Balfour and Lansdowne, whom the King begged not to force him to the loathsome expedient, summoned a Shadow Cabinet of the Opposition of which a majority, though not all, were willing to follow their recommendation to surrender, that is, to let the Parliament Bill pass without a division, since to die in the last ditch, while upholding principle, would not prevent abolition of the Veto. Unless the Government were bluffing, the result would only be creation of peers and loss of the Veto. But the Ditchers were adamant. To call for a division, said Lord Halsbury, was his “solemn duty to God and country.” Assuming that the “Hedgers,” as the followers of Balfour and Lansdowne were now called, abstained, the Ditchers needed enough votes to outnumber the seventy-five Liberal peers. Willoughby de Broke believed he had sixty and hoped for eighty.
Once more a meeting was called at Lansdowne House in an effort to arrive at a concerted policy between Hedgers and Ditchers. Curzon had now come around to Balfour’s view but old Lord Halsbury grimly maintained he “would divide, even if alone, rather than surrender.” Balfour was urged to call another meeting of the Shadow Cabinet but he was becoming irritated and impatient with the “theatrical” attitude of the Die-hards, especially of the commoners such as Smith and Chamberlain. The most he would do was to write a public letter to The Times addressed to a “perplexed peer” advising the necessity of passing the Bill. The Ditchers replied that the Bill would establish Single Chamber government and they could not absolve themselves from responsibility “for a contemplated revolution merely by abstention.” As the climax of their campaign they organized a great banquet in honor of Lord Halsbury for which the demand for tickets exceeded the capacity of the hall. Amid gladiatorial speeches and toasts Lord Halsbury, appearing “very unwell, anxious and tired,” expressed the determination of his group to fight to the end and received a tremendous ovation. Lord Milner, whose “Damn the consequences” might be said to have started the train of events, was a logical addition to the company. Among other speakers Austen Chamberlain denounced Asquith as having “tricked the Opposition, entrapped the Crown and deceived the people.”
On July 24, the day when the Prime Minister was scheduled to make his announcement to the Commons, the Ditchers’ supporters in that House, led by Lord Hugh Cecil and F. E. Smith, organized a protest which culminated in the “most violent scene in the Commons within living memory.” All the anger and frustration of a class on the defensive exploded in a demonstration of hatred and hysteria. Smith entered it from love of attack, Lord Hugh from passionate sincerity. In him all the Cecils’ hatred of change was concentrated without the cooling Cecil skepticism so notable in his cousin Arthur. All his convictions were white hot. He saw doom in modern materialist society, in the turning away from Church and land and in democracy’s turning away from “natural” leaders. Tall and stooped like his father as a young man, with a somber, narrow face, he had his father’s habit of twisting and turning his long hands and looked and behaved like Savonarola. Churchill, at whose wedding in 1908 he had been best man, wrote that in Cecil “I met for the first time a real Tory, a being out of the Seventeenth Century.” In private conversation he was “so quick, witty and unexpected that it was a delight to hear him,” and in the House he held members “riveted in pin-drop silence for more than an hour” with a discourse on the difference between Erastians and High Churchmen. Considered by Asquith “the best speaker in the House of Commons and indeed anywhere,” he was in gift of speech as in opinions an English Albert de Mun.
Once when Gladstone visited Hatfield, Hugh, then a small boy, burst into his bedroom and hit him with his fists, crying, “You’re a bad man!”
“How can I be a bad man when I am your father’s friend?” asked Gladstone, who had not dominated a thousand debates for nothing. But this opponent was not to be sidetracked into debate; he dealt in finalities. “My father is going to cut off your head with a great big sword” was his answer.
