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Feeling the Heat of the League? When Ideas Matter (Not)
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C. Schonhardt-Bailey, Chapter 10 – “Feeling the Heat of the League? How Local Newspapers Affected MPs’ Voting on Repeal”; 02/08/2004 Page 8 of 14
Thompson, Worcester), I selected the first and the last of these MPs and added them to the sample, giving a total number of 48.
[TABLES 10-2 AND 10-3 – ABOUT HERE]
Tables 10-2 and 10-3 gauge the representativeness of the sample according to key characteristics and in terms of the content of their speeches. From Table 10-2, we can see that the two most conspicuous differences between the sample and the larger population of MPs concerns the type of constituency and MPs’ votes on the Third Reading of Repeal. In the sample, borough MPs are over-represented and county MPs are under-represented. But, given that I deliberately selected MPs whose districts contained at least one local newspaper, this bias towards urban areas is not surprising. As borough MPs tended to be more free trade oriented, this bias might overrate the effect of free trade ideas on borough MPs, and so this should be considered when examining the results. The second difference between the sample and the population of MPs is that the former under-represents the number of MPs who abstained on the final reading of Repeal. However, once again, this is a deliberate bias, as abstainers were less likely to have spoken in the debates and therefore were less likely to have been included in the sample. The under-sampling of these MPs should be considered in the analysis of the results. Table 10-3 presents the basic statistics from an ALCESTE analysis of both the sample MPs and the whole of the House of Commons in 1846 (the latter presented in Chapter 7). Predictably, the first four rows (which essentially measure the volume of text for analysis) give smaller figures for the sample than for the whole of the Commons. The percentage of classified ECUs is on par with the whole of the Commons. More interestingly, the number of classes is the same, and the content of the classes remarkably similar between the sample and the population. Each of the classes in the sample can be mapped to one from the larger population. The only class from the larger population that cannot be directly matched to the sample is “Electoral Connection”, but as this theme fits with the larger discussion of “Trustee and Delegate”, an indirect link may be made. Overall the content of the sample MPs’ debates closely fits with that of the whole of the Commons.
III. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS The primary goal in analysing newspaper coverage of trade policy is to gauge the change in ideas from the early 1840s to 1846. Hence, all newspaper articles on or relating to trade policy were summarized for two six-month time periods: (1) from March 1841 to August/September 1841; and (2) from October 1845 to April/May 1846.
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The first time-period captures the lead-up to, and the General Election of 1841,
while the second covers both before and after Peel introduced the Repeal legislation in 1846. These offer optimal “early” and “late” time periods as both were highly politicised, and focused on the prospect of a change in the Corn Laws.
7
As mentioned earlier, coverage of MPs’ speeches was then deleted from the main text file.
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| | Authors: Schonhardt-Bailey, Cheryl. |
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C. Schonhardt-Bailey, Chapter 10 – “Feeling the Heat of the League? How Local Newspapers Affected MPs’ Voting on Repeal”;
02/08/2004 Page 8 of 14
Thompson, Worcester), I selected the first and the last of these MPs and added them
to the sample, giving a total number of 48.
[TABLES 10-2 AND 10-3 – ABOUT HERE]
Tables 10-2 and 10-3 gauge the representativeness of the sample according to key
characteristics and in terms of the content of their speeches. From Table 10-2, we can
see that the two most conspicuous differences between the sample and the larger
population of MPs concerns the type of constituency and MPs’ votes on the Third
Reading of Repeal. In the sample, borough MPs are over-represented and county MPs
are under-represented. But, given that I deliberately selected MPs whose districts
contained at least one local newspaper, this bias towards urban areas is not surprising.
As borough MPs tended to be more free trade oriented, this bias might overrate the
effect of free trade ideas on borough MPs, and so this should be considered when
examining the results. The second difference between the sample and the population
of MPs is that the former under-represents the number of MPs who abstained on the
final reading of Repeal. However, once again, this is a deliberate bias, as abstainers
were less likely to have spoken in the debates and therefore were less likely to have
been included in the sample. The under-sampling of these MPs should be considered
in the analysis of the results.
Table 10-3 presents the basic statistics from an ALCESTE analysis of both the sample
MPs and the whole of the House of Commons in 1846 (the latter presented in Chapter
7). Predictably, the first four rows (which essentially measure the volume of text for
analysis) give smaller figures for the sample than for the whole of the Commons. The
percentage of classified ECUs is on par with the whole of the Commons. More
interestingly, the number of classes is the same, and the content of the classes
remarkably similar between the sample and the population. Each of the classes in the
sample can be mapped to one from the larger population. The only class from the
larger population that cannot be directly matched to the sample is “Electoral
Connection”, but as this theme fits with the larger discussion of “Trustee and
Delegate”, an indirect link may be made. Overall the content of the sample MPs’
debates closely fits with that of the whole of the Commons.
III. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS
The primary goal in analysing newspaper coverage of trade policy is to gauge the
change in ideas from the early 1840s to 1846. Hence, all newspaper articles on or
relating to trade policy were summarized for two six-month time periods: (1) from
March 1841 to August/September 1841; and (2) from October 1845 to April/May
1846.
6
The first time-period captures the lead-up to, and the General Election of 1841,
while the second covers both before and after Peel introduced the Repeal legislation
in 1846. These offer optimal “early” and “late” time periods as both were highly
politicised, and focused on the prospect of a change in the Corn Laws.
7
As mentioned earlier, coverage of MPs’ speeches was then deleted from the main text
file.
8
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