Mr Balfour's Poodle (21 page)

From this analysis a Unionist policy of retreat under protest seemed to follow quite automatically. But from Lord Lansdowne, whom later in January he thought he would like to see personally for a discussion of the Unionist position, the King obtained a rather different view. Asquith at first objected to this suggested audience and then, when the King persisted, reluctantly agreed. In 1909, before the Lord's rejection of the Budget, the Prime Minister had taken the initiative in advising the King to see the Opposition leaders, but on this latter occasion, when the King's own actions were to be central to the next phase of the constitutional struggle, Asquith thought that it would be difficult to draw a line between ‘desiring knowledge' and ‘seeking advice'. He went so far as to draw up a formal minute for the King on the point.

‘The part to be played by the Crown in such a situation as now exists has happily been settled by the accumulated traditions and the unbroken practice of more than seventy years. It is to act upon the advice of the Ministers
who for the time being possess the confidence of the House of Commons, whether that advice does or does not conform to the private and personal judgment of the Sovereign. … It follows that it is not the function of a Constitutional Sovereign to act as arbiter or mediator between rival parties and policies; still less to take advice from the leaders of both sides, with the view to forming a conclusion of his own.'
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The disputed audience took place at Windsor on January 29. Lansdowne showed himself unconvinced that the prerogative would if necessary be used, or that his task was to extricate his forces from a lost battle.

‘It (the creation of peers),' he wrote in his note of the conversation, ‘was a step which I felt sure H.M. would be reluctant to take, and his Ministers not less reluctant to advise; and I thought it not unfair to say that, up to a certain point, we should be justified in bearing this fact in mind when considering whether it was desirable to offer resistance to the Government proposals.'

Later in the interview he showed that he had no desire to see the dispersal of the fog in which he was enveloped:

‘I thought it would be most unwise for any of those concerned, either H.M.G. or the Opposition, or, if I might be permitted to say so, H.M. himself, at this moment to commit themselves finally to any particular line of action, or above all to allow it to become known that they had so committed themselves.'

This distaste for decision arose primarily out of Lansdowne's refusal fully to accept the finality of the election result. He realised that it made an immediate change of Government, necessarily involving another appeal to the country, out of the question. But he clung to the hope that if a conclusion
could be postponed, the dispute might be shifted on to slightly different ground and a Unionist claim for yet a third election given some plausibility.

‘It might, however, happen, that as the situation developed, the issue might undergo a change,' he told the King. ‘For example, supposing an amendment to be carried for the purpose of safeguarding the Constitution against a violent change during the time which, if the Bill became law, would pass before a reformed House of Lords could be called into existence, a new issue of the kind which I contemplated might arise. Was it conceivable that H.M.'s advisers would desire that he should create 500 peers for the purpose of resisting such a proposal?'
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Asquith had realised that this pitfall might be dug for him and was determined not to fall into it. Combined with his own understanding of the position, the promises which he had secured from the King in November gave him adequate protection against its dangers. The arrangement was, not that the Government should merely be protected against an outright rejection by the peers of the Parliament Bill, but that, provided an adequate victory at the election was secured, the King would use the prerogative if necessary to get the bill through in the form which the Government desired. Lansdowne was therefore clutching at what was hardly even a straw. But he preferred to do this rather than give a firm order to retreat. His tactic in consequence became one of delay. If the issue was brought to a head immediately his position was hopeless. He had to try to give it time to change, and this attempt was the motive behind most of his actions between January and July. The difficulty was that while he was delaying many of his followers were busily and ostentatiously
digging themselves into positions from which retreat was impossible.

The new Parliament was opened by the King on February 6, and the Parliament Bill—in exactly the same form that it had been presented in the previous Parliament—was taken immediately after the Address. It was read a first time on February 22, by a vote of 351 to 227. The Unionist leaders in the Lords replied with the only delaying manoeuvre of which they could think. They decided to press on further with a scheme for reform. Lord Newton has described how ‘the party wire-pullers became extremely active, and much pressure was exerted to induce the House of Lords to introduce a Reform Bill at the earliest opportunity. The Whips were very insistent that a Bill should be brought in at once, and in their zeal went so far as to urge that a bad Bill was better than nothing, and that unless something was done promptly the party would be completely smashed.'
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This approach did not command the unanimous support of the anti-Government forces. Those who were opposed to any change were naturally hostile, but so was such an eager reformer as Rosebery. He thought that it was fatal for an Opposition to commit itself to the details of a bill. That might attract the attack away from the proposals of the Government. The best course would be for Lansdowne and his followers to reaffirm their general position by another series of resolutions. This was not far from Lansdowne's own view, but he allowed himself to be swayed by the balance of opinion as expressed through his post-bag and by the insistent energy of Curzon. He accordingly gave notice, on the day of the Parliament Bill's first reading in the Commons, of his intention to introduce a House of Lords Reform Bill.

After this expression of intention, however, no further
progress was made for some time. Lansdowne was seriously ill for most of March. But the mere announcement that a bill was in preparation set off a babel of Tory tongues, each proclaiming a different plan for the composition of the new Second Chamber. Some, like the Duke of Bedford, wanted a wholly elective senate, but most wanted a more conservative arrangement. A hundred Unionist members met at the House of Commons on February 28 to plan a campaign, but in the absence of an agreement as to what they should campaign for the meeting broke up unsatisfactorily. The Opposition was manifestly less united than was the Government.