The sword was now drawn against Mr. Asquith. At three in the afternoon, in a House already buzzing with excitement, with every seat taken and members standing in the gangway, clustered in dense groups like bees, and galleries packed with onlookers, the Prime Minister entered, looking flushed and a little nervous. Liberals rose to their feet waving their order papers and cheered for three minutes, drawing “fierce ejaculations” from the Opposition, who cheered in their turn when Balfour came in. As Asquith rose to speak he was interrupted before he could pronounce an audible sentence by shouts of “Traitor!” and “Redmond!” in reference to the Irish sword hanging over his head, followed by a low steady murmur of “Divide!… ’vide!… ’vide!” * which began, grew, died away, and each time Asquith opened his mouth, began again. Standing on the Opposition front bench below the gangway, his eyes blazing, his bony ungainly body swaying to the rhythm of his cries, his face ashen and contorted by “tremendous passion,” Hugh Cecil faced him, possessed by a fanaticism which allowed him to believe that any tactic, however discreditable, was justified for the sake of the cause. Asquith looked at his screaming foes with scorn and wonder, his eyes coming to rest on Cecil with the fascinated gaze of someone held by the pacing of a caged tiger. In the galleries excited ladies stood on their chairs. Sir Edward Grey, with a grim face, moved over next to Asquith as if to protect him. Balfour, lounging opposite, watched his own followers with a look of amazed disgust. Several times Asquith tried to read his statement but nothing he said could be heard over the shouts of “ ’vide! ’vide!” “Who killed the King?” and “Dictator!” What few words he managed to make heard only enraged his opponents and evoked more howls. Despite every effort of the Speaker the demonstrators refused to subside. For three-quarters of an hour Asquith stood his ground until finally “white with anger” he folded up his speech and sat down.
When Balfour rose to speak the Liberals did not retaliate, but when F. E. Smith, who was believed to be the instigator, stood up he was met by pandemonium. To have exaggerated the intensity of passion in the House that afternoon, wrote The Times correspondent, would have been impossible. Again the Speaker was helpless, and finally after the session had lasted two hours and amid continued shouts and an isolated cry from the Labour benches, “Three cheers for the Social Revolution!” he adjourned the House as a “disorderly assembly,” for the first time in its history.
The brawling and abuse of the “Cecil scene,” as it came to be known, astonished everyone. No Prime Minister had ever before been so disrespectfully treated. The press overflowed with indignant comment and letters pro and con. Many felt that the scene had been directed as much against Balfour’s leadership as against Asquith. Blunt recorded that F. E. Smith, George Wyndham and Bendor (the Duke of Westminster) were “in the highest possible spirits at the commotion they have caused and consider they have forced Balfour’s hand.”
Publication next day of Asquith’s unheard statement marked the point of no recall and the Conservative leaders had to face the possibility that the insurgents would actually bring about the “revolution” that Balfour most wished to avoid—creation of a permanent Liberal majority in the Lords. If the Diehards could muster more than seventy-five, creation of peers must follow—unless the Government was bluffing. Was it bluffing? Many still believed so; no one could be sure. Nor did anyone know how many peers would actually vote with the Diehards. In this crucial situation Lansdowne and the Hedgers had to undertake the terrible necessity of finding a number of Conservative peers who would sacrific principle if not honor to vote with the Government for the bill they detested. It was the only way to prevent a possible Diehard majority. How many would be needed for the sacrifice and how many would have the courage at the last moment to perform it was another of the painful uncertainties of the situation.
