for the purpose of discussing the whole subject with the home Government and the Committee of Imperial Defence.
In connexion with the Imperial Conference of 1911 it may also be noted that resolutions were adopted by it in favour of: (i) an Imperial Naturalization Act, based on a scheme to be agreed upon, but still undefined, for conferring an uniform British citizenship throughout the Empire; (2) the appointment (carried out in 1912) of a royal commission, representing the whole Empire, to investigate and report on its natural resources, and the possibility of their development; (3) the establishment of a chain of British State-owned wireless telegraphic stations within the Empire (under the Marconi agreement of 1912).
The history of domestic British politics up to the outbreak of war in 1914 continued to be dominated by the state of the ->, , parties resulting from the general election which was
Parties la , V-,
Pariia- precipitated in Dec. 1910 when the pnvate conference meat, between the Liberal and Unionist leaders on the con-
stitutional crisis broke down (see 20.846, 847). The result of this second appeal to the constituencies showed that the short interval since the general election of Jan. 1910 had made practically no difference in the balance of party power.
The new Parliament opened in Feb. 1911 with a ministerial majority of 122, the combined forces of the Liberals under the leadership of Mr. Asquith as Prime Minister (270), with the Labour party (42) and the Irish Nationalists (84), numbering 396, while the Unionists numbered 274. In the Cabinet, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Mr. Winston Churchill (Home Secretary from Feb. 1910 till Oct. 1911 and then First Lord of the Admiralty), Sir E. Grey (Foreign Secretary), and Mr. R. B. Haldane, who was created a peer as Viscount Haldane in March 1911 (War Minister till July 1912, and then Lord Chancellor), stood foremost in dom- inating the manoeuvres of the Liberal party. Behind them in the House of Commons the most prominent members of the Ministry holding major offices were: Mr. Birrell (Irish Secretary since 1907); Mr. John Burns (President Local Government Board since 1905); Mr. Sydney Buxton (President Board of Trade since Feb. 1910); Mr. L. V. Harcourt (Colonial