After the
Constitutional Reform of 1848,
liberals became the dominant political force in the Netherlands. They were organised in loose political clubs and caucuses. Liberals were divided between
progressive,
centrist and
conservative liberals, but because of the lack of organised political parties, these divisions were not very strong. In 1879 the division became explicit when a separate parliamentary party was formed by supporters of
Jan Kappeyne van de Coppello. With the rise of both
Catholic and
Protestant parties, the liberals were forced to organise themselves better. In 1885, all the liberal political clubs and
caucuses were united in the Liberal Union. The Union was factionalised: it had a progressive, a conservative and a centrist faction. In the
1888 general election, the liberals were forced into opposition by a majority of the
confessional political parties. In the
1891 general election, however, the confessional parties lost their majority and a liberal cabinet led by
Gijsbert van Tienhoven was formed. The cabinet's most important proposal is the relaxation of the
census, proposed by minister of home affairs Tak van Poortvliet; the law would grant the right to vote to all men able to read and write. All political parties were divided on the subject and with a very narrow majority the proposal was rejected. In reaction to this the cabinet resigned and a new election was held. In this election the division between pro-suffrage "Takkians" and anti-suffrage "anti-Takkians" grew. The Liberal Union was also split on the subject. A group of conservative liberals left the party, remaining a loose political club until the foundation of the
League of Free Liberals in 1906. The anti-Takkians won the
1894 general election, and the Liberal Union was confined to opposition. After the
1897 general election, the liberals regained their majority and a cabinet led
Nicolaas Gerard Pierson enacted a series of social laws, including compulsory education for all children between the ages of six and twelve. In 1901, the progressive liberals in the party founded the
Free-thinking Democratic League together with the
Radicale Bond. This caused the liberals to lose their majority in the
subsequent election. In the
1905 general election, however, a cabinet was formed by the two liberal parties, led by
Theodoor Herman de Meester. In the
1909 general election, they lost their majority to the confessional parties again. The
1913 general election resulted in no clear majority; the
Social Democratic Workers' Party was asked to join the liberals in a coalition government, but they refused. An
extra-parliamentary cabinet was formed by
Pieter Cort van der Linden, formed by liberals from all three liberal parties. This cabinet presided over the introduction of the 1917 Unemployment Act, which regulated the involvement of government in social security, with the government giving subsidies “for the voluntary unemployment insurance schemes of the trade unions and for unemployment benefit arrangements made by employers. In exchange for subsidizing the unemployment insurance system, the government insisted on defining the eligibility criteria for unemployment benefit payments (InfoNU, 2011).” The cabinet also enacted universal suffrage and ended the
school struggle. After the disastrous
1918 general election, the liberals lost almost half of their seats; they fell from thirty-seven to twenty seats. In 1921 the Liberals merged with the League of Free Liberals, as well as the
Economic League,
Middle Class Party and the
Neutral Party, to form the
Liberal State Party, the mainstream liberal party. ==Ideology and issues==