On August 10, the day for drinking the hemlock, the temperature reached a record of a hundred degrees and tension at Westminster was even higher, for, unlike previous political crises, the outcome was in suspense. By 4:00 P.M. the House of Lords had filled to the last seat with the gre
atest attendance ever known, with visitors’ galleries jammed and peers standing in passages and doorways. They wore morning coats with wing collars, ascots, spats and light waistcoats and after the dinner recess many appeared in white tie and tails. The Diehards wore white sprigs of heather sent by the Duchess of Somerset, while many of the Hedgers wore red roses. As Halsbury marched to his seat with the air of a knight entering the lists he seemed to an observer to be accompanied by an almost audible sound of jingling spurs. In a shrill appeal to conscience he demanded defeat of the Bill. Lord Curzon spoke for the majority and afterward sat “pale and angry” while Lord Selborne sprang to the table and “in strident tones with dramatic gestures” fiercely renewed the intention to die in the last ditch. New suspense was injected by the speech of the Liberal leader, Lord Crewe, whose reference to the King’s “natural reluctance” and whose own unhappy conclusion, “The whole business, I frankly admit, is odious to me,” reinvigorated a belief that the Government was bluffing. Anxious counts and recounts took place. Of six peers who sat at the same table during the dinner recess, two of whom, Lord Cadogan and Lord Middleton, were former Conservative Cabinet members, not one had made up his mind how to vote. When, on reassembling, one of the “sacrificial” peers, Lord Camperdown, announced his intention to vote with the Government, the Duke of Norfolk, enraged, replied that if any Conservative peer voted for the Bill, he and his group would vote with the Diehards. Lord Morley, whose peerage was barely three years old, nevertheless felt “deeply moved” when obliged to make explicit the Government’s intention to follow defeat of the Bill by “a large and prompt creation of peers.” Upon request he repeated the statement. A pall settled on the chamber. The Archbishop of Canterbury urged members not to provoke an act that would make their House and indeed the country a “laughing stock.” Lord Rosebery, whose vacillations had confused everyone but who had been expected to abstain, suddenly jumped up from the crossbenches and announced, in “this last, shortest and perhaps most painful speech of my life,” that he would vote with the Government. Since, whatever the outcome, “the House of Lords, as we have known it, disappears,” he said he intended never to enter its doors again, and he never did.
At 10:40 P.M. amid “intense excitement” the division was called. Abstaining peers who could find room squeezed onto the steps of the throne where they could remain without voting while the rest of the abstainers led by Lord Lansdowne left the chamber. The two groups, as they gathered to file out in two streams into the lobbies on either side of the chamber, appeared to the tense watchers in the galleries about equal in number. Counting was done by tellers with white wands who tapped the shoulder of each peer as he returned from the division lobby. Slowly the streams reappeared while from the open doors the tellers could be heard counting aloud, “one, two, three, four.…” For a quarter of an hour which seemed like a full hour the process continued. During an accidental pause in the Government stream, the undaunted Lord Halsbury was heard to whisper, “There! I knew we should beat them!” Lord Morley waited anxiously for the sight of the bishops’ lawn sleeves, feeling certain that they would vote with the Government. The procession came to an end. The tellers brought their count to the Chief Whip, Lord Herschell, who handed the results on a piece of paper to the Lord Chancellor. Amid profound silence Lord Loreburn rose from the Woolsack, shook back the panels of his wig and in clear tones announced the result: for the Bill, 131; against, 114; majority, 17. Unable to contain her emotion Lady Halsbury hissed loudly from the Peeresses’ Gallery. No cheers or enthusiasm came from the victors except for M.P.’s who dashed off with the news to their own House, where it was greeted with roars of triumph. The Lords left at once and in five minutes their hall was empty. Thirty-seven Conservative peers plus the two archbishops and eleven bishops had voted with the Government and those of them who appeared that night among a tumultuous gathering at the Carlton Club were greeted with cries of “Shame!” and “Judas!”
“The floodgates of revolution are opened,” bawled Lord Northcliffe’s Daily Mail next morning, but no waters poured through. With the Veto abolished the way was open for a Home Rule Bill which the Government introduced in the following session. In the event, the victory over the Lords proved irrelevant. Opposition to Home Rule merely shifted its ground and, in the fresh form of the Ulster rebellion, provoked a new and sterner crisis in which the existence of the Parliament Bill was immaterial. Ultimately it took a greater upheaval than abolition of the Veto to lift the Irish incubus off English politics.
