Mr Balfour's Poodle

by Roy Jenkins

  Proceedings on the report stage were governed by a timetable resolution which limited the number of days available to three. The course taken by the debates on these days made it seem unlikely that many undeployed arguments were cut out by the restriction.

  Third reading, limited to one day, took place on May 15. F. E. Smith moved the rejection, and Asquith made the early speech for the Government. He replied to the suggestion that a constitutional revolution was being forced through against the will of the people by remarking that ‘I am unable to discover a murmur of protest or tittle of remonstrance, though I am made conscious occasionally of a yawn of weariness over the unduly prolonged discussion.…’l Mr. Churchill wound up for the Government and was in an aggressively radical, post-Tonypandy mood. He pronounced himself ‘almost aghast at the Government’s moderation. The powers left to the House of Lords,’ he thought, ‘would be formidable and even menacing.… The Bill made a moderate but definite advance towards political equality. It was territory conquered by the masses from the classes; and when they had placed it on the statute book, without condition or alteration, it would be time to discuss the further steps to be taken.’m Fortified by this somewhat truculent benediction, the bill completed its passage through the Commons with a vote of 362 to 241 and passed on to the less friendly atmosphere of the House of Lords.

  There it came up for second reading on May 23. Midleton, speaking for the Unionist Front Bench, indicated on the first day that the intention was to allow it through at that stage but to propose sweeping amendments in committee. Thereafter the three-day debate followed a familiar course, with the regular speakers making the regular points. Public attention was elsewhere. In so far as it was directed towards any political issues, it was temporarily upon the National Insurance Bill, which Lloyd George had just launched, and the Trade Union Bill,1 designed partly to undo the effect of the Osborne judgment. But to an increasing extent the Coronation and associated festivities were thrusting all party political questions into the background. It was a summer of great heat and of fevered and lavish gaiety. And despite the intense personal animosities which the constitutional struggle had provoked, the great social gatherings were still able to bring together the leading contestants in a way that, a year or two later, the bitterness of the Ulster quarrel made impossible. One of the most flamboyant of these gatherings was the fancy dress ball which Lord Winterton and F. E. Smith gave at Claridge’s on May 24. Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour were both present, but in costumes no more exciting than ordinary evening dress. Mr. Churchill was also disapppointingly conservative, with a red Venetian cloak and a domino his only concessions to the occasion. The Speaker of the House of Commons, however, in full Arab regalia, showed that high political rank was no bar to full participation in the evening. Mr. Waldorf Astor,1 then a Unionist Member of Parliament, attracted the most notice by appearing in a peer’s robes of state and bearing above his coronet a placard with the figures ‘499’ on one side and the legend ‘still one more vacancy’ on the other. A political joke was still possible in mixed political company. A few mornings later, however, the levity of this evoked a vigorous letter of protest to The Times, appearing under the signature of ‘A Peer’.

  The Coronation itself took place on June 22. It was a cool and showery day in the midst of a blazing summer, and perhaps for this reason the crowds were not so large as had been anticipated. It was the last great gathering in London of the representatives of monarchical Europe, but this was not to be known either by those who came to watch or by those who stayed away. Indeed, contemporary reports that, as the procession passed, the most cordial welcomes were given to the representatives of Germany, the United States, and Francen showed that the shadow of future events was not interfering with the catholicity of the British public.

  The only echo of the bitter political struggle came from the stands reserved for members of Parliament and their families and friends. From these the Chancellor of the Exchequer received a somewhat mixed reception as he made his way to the Abbey. But for those who were not more interested in the Clapham Common murder and other sensations of the day the political issues were never far below the surface. As if to act as a reminder of the comparative turbulence of the times a widespread seamen’s strike persisted throughout the festivities; and the politicians were all busy calculating the best positions from which they could resume the constitutional battle. The Opposition hoped that the period of national rejoicing might have created a new atmosphere and a new set of circumstances in which they could ignore the verdict of the previous December. Even so neutrally conformist a source as the Annual Register commented: ‘It may be that the keener Unionist politicians expected the sentiments roused by the Coronation ceremonies to tell in their favour with the electorate.’o But their hopes in this respect were doomed to disappointment. Neither the bye-elections which had taken place earlier in the year nor those which followed in July (the combination of the Coronation honours and of a number of unseatings on petition1 produced quite a spate) showed any trend against the Government. When the battle was rejoined, it was an early conclusion, and not the opening of a new phase upon new ground, which was to follow.

  Amendments to the Parliament Bill were placed upon the paper of the House of Lords on June 26, and the committee stage began on June 28. It took the form of a six-day massacre of the Government’s proposals and the virtual substitution of the scheme which the Unionist leaders had unsuccessfully urged upon the constitutional conference. A joint committee of both Houses and not the Speaker alone was to determine what was and what was not a money bill, and this committee was to be given the instruction of a further amendment which very narrowly defined such bills. Clause Two, dealing with general legislation, was altered so that any measure which (a) affected the existence of the Monarchy or the Protestant Succession, (b) established a National Parliament or Council in any of the three kingdoms, or (c) was considered by the joint committee to raise an issue of great gravity upon which the opinion of the country had not been fully ascertained, fell outside its scope. Such measures were to be submitted to a referendum. This amendment was described by Morley as ‘tearing up the bill’.

