A LAST HURRAH: STUDIES IN LIBERAL PARTY DEVELOPMENT AND IDEOLOGY IN ONTARIO, 1878--1893

Ironically, despite the centralist-nationalist bias of much of the traditional political history of Canada, perhaps in part because of it, late Victorian Liberalism in Central Canada has become something of an enigma. In substance, this study rests on the proposition that there is a distinctive ideological content to Ontario Liberalism in this period and that the obscured social functions of the Liberal party of Ontario become clearer through an appreciation of this ideological content.;Conceptually, this argument is developed through a "symbolic" approach to political behaviour and the application of the idea of "party-movement" to late Victorian Liberalism. Symbolic politics refers to the dimension of political behaviour in which individuals identify with parties out of the need for social identity and through which parties seek to manipulate public opinion to their advantage through the creative use of rhetoric. The metaphor of party-movement, applied to nineteenth century Liberalism, explains the incongruous behaviour of the party in Ontario through the dynamic internal conflict defined by consolidating organizational structures of party and the continued identification with an inherited political tradition possessing broad social appeal.;Since so much of the concept of symbolic politics depends upon the voter, the question of who voted Liberal is given a separate treatment. This is followed by an analysis of Liberal party organization. The Liberal party press is explored in its pivotal role as a factor in party organization and as a vehicle of partisan rhetoric. The bulk of the study then turns to an analysis of several salient themes of Liberal rhetoric: the Reform tradition, the imagery of Tory vs. Liberal, the theme of anti-monopoly, and the Liberal ambivalence to economic development.;These separate studies lead to the conclusion that partisan Liberalism in Ontario possessed a unique institutional balance from the 1870's to the 1890's as defined by new levels of organizational development, an inherited political tradition and contemporary social change. The interplay of these factors ultimately resulted in a fundamental shift during the 1880's in the internal balance of the party and in the social functions that it performed.