Some weeks later Sir Edward Grey remarked to Winston Churchill, “What a remarkable year this has been: the heat, the strikes, and now the foreign situation.”
“Why,” said Winston, “you’ve forgotten the Parliament Bill,” and a friend who recorded the conversation added, “and so he had and so had everybody.”
On the morning after the vote in the House of Lords, the heat wave and the transport strike, which seemed about to become a general strike and to threaten a “real danger of social revolution,” absorbed the country’s attention. A chagrined peer could find “no evidence anywhere that the Constitutional crisis had agitated the country.” On the same day a measure of perhaps greater significance passed the House of Commons: a Payment of Members Bill by which M.P.’s would henceforth receive an annual salary of £400. It had long been bitterly fought by the Conservatives and determinedly sought by Labour. Non-payment was regarded by the Labour party as depriving the working class of the right to be represented in Parliament by men from their own ranks. Especially was payment needed after the Osborne judgment cut off the use of union funds for members’ salaries. To its opponents, Payment of Members marked the passing of politics as a gentleman’s profession and as such was “more disastrous” even than the Parliament Bill. It would introduce a new and “intolerable type of professional politician,” complained Austen Chamberlain. It would remove the “last check upon the inrush of mere adventurers,” said The Times, then owned by that supreme adventurer Lord Northcliffe, and it would encourage the “invasion” of unpaid forms of public service “now efficiently carried on by men who can afford to be disinterested.” For the patrician, free of pecuniary greed and partaking in government from a sense of civic duty, the point was valid but obsolete; society’s needs had grown beyond him, nor had he ever been disinterested in defending the ramparts of his caste. Payment of Members measured another advance in the transfer of power.
The next act followed logically: Balfour resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party, which he had held in the House of Commons for twenty years. His announcement, made on November 8, 1911, after returning from a vacation in Bad Gastein, caused a political “sensation.” Although a movement for his ouster under the slogan B.M.G. (Balfour Must Go) had taken shape, inspired by the insurgent wing under the influence of F. E. Smith and Austen Chamberlain, it had been expected that he would fight for control. But the final stages of the Veto crisis, the wildness of a meaningless battle, the preference of the Ditchers for gesture over thought, the rising influence of adventurers such as Smith, whom he detested, and the challenge to his own leadership displayed by the uncouth tactics of the Cecil scene, had accumulated in Balfour to the point of irritated indifference. Almost as a gesture of contempt he had not waited for the issue of the final vote in the House of Lords but left for Bad Gastein the day before. During his stay among “the cataracts, the pines and the precipices” he thought things over and reached a decision. He was sixty-three, his interest in philosophy was still strong and to face the necessity of returning to a fight for control, first of the party, then of the country, against the trends of a new age did not appeal to him. He belonged to a tradition in which government was the function of the patrician, whereas already, as he said in his speech of resignation, the demand upon administrators and legislators had become so heavy that the affairs of state must devolve upon those who were prepared “to be politicians and nothing but politicians, to work the political machine as professional politician
s.” The rush of the crowd upon the tranquil garden, as Masterman had depicted the rise of the Populace, was under way and Balfour was too much the philosopher to fight it.
His succession went to neither of the two chief contenders, Walter Long, representing the landed gentry, nor Austen Chamberlain, who canceled each other out, but to Bonar Law, a Glasgow steel manufacturer, born a Canadian, who read the newspapers regularly, ate meals of vegetables, milk and rice pudding and had the backing of another of the adventurers, his fellow Canadian Max Aitken, soon to be Lord Beaverbrook.
Balfour’s departure inspired floods of press comment and political gossip and an impeccable tribute from Asquith to “the most distinguished member of the greatest deliberative body in the world.” George Wyndham, rather more sour if more genuine, thought Balfour’s refusal to fight was in character, arising from indifference which came from taking “too scientific a view of politics.” “He knows,” said Wyndham, “that there was once an ice age and that there will be an ice age again.”
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 Page 55