49 2 ENGLISH POLITICAL HISTORY 



to omit the words in the preamble, pledging the Government to set up a reformed 

 Second Chamber at all, was rejected (May ad)- by 218 to 47, Mr. Asquith declaring 

 that the Government regarded it as an obligation, if time permitted, to propose a 

 scheme for reconstituting the Upper House within the lifetime of the existing Parlia- 

 ment. This and other similar assurances subsequently gave occasion for passionate 

 accusations of breach of faith from the Opposition, when in 1912 the Government pro- 

 ceeded with their legislative programme and left the reform of the House of Lords alone. 



Every attempt of the Opposition to modify the operation of the Parliament Bill was 

 met by dogged resistance. In the view of the Government it was a simple measure for 

 destroying a veto upon the deliberate demands of the elected House, and therefore of 

 the people, which had been shown to be inconsistent with modern parliamentary govern- 

 ment, and for making impossible another rejection of a Budget ; it gave statutory validity 

 to what in their opinion was in any case the constitutional theory and practice, and was 

 the minimum that the Liberal party could accept in the shape of fair play for their 

 measures. The principal demand of the Opposition, put forward in a number of differ- 

 ent amendments, that important new measures, especially constitutional changes like 

 Irish Home Rule, should not become law, if rejected by the House of Lords, until they 

 had been submitted to the judgment of the country either by a special Referendum or at 

 a general election, was of no avail. The Coalition, by its very composition, was in 

 office, as the Opposition were only too well aware, in order to try to pass Home Rule 

 in spite of the Unionist majority in the House of Lords. This was the essence of the 

 political situation, and no arguments, however excellent, about the " horrid arbitrari- 

 ness " of a House of Commons and its not really having the voice of the people behind 

 it for such measures, were likely to be listened to. The Government's reply was that the 

 country, in giving them a majority for the Parliament Bill, knew quite well what it would 

 be used for, and that the two years' interval it allowed for delay, in which the feeling of 

 the country would have scope for expression, was an ample safeguard against the passing 

 of legislation to which the people were really opposed. 



Meanwhile the alternative policy of the Unionist party was being made clearer in 

 the more congenial atmosphere of the Upper House. On February 226 Lord Lansdowne 

 The action of gave notice of a Bill for reforming its constitution, which was read a first 

 the House time on May 8th and a second time on May 22d. The whole principle of 

 of Lords. j.jjj s sc h eme o f reform was that, while the composition of the Upper House 

 would be changed and put on a representative basis, in accordance with the policy of 

 Lord Rosebery's resolutions in iQio, 1 its powers would remain as they were. Under it, 

 the reconstituted House would consist (except for Royal Princes) of " Lords of Par- 

 liament," summoned as such and not because of any hereditary title; 100 would be elect- 

 ed by the hereditary peers from such among their number as were qualified, under a 

 schedule to the Bill, by having held various public positions or ranks in the public serv- 

 ices; 120 would be elected to represent different districts of the United Kingdom by 

 colleges of electors consisting of the members of the House of Commons for the constit- 

 uencies within those districts; 100 would be appointed by the Crown (i.e. the Ministry) 

 so as to represent the proportional strength of parties in the House of Commons; 7 would 

 be " spiritual Lords," i.e. the two archbishops and 5 bishops to be elected by the 

 Anglican Episcopate; and 16 would be peers who had held high judicial office. Except 

 for the law lords, who would sit for life, and the spiritual lords who would sit while they 

 occupied their sees, the lords of parliament would sit for twelve years, subject to one- 

 fourth in each class (selected by ballot) retiring every third year. Peers who were not 

 " lords of parliament " would be eligible for the House of Commons, but the creation of 

 new hereditary peerages for commoners other than past or present Cabinet ministers 

 was to be limited to five a year. In Lord Lansdownc's view, such a reform of the consti- 

 tution of the Upper House, which followed on the lines of suggestions already thrown out 

 by Lord Curzon and Lord Selborne, would provide a representative Senate, of which the 

 existing Unionist party preponderance would no longer be characteristic. 



1 E. B. xx, 847. 



