Part 14 (2/2)
The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George is a striking figure in our new democracy, and his character and position are to be noted. It was not as a labour representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working middle cla.s.s, enthusiastic for Welsh nationalism, that Mr. Lloyd George entered Parliament in 1890, at the age of twenty-seven. With his entry into the Cabinet, in company with Mr. John Burns, at the Liberal revival in 1905, government by aristocracy was ended; and when Mr. Lloyd George went from the Board of Trade to the Chancellors.h.i.+p of the Exchequer, startling changes were predicted in national finance. These predictions were held to have been fulfilled in the Budget of 1909. The House of Lords considered the financial proposals of the Budget so revolutionary that it took the unprecedented course of rejecting the Bill, and thus precipitated the dispute between the two Houses of Parliament, which was brought to a satisfactory end by the Parliament Act of 1911. Romantic and idealist from the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable courage, Mr.
Lloyd George, with the strong backing of his Welsh compatriots, fought his way into the front rank of the Liberal Party during the ten years (1895-1905) of opposition. More than once Mr. George pitted himself against Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the days of the Conservative ascendancy and the South African War, and his powers as a Parliamentary debater won general acknowledgment. In youth Mr. Lloyd George, full of the fervour of Mazzini's democratic teaching, dreamed of Wales as a nation, a republic, with himself, perhaps, as its first president. Welsh nationalism could not breed a Home Rule Party as Irish nationalism has done, and Mr. Lloyd George has found greater scope for his talents in the Liberal Party. The Welsh ”question” has dwindled into a campaign for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a warfare of Dissenters and Churchmen, and to Mr. Lloyd George there were bigger issues at stake than the position of the Welsh Church.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.
_Photo: Reginald Haines, Southampton Row, W.C._]
Already Mr. Lloyd George's Budget and his speeches in support of the Budget have made the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer familiar to the people of Great Britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his Bill for National Insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. Hated by opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, Mr. Lloyd George enjoys the tumult he arouses. His pa.s.sionate speeches for the poor provoke the sympathy of the working cla.s.s; his denunciations of the rich stir the anger of all who fear social revolution. Hostile critics deny any constructive statesmans.h.i.+p in Mr. Lloyd George's plans and orations, and prophesy a short-lived tenure of office. Radical supporters hail him as a saviour of society, and are confident that under his leaders.h.i.+p democracy will enter the promised land of peace and prosperity for all. Neutral minds doubt whether Mr. Lloyd George is sufficiently well-balanced for the responsibilities of high office, and express misgivings lest the era of social reform be inaugurated too rapidly. The obvious danger of a fall always confronts ambition in politics, but the danger is only obvious to the onlooker. Pressing forward the legislative measures he has set his heart upon, and impatient to carry out the policy that seems to him of first importance to the State, Mr. Lloyd George pays little heed to the criticism of friends or foes. A supreme self-confidence carries him along, and the spur of ambition is constantly p.r.i.c.king. Political co-operation is difficult for such a man, and an indifference to reforms that are not of his initiation, and a willingness to wreck legislation that cannot bear his name, are a weakness in Mr. Lloyd George that may easily produce a fall.
Only a very strong man can afford to say that a reform shall be carried in his way, or not at all, in cheerful disregard of the wishes of colleagues and followers. Mr. Lloyd George's att.i.tude on the question of Women's Suffrage is characteristic. Professing a strong belief in the justice of women's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, he a.s.sumes that he can safely oppose all Women's Suffrage Bills that are not of his framing, even when these Bills are the work of ardent Liberals. He would have the measure postponed until he himself can bring in a Reform Bill, to the end that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women may be a.s.sociated with his name for all time.
It is dangerous to the statesman, the ambition that finds satisfaction less in the success of a party or the triumph of a cause, than in the personal victory. Dangerous, because it brings with it an isolation from friends and colleagues. These come to stand coldly aloof, and then, if a slip occurs or a mistake is made, and there comes a fall, no hands are stretched out to repair the damage or restore the fallen. The statesman who is suspected of ”playing for his own hand” may laugh at the murmurs of discontent amongst his followers while all goes well for him, but when he falls he falls beyond recovery. No one can foretell the end of Mr. Lloyd George's career, but his popularity with the mult.i.tude will not make up to him for the want of support in Parliament should an error of judgment undo him. The pages of political history are strewn with the stories of high careers wrecked in a feverish haste for fame, that overlooked dangers close at hand; of eminent politicians broken in the full course of active life by the mere forgetfulness of the existence of other persons. A simple miscalculation of forces, and from lofty station a minister tumbles into the void.
The stability of the working-cla.s.s leaders makes their future a matter of fairly safe conjecture. Mr. Lloyd George, romantic in temperament, covetous of honour, confident of popularity, but heedless of good-will alienated and of positive ill-will created, has reached the Chancellors.h.i.+p of the Exchequer. Will he climb still higher in office, or will he pa.s.s to the limbo peopled by those who were and are not? Time alone can tell. But in this year of grace 1911 Mr. Lloyd George, incarnation of the hard-working middle cla.s.s, is a very distinct personality in the government of the country, and his presence in the Cabinet a fact in the history of democracy.
THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS
More than once since 1831 the House of Lords has come into conflict with the House of Commons when a Liberal Government has been in power. A compromise was effected between the two Houses over the Disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869, the Lords, on the whole, giving way. When the Lords proposed to ”amend” the Army Reform Bill (for abolis.h.i.+ng the purchase of commissions) in 1871, Gladstone overpowered their opposition by advising the Crown to cancel the Royal Warrant which made purchase legal, and to issue a new warrant ending the sale of commissions. This device completely worsted the House of Lords, for a refusal to pa.s.s the Bill under the circ.u.mstances merely deprived the holders of commissions of the compensation awarded in the Bill. The Army Reform Bill became law, but strong objection was taken by many Liberals to the sudden exercise of the Royal Prerogative. In 1884 the Lords refused to pa.s.s the Bill for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the rural labourer unless a Bill was brought in at the same time for a redistribution of seats. After some discussion Gladstone yielded, the Redistribution Bill was drawn up, and pa.s.sed the Commons simultaneously with the Franchise Bill in the Lords.
Several Bills have been rejected or ”amended” by the Lords since the Liberals came into power in 1906, and the crisis came when the Budget was rejected in 1909. In June, 1907, the following resolution was pa.s.sed by the House of Commons by 432 to 147 votes: ”That in order to give effect to the will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills pa.s.sed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail.” This resolution was embodied in the Parliament Bill of 1911.
Between 1907 and 1911 came (1) the rejection of the Budget, November, 1909; (2) the General Election of January, 1910, and the return of a majority of 124 (Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist) in support of the Government; (3) the pa.s.sing of resolutions (majority, 105) for limiting the Veto of the Lords; (4) the failure of a joint Conference between leading Liberals and Conservatives on the Veto question, followed by (5) the General Election of December, 1910, and the return of the Liberals with a united majority of 126.
The Parliament Bill declared that every Money Bill sent up by the Commons, if not pa.s.sed unamended by the Lords within a month, should receive the Royal a.s.sent and become an Act of Parliament notwithstanding, and that every Bill sent up for three successive sessions shall in the third session become an Act of Parliament without the a.s.sent of the Lords.
The Lords pa.s.sed this Bill with amendments which the Commons refused to accept, and the Parliament Bill was returned to the Lords in August. But, as in 1832, the Prime Minister announced that he had received guarantees from the Crown that peers should be created to secure the pa.s.sage of the Bill if it was again rejected; and to avoid the making of some three or four hundred Liberal peers, Lord Lansdowne--following the example of the Duke of Wellington--advised the Conservatives in the House of Lords to refrain from opposition. The result of this abstention was that the Lords'
amendments were not persisted in, and the Bill pa.s.sed the Lords on August 10th, 1911, by 131 to 114 votes.
By this Parliament Act the Lords' veto is now strictly limited. The Lords may reject a Bill for two sessions, but if the Commons persist, then the Bill pa.s.ses into law, whether the Lords approve or disapprove.
The real grievance against the House of Lords, from the democratic standpoint, has been that its veto was only used when a Liberal government was in power. There is not even a pretence by the Upper House of revising the measures sent from the Commons by a Conservative ministry; yet over and over again, and especially in the last five years, Liberal measures have been rejected, or ”amended” against the will of the Commons, by the Lords after the electors have returned the Liberals to power. The permanent and overwhelming Conservative majority in the Lords acts on the a.s.sumption that a Liberal ministry does not represent the will of the people, an a.s.sumption at variance with the present theory of democratic government, and in contradiction to the const.i.tutional practice of the Crown. The great size of the House of Lords makes the difficulty of dealing with this majority so acute. In 1831 the creation of forty peerages would have been sufficient to meet the Tory opposition to the Reform Bill; to-day it is said that about four hundred are required to give the Liberals a working majority in the Lords. The rapid making of peers began under George III., but from 1830 to the present day Prime Minister after Prime Minister has added to the members.h.i.+p of the House of Lords with generous hand. Satire, savage and contemptuous, has been directed against the new peers by critics of various opinions, but still the work of adding to the House of hereditary legislators goes gaily on, and Liberal Prime Ministers have been as active as their Tory opponents in adding to the permanent Conservative majority in the Lords; for only a small minority of Liberal peers retain their allegiance to the Liberal Party.
Thackeray gave us his view of the making of peers in the years when Lord Melbourne and his Whig successors were steadily adding to the Upper House.
(Between 1835 and 1841 Melbourne made forty-four new peers, and twenty-eight more were added by 1856.)
”A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a mult.i.tude of fees and ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold coronet (with more or less b.a.l.l.s or leaves) and a t.i.tle, and a rank as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,'
says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in the least matter that your eldest son is a fool; we think your services so remarkable that he shall have the reversion of your honours when death vacates your n.o.ble shoes.'”
J.H. Bernard, in his ”Theory of the Const.i.tution” (1835), was no less emphatic:--
”As the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed as the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, is yet much more frequently--nine times out of ten--employed by the minister of the day as his instrument to serve particular views of public policy; and is often given to actual demerit--to men who hire themselves out to do his commands through thick and thin. The peerage is now full of persons who have obtained possession of it by disreputable means.”
But in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the House of Lords have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. They are widely esteemed for their t.i.tles, even by those who denounce hereditary legislators and desire to abolish the Second Chamber.
Disraeli created six new peers in 1867-8, and seventeen more from 1875 to 1880, in addition to conferring the earldom of Beaconsfield on himself. Yet Disraeli had written in ”Coningsby” (1844):--
”We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, and the borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main sources of the existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones.”
Gladstone made fifty peers in his four premiers.h.i.+ps, and Mr. Herbert Paul, the Liberal historian of ”Modern England,” makes the following comments:--
”No minister since Pitt had done so much as Mr. Gladstone to enlarge and thereby to strengthen the House of Lords.
”Mr. Gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich men who were politically active, either in the House of Commons or behind the scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE Pa.s.sING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
<script>