and outside Parliament. There has been very little detailed study however of the composition, organisation and policy of Opposition forces, of the relations between Conservative Party and National Association in the nineties and their junction in the early twentieth century in the provincial Political Reform Leagues. An analysis has been made in this thesis of electoral trends for the period based on a classification of electorates similar to that used by R.M. Chapman. Electorate histories were compiled from the election results in the Year Books and the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives. Political allegiances were determined by a comparison of the classification of candidates in five mains newspapers, The Auckland Star, The New Zealand Herald, The Evening Post, The Press, Christchurch, and The Otago Daily Times. Professor L. Lipson in his "Politics of Equality" has classified candidates, but his tables were drawn up on a rather different basis from the present writer's. Mrs. Ruth Allen of Wellington who gathered all the information for Professor Lipson's tables very kindly allowed me to compare my political allegiances with the ones that she had drawn up and Professor Lipson had used. These in some cases differed and as Professor Lipson has not published the statistical basis for his tables (nor acknowledged them) the present writer has included in the appendices the election results with each candidate classified, as nearly as was ascertainable, under the party to which he professed allegiance, or as Independents.