Welsh Journals

Labour Party to break into the first-past-the-post system at the expense of the Liberals by authorizing the state payment of election expenses. (It may be that Dr. M. Dawson's article on this subject in the Historical Journal appeared a little too late for him to take it into account.) The trade unions vastly increased the number of their candidates in the general election of 1918; and although in most cases they did not win, they provided a sound basis for the rapid expansion of the Labour Party in the 1920s. Mr Cowling has argued, on the basis of a scrutiny of the private papers of the party leaders, that they were much preoccupied by the threat of a rapid Labour advance in the early 1920s; but the fact remains that for the old parties the old issues retained their rallying power, and when the Asquith v. Lloyd George battle lost its force, they still remained bitterly divided on the fiscal question. Dr. Powell rightly draws attention to the occasions when Labour was in office or in power and confrontation took place between unions and government. Drawing on the work of Professor Middlemas, he describes the 'corporate' nature of industrial policy after 1945 with trade unions, employers and government sharing responsibility for policy. Although the Thatcher Government broke up this 'corporatism', Dr. Powell argues that 'Mrs Thatcher may have come as close as any Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin to solve the Labour question as a problem in British politics' (p. 146). But he also acknowledges that 'a disaffected underclass of the poor and the deprived was permanently excluded from the benefits of Thatcherism' (ibid.). Bearing this mismatch in mind, it seems unduly optimistic to conclude that 'a new era of social partnership will permit the restoration of stability and avert the downward curve of industrial decline' (p. 152). There is a useful chronology and bibliography at the end of the volume. HENRY PELLING St. John's College, Cambridge JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN AND THE CHALLENGE OF RADICALISM. By Duncan Watts. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1992. Pp. xvi, 144. Paperback, £ 3.99; NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: A STUDY IN FAILURE? By Peter Neville. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1992. Pp.124. Paperback, £ 3.99. These two Chamberlain volumes are published in Hodder and Stoughton's 'Personalities and Powers' series which claims to be 'suitable for A, AS and Higher Level Students'. This is a particular market to which authors and publishers should direct their attention. Although current education policy is to stick with A-level as an 'academic gold standard', in practice A-level history courses have had to adapt to a changing clientele used to the active learning strategies associated with GCSE. New texts are urgently needed to bridge the gap between GCSE and undergraduate history: unfortunately, these two volumes do not meet that specification. Watts and Neville use the biographical approach as a way of opening up particular periods of history. Such an approach is hardly novel, and not without merit. Indeed, the authors have some success in demonstrating the public effect of Victorian domestic