  Despite this and despite the complaint of one Unionist peer, Montagu of Beaulieu, that another amendment was ‘contrary to the spirit in which a second reading had been given to the bill’, the Opposition suffered from no lack of support in the division lobby. Cromer’s amendment to substitute the joint committee for the Speaker was carried by 183 to 44 and Lansdowne’s amendment to introduce the referendum by 253 to 40. On the latter occasion no less than twenty-seven of the peers voting in the minority were Campbell-Bannerman or Asquith creations—a different situation from that which had prevailed at the time of the great Reform Bill, when the holders of the older peerages had been somewhat more liberal than the new creations. Indeed Lansdowne’s difficulties were with his more extreme and not with his more moderate followers. Lord Willoughby de Broke, a young peer who had come into sudden prominence as an organiser of the die-hards, moved and carried to a division an amendment to make a general election and a referendum necessary in the case of all measures which came under Clause Two of the bill. Eighteen peers voted with him, but the Opposition leaders, finding this proposal rather strong meat even for their stomachs, went into the other lobby and helped to produce a majority vote of ninety. This division, it was suggested, showed the lines of the coming Unionist split. This is not entirely true, for although those who voted for the amendment were all for resistance à outrance, others who subsequently joined and even led them in this defiance were nearer to Lansdowne’s point of view at this stage. Thus Lord Willoughby also expressed grave misgivings about Lansdowne’s official ‘referendum’ amendment, but Lord Salisbury, who was later to add the weight of the whole Cecil faction to the die-hards, spoke strongly in its favour.1

  But whatever the state of internal Unionist Party relations the salient feature of the committee stage (and the position was in no way retracted at
the report stage, which took place on July 13) was that the House of Lords had declined to accept the verdict of the second 1910 general election and had thrown down an unmistakable challenge to the Government. The bill which the House of Commons had passed had been changed out of all recognition.

  XII The Disunion of the Unionists

  Confronted with this challenge the Cabinet sent a minute to the King declaring that the ‘contingency’ referred to in the November negotiations had arisen, and that Ministers would expect the King to act in accordance with the undertaking he had then given. The minute was dated July 14 and was couched in very firm language:

  ‘The Amendments made in the House of Lords to the Parliament Bill are destructive of its principle and purpose,’ it ran, ‘both in regard to finance and to general legislation. There is hardly one of them which, in its present form, the Government could advise the House of Commons, or the majority of the House of Commons could be persuaded, to accept. The Bill might just as well have been rejected on Second Reading. It follows that if, without any preliminary conference and arrangement, the Lords’ Amendments are in due course submitted to the House of Commons, they will be rejected en bloc by that House, and a complete conflict between the two Houses will be created. Parliament having been twice dissolved during the last eighteen months, and the future relations between the two Houses having been at both Elections a dominant issue, a third Dissolution is wholly out of the question. Hence, in the contingency contemplated, it will be the duty of Ministers to advise the Crown to exercise its Prerogative so as to get rid of the deadlock and secure the passing of the Bill. In such circumstances Ministers cannot entertain any doubt that the Sovereign would feel it to be his Constitutional duty to accept their advice.’a

  Asquith’s biographers inform us that three days later the King indicated that he would accept this advice. It appears, however, from Sir Harold Nicolson’s life of King George Vb that when, a few days afterwards, the question arose of the exact stage at which the prerogative should be exercised, a slightly different interpretation of this agreement was given by the King on the one hand and his Ministers on the other. The King indicated by means of a letter from Lord Knollys to the Prime Minister that he was unwilling to agree to a creation before the Lords had been given an opportunity to pronounce on the Commons’ rejection of their amendments, and that, in any event, he feared that an en bloc rejection by the Commons would be likely to provoke the peers to more determined resistance. The difference was resolved by the Cabinet deferring to the King on both issues. It is difficult to believe that when it came to the point, even without the King’s remonstrance, Asquith would have forced a creation until the last possible moment.

  More important, however, was the question of making known to the Opposition the Sovereign’s general view of his constitutional duty. The Government had observed most carefully the arrangement as to secrecy which had been reached in November. But this arrangement, designed to protect the King, had become an embarrassment to him and made him feel guilty of dissimulation in his dealings with the Unionist leaders. Furthermore, so long as the King’s undertaking was not known, an increasing number of peers were liable to commit themselves to positions of resistance from which they could not retreat. Balfour, as his conversation with Lord Esher at the beginning of January made clear, had long envisaged both that the Government would if necessary invoke the prerogative and that the King would accede to such a course. But there is little evidence that he convinced even so close a colleague as Lansdowne that this would be the course of events. Certainly Lansdowne’s action between January and the beginning of July gave no indication that he recognised the strength of the Government’s hand. Curzon, also, remained defiant for some time because he believed that defiance would triumph. ‘Even after the Election (of December 1910),’ his biographer has written, ‘he had spoken derisively at a private luncheon of Unionist candidates and M.P.’s of any such proceedings (a wholesale creation of peers), and had advised his audience—somewhat incautiously as it turned out—to fight in the last ditch and let them make their peers if they dared.’c

