Joseph Chamberlain - Coat of Many Colours

In a picture postcard, Radical politicial Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) is pictured wearing a coat of many colours. Each segment reflects the different stages in his political career: socialist, extreme radical, Gladstonian, Liberal Unionist, Conservative and protectionist and food taxer. Inconsistent was one of the more favourable epithets used of Chamberlain. To the Liberals he was a traitor, to the Conservatives a dangerous radical, and to the people of Birmingham a hero, despite the fact that by birth he was a Londoner. Up his sleeve is his idea for Old Age Pensions, which he proposed to fund through tariff reform, taxing imports into the British Empire (the colours of which adorn his coat)

Ideas Monacle Pensions Proposals Radical Reform Sleeve Tariff

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