49S 



way of thinking. 1 A further argument was that if a creation of peers was avoided now, 

 it would not prevent exactly the same situation arising if and when the House of Lords 

 subsequently rejected a Home Rule Bill; the best thing therefore was to get the whole 

 business over at once, and exhaust the credit which had been opened by the Ministry; 

 matters had already gone too far for the House of Lords any longer to act as safeguard 

 against single-chamber government. 



Between these opposing views of the situation, a cleavage in the Unionist ranks was 

 at once manifest, among the peers, the party in the House of Commons, the rank and 

 file in the country, and in the Press. Mr. Balfour decided to " stand or fall " with Lord 

 Lansdowne's advice, and they were followed by much the larger numbers; but public 

 interest centred in the outcome of what was known as the " Die-Hard " movement, 

 which was actively organised under Lord Halsbury's leadership and initiated at a large- 

 ly attended and enthusiastic dinner in his honour at the Hotel Cecil on July 26th, at 

 which Lord Selborne presided, supported by Lord Salisbury, Lord Milner, the Dukes of 

 Northumberland, Marlborough, Bedford and Somerset, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. 

 George Wyndham, Sir Edward Carson, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. F. E. Smith, Lord Wil- 

 loughby de Broke, and other prominent men. How many peers would follow the lead 

 given by Lord Halsbury and vote against the unamended Bill when it was again sent up 

 was still uncertain, but as Lord Lansdowne and the bulk of those who accepted his 

 advice were only prepared to desist from further opposition and would not assist the 

 Government affirmatively by voting for a measure they detested just as much as the 

 " Die-Hards," it was impossible for him to give Mr. Asquith the assurance he had de- 

 manded. A period of extreme tension and uncertainty followed. On July 24th, when 

 Mr. Asquith was to move in the House of Commons that the Lords' amendments be dis- 

 agreed with, he was howled down from the Unionist benches, amid a scene of great dis- 

 order in which Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr. F. E. Smith were specially prominent, and the 

 Speaker was eventually obliged to adjourn the House; further disorder took place next 

 day when Lord Hugh Cecil was howled down by the Ministerialists, and it was not till 

 August 8th that, with Mr. Winston Churchill leading the House in the absence of Mr. 

 Asquith, who was suffering from laryngitis, the motion for disagreeing with the Lords' 

 amendments was carried by 321 to 215, after the Government had agreed to introduce a 

 few minor changes. Meanwhile Mr. Balfour had endeavoured to placate the whole of 

 the Unionist party by moving a vote of censure (Aug. 7th), which was rejected by 

 365 to 246, and in the House of Lords a similar vote of censure moved by Lord Curzon 

 (Aug. 8th), was carried by 282 to 68; but the " Die-Hard " movement had gone on 

 unfalteringly, and an active canvass had been in progress, both on the Unionist and the 

 Liberal sides, with a view of ascertaining how the division might go if the Bill came again 

 before the House of Lords under existing conditions. 



The uncertainty whether the " Die-Hards " would outnumber the Liberal peers, if 

 Lord Lansdowne's supporters simply abstained, as he advised them to do, made the 

 situation very difficult, both for the Government and also for those Unionist peers who 

 thought that a wholesale creation of new Liberal peerages would be worse even than the 

 passing of the Bill without it. On the one hand, a considerable section of Radical 

 opinion was in favour of settling the whole question, including the future of the Radical 

 programme, by immediately making enough peers to ensure a Liberal majority; on the 

 other, a section of Unionist peers, led by Lord Cromer and Lord St. Aldwyn, were con- 

 sidering whether, to avoid this, they should vote for the Bill, bad as it was, while others, 

 passionately resenting this suggestion, declared that if it were acted on they would de- 

 sert Lord Lansdowne and join the " Die-Hards." Amid the confusion on both sides 

 and the increasing bitterness of feeling among the Unionists, it was believed that Lord 

 Knollys, the King's private secretary, who was in constant communication with Down- 



1 It is worth noting in this connection that between 1868 (when modern Liberalism and 

 Conservatism practically started as organised parties) and October 1912, the new peerages 

 created by Liberal Governments numbered 164 and those created by Conservative Govern- 

 ments 149. Mr. Asquith alone had created 52 new peers up to October 1912 since he became 

 Premier in 1908. See also E. B. xxiii, 112. 