The second reading of the Parliament Bill occupied the four nights from February 27 to March 2. The debate followed a largely familiar pattern. The Unionists denounced the Government for forcing through a constitutional revolution at the behest of the Irish Party (although, as George Lansbury pointed out, during the dinner hour on the first night only one Unionist was present in the chamber, trying to prevent this dire consequence, and he was speaking), and Government speakers denounced the Opposition for refusing to accept the clearly expressed verdict of the electorate. The most notable features of the debate were Haldane's last major speech in the Commons
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and a duel between Balfour and Asquith, with the Prime Minister, on this occasion, very much in the ascendant. The leader of the Opposition claimed that ‘for practical men it was folly to abandon the hereditary principle, which was accepted by the great majority of mankind, and in the case of the Monarchy was invaluable as the bond of Empire'. Then, in a typically Balfourian passage, ‘he admitted that Liberal legislation did not get fair play, but
granting that a kind of sporting equality between parties should be the goal of their ambitions, surely this was no reason for allowing all Governments to have an uncontrolled license'.
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He wanted a constitutional change because the House of Lords was at present not strong enough to carry out its function. Later he became less typically Balfourian, denounced Ministers passionately, and created a scene by accusing them of having imposed their proposals on the country by fraud.

Asquith replied that ‘the House now knew that the real motive of the Tories in taking up Second Chamber reform was to strengthen it
(sic)
against the representatives of the people.… The Opposition schemes would all perpetuate a Second Chamber in which one political party would be predominant.' He poured scorn on Balfour's use of the hereditary argument. ‘The Monarchy was doubtless strong, but where was the Veto of the Crown?' He scoffed at the ‘constitution mongers', who were then hastily at work behind closed doors. Balfour wished the Government to hold its hand until these hasty improvisers had completed their task. ‘It was not for that that the electors had sent them (the Government) there. Their first and paramount duty was to pass the Bill.'
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After the closure and the defeat of a Unionist amendment, the bill was read a second time by 368 to 243.

On the same night Balfour of Burleigh introduced into the House of Lords his Reference to the People Bill. This provided that whenever there was a disagreement between the two Houses, the measure in dispute, on the demand of either House, should be submitted to a referendum. Even when both Houses were agreed upon a measure, 200 members of the House of Commons acting together could demand a similar submission. This was a wildly far-reaching proposal
which would have made impossible any continuity of Government policy. As Crewe rightly noted, it would have been a greater departure from existing constitutional practice than either the Parliament Bill or a measure abolishing the House of Lords. This did not prevent the straw-clutching Unionists from looking upon it with some favour. Selborne
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declared that his party greatly preferred a general use of the referendum to ‘Single-Chamber tyranny'.

The bill was given a first reading. But when it came up for second reading, three weeks later, the Unionist leadership had returned to the more cautious hands of Lansdowne, who while deploying a number of arguments in favour of the referendum, which, he held, ‘had become indispensable', thought that the bill went further than he was prepared to go at the time, and asked Lord Balfour not to press it. After Cromer had given strong support to the measure on the entertaining ground that it would involve each party in one unsuccessful referendum and one unsuccessful general election within eighteen months, purging the Liberals of Home Rule and the Unionists of tariff reform, the request was complied with. The debate was adjourned, and was never resumed.

Meanwhile some progress had been made with the more serious official Unionist proposals. Selborne unfolded a few details in a series of speeches in the middle of March. A combination of the methods of indirect election, selection by the hereditary peers, qualification by office, and nomination by the Government might effect what he called ‘a moderate reform'. The two Houses might then attempt to settle differences by informal conferences. If these failed they might
sit and vote together. In certain cases a joint committee, presided over by the Speaker and made up in accordance with the relative strength of the parties in the two Houses, could order the submission of bills to a referendum. A number of points remained very vague.

On March 28, Lansdowne announced his intention of moving an Address to the Crown to deal with the difficulty that his Bill would limit the prerogative in so far as it related to the creation of peers and to the issue of writs of summons to existing peers. Royal consent would therefore be necessary in advance.
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Three days later he moved his motion, quoting a number of precedents for the course. Lord Morley, for the Government,
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rather typically added a few precedents which Lord Lansdowne had omitted and announced that His Majesty's Ministers, while retaining their full freedom of action, had no wish to impede discussion of a reform bill and would accede to the motion. Rosebery, very difficult to please, lugubriously observed that he ‘had hoped, rather than expected, that the Government would refuse its concurrence', and the matter was then disposed of.

The bill itself did not come up until well after Easter. Lansdowne presented it for first reading on May 8. Its provisions were very close to the plans which had been outlined by Curzon in February and by Selborne in March, although
more detail was given. The reconstituted House was to be limited to about 350 members, for no hereditary peer (except for Princes of the Blood) was to be summoned unless he were a ‘Lord of Parliament' as defined by the bill. Of these Lords of Parliament, 100 were to be elected by the whole body of hereditary peers from amongst such of their numbers as held or had held certain scheduled offices: ex-Ministers, former Viceroys, Governors, High Commissioners, and Ambassadors and others Heads of Mission were qualified; so were Privy Councillors, members of the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty, captains in the Navy and colonels in the Army, and permanent heads of Government departments. On the territorial side, Lords Lieutenant of counties, chairmen of county councils or sessions and Lord Mayors or Provosts of cities were included.

Another 120 were to be indirectly elected on a regional basis. The members of Parliament for the region would constitute the electoral colleges. The third main group of Lords of Parliament were to be another 100 appointed by the Government of the day, in strict proportion to the strength of the parties in the House of Commons. In addition there were to be seven Lords Spiritual (the two archbishops and five bishops elected by the Episcopate), together with sixteen peers who had held high judicial office. These law lords would sit for life and the two archbishops would sit so long as they held their sees. The other Lords of Parliament, including the five bishops, were to be elected for periods of twelve years, with a quarter of each category retiring every third year.