  Other peers, less close to the hub of affairs than either Lansdowne or Curzon, found it still easier to build upon false premises. ‘Early in July,’ we are informed by Sir Harold Nicolson, ‘Lord Derby,1 and subsequently Lord Midleton, had warned the King that a large number of Unionists remained convinced that the Government were bluffing and that the Prime Minister would hesitate, when it came to the moment, to invoke the Royal Prerogative.’d Their excuses for such convictions thereafter diminished rapidly, although some Unionists did not change their minds as a result. On July 7, Balfour received private information of what had passed between the King and his Ministers in November.1 The Shadow Cabinet was immediately summoned to a meeting at his house in Carlton Gardens. The other Unionist leaders were informed of the knowledge which Balfour had acquired, and, in the words of his biographer: ‘There for the first time surrender by the House of Lords was discussed as practical politics.’ It was not discussed in an atmosphere of general agreement. It was noted at the time, Mrs. Dugdale informs us, that ‘there was a distinct division of opinion among those present, but the majority decided that it would be imprudent to resist the menace of the creation of peers’.e

  A week or so later the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acting as the agent of the Prime Minister, saw Balfour and Lansdowne by arrangement and confirmed the information which they had acquired on July 7. He further informed them, it being still five days before the Cabinet received the King’s remonstrance on this point, that the intention was to proceed to a creation before the bill was sent back to the Lords. This was to avoid any risk that the bill might be lost between the two Houses.

  This warning was delivered on Tuesday, July 18. Two days later the bill came up for third reading in the Lords. Here the split within the Unionist Party came more into the open. For some time previously a number of Unionist peers, amongst whom Willoughby de Broke was the most active, had been organising together. As early as June II Lord Willoughby was able to write to Lord Halsbury that ‘at a Meeting of Peers recently held it was resolved “to adhere to such amendments as may be carried in Committee of the House of Lords on the Parliament Bill which would have the effect of securing to the Second Chamber the powers at present exercised by the House of Lords, notwithstanding the possible creation of Peers, or the dissolution of Parliament”’.f On July 6 a further meeting was held at Lord Halsbury’s house in Ennismore Gardens, and this was followed by another and more important gathering there on July 12. This last meeting, attended by thirty-one peers,1 resulted in Halsbury writing to Lansdowne, informing him of the meeting and of the common resolve of those present to act along the lines laid down in Willoughby de Broke’s earlier letter. Willoughby was still able to refer to this activity as ‘strengthening Lord Lansdowne’s hands’, but it is difficult to believe that Halsbury, who had attended the Shadow Cabinet held on July 7 and had expressed beforehand his intention of asking some pertinent questions of his leaders, did not believe by this stage that there was more of defiance than of support in his behaviour.

  After this meeting and the despatch of Halsbury’s letter to Lansdowne, Willoughby continued to canvass hard for support. Two days later he had brought the number of signatories to fifty-three, and a day after this to sixty. ‘And I shall get I trust quite eighty before the day,’ he wrote to Halsbury. Evidence that this trust was not misplaced came as early as July 20, the day of the third reading, when almost exactly this number of Unionist peers assembled at Grosvenor House1 in the morning and pledged themselves not to surrender. But there was still no open split in the party; Lansdowne himself, in his behaviour on the committee stage, had given no hint of retreat. That evening, however, the fissure became a little more obvious. Halsbury delivered a violent speech and committed himself and his followers to an insistence upon the Lords’ amendments at all costs. Lansdowne, on the other hand, cautiously announced that the Opposition would not b
e prepared to withdraw some of their amendments ‘as long as they were free agents’. He was at last beginning to deal with facts and not with fantasies.

  Despite this clear difference of emphasis, the bill was let through in its new form without a division, and the fissure was not therefore as deep at this stage as it might have been. Lansdowne had told Newton that he expected a ‘revolt’,g and it had been Halsbury’s original intention to provoke one, a course from which he was dissuaded by the reluctance of Salisbury and Selborne to desert their leader so soon.h Next morning the dispute was continued at a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet. For this and for a general meeting of Unionist peers which took place at Lansdowne House in the afternoon, Balfour and Lansdowne had fortified themselves with a written statement of the Government’s intentions from Asquith. This took the form of identical letters written in the following terms to each of the two Unionist leaders:

  10, Downing St.,

  July 20, 1911

  I think it courteous and right, before any public decisions are announced, to let you know how we regard the political situation.

  When the Parliament Bill in the form which it has now assumed returns to the House of Commons, we shall be compelled to ask the House to disagree with the Lords’ amendments.

  In the circumstances, should the necessity arise, the Government will advise the King to exercise his Prerogative to secure the passing into Law of the Bill in substantially the same form in which it left the House of Commons, and His Majesty has been pleased to signify that he will consider it his duty to accept and act on that advice.