ENGLISH POLITICAL HISTORY 517 



When Parliament adjourned for Christmas, from December 2oth till December 3Oth, 

 the two chief Government Bills, for Irish Home Rule and Welsh Church Disestablish- 

 ment, were well on their way through the House of Commons. The Com- 

 aeadof rm'ttee stage of the Home Rule Bill had ended on December iath, clauses 

 1912. 26-48 and the final schedules having been carried since December 2nd by the 



operation of the guillotine without any concession to Unionist criticisms. 

 The Committee stage had lasted altogether 36 days, including the 25 provided under the 

 time-table; two clauses (i and 37) had been fully discussed, and 22 partly discussed, 

 while 24 had received no discussion at all (6, 10, 12, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 

 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48). Seven days' discussion was reserved for the 

 Report stage. For the Welsh Church Bill the time-table resolution had been carried on 

 November 28th, at the end of an all-night sitting, after a "reasoned amendment," 

 'proposed by Mr. Lyttleton on behalf of the Opposition, had been defeated by 295 to 221 ; 

 but the government agreed to give 16 days, instead of the 14 originally proposed, to the 

 Committee stage, which began on December 5th. The discussions were marked 

 throughout by much bitterness of feeling on the part of the defenders of the Church, 

 among whom Lord Robert Cecil was specially prominent, but they were notable also 

 for some important expressions of the desire of Liberal Churchmen to make the disen- 

 dowment proposals less harsh than what the Welsh Nonconformists considered to be 

 in accordance with their rightful demands. On December 5th clause i was carried by 

 298 votes to 179, and clause 2 by 279 to 183, while clause 3 was carried on December 6th 

 by 259 to 145; but on December i3th clause 4 was only carried by 269 to 202, after an 

 amendment moved by Mr. France and seconded by Mr. Gladstone (both Liberals), for 

 leaving the Church all its endowments except tithe-rent-charge (thus proposing to re- 

 duce its funds by 126,000 a year instead of 173,000), had been rejected by 265 to 215, 

 the majority of 50 including 68 Irish Nationalists. And after clauses 5, 6 and 7 had been 

 carried on December i6th and i7th by normal Coalition majorities, a concession was 

 made on clause 8, the government accepting (Dec. i8th) amendments proposed by Sir 

 Ryland Adkins and Mr. Atherley Jones (both Liberals), by which, much to the disgust 

 of the Welsh members, the Church would retain possession of the Queen Anne's Bounty 

 funds and property (see E. B. xxii, 729, 730). On another amendment, proposed by 

 Mr. Ormsby Gore (Conservative), for keeping all the glebe as Church property, the 

 government majority fell (Dec. igth) to 55, the figures being 277 to 222; and clause 8 was 

 only carried by 284 to 221. The fact that the majorities in both these cases were smaller 

 than the number of Irish Nationalists voting with the Government showed that there 

 was a good deal of sympathy with the Opposition among some sections of Liberals. 



The actual proceedings in the House of Commons were being followed however with 

 marked apathy in the country. Everybody felt that the real struggle had to come in 

 1913. During the whole of December the critical state of European affairs 

 Lera/ 0/ monopolised public interest; and the party conflict took a secondary place 

 confidence, when larger issues were at stake. Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, by 

 common consent, were making British influence a powerful factor for peace 

 in the settlement of the Balkan crisis. The Administration was strengthened for the 

 moment simply by the fact that it represented the whole nation in the councils of Eu- 

 rope. Meanwhile trade was booming, and in some other respects also the position of 

 the Government was more favourable than it had seemed likely to be a few months earlier. 

 Since the Bolton by-election on November 23rd, when the Liberal candidate had sur- 

 prised his own party by retaining the seat with only a slightly diminished majority, the 

 Liberal Press had taken a much more confident tone about the Coalition prospects. 

 Moreover, in the middle of December, a flurry started in the Unionist ranks over a con- 

 tentious question of electioneering tactics, which did much to assist a revival of Liberal 

 confidence. Since Mr. Bonar Law had become the Unionist leader there had been, to 

 all appearance, a concentration among all his followers on Fiscal Reform and Imperial 

 Preference as the corner-stone of their constructive policy, and little had been heard of 

 any wavering as to the principle of including low taxes on foreign wheat and other food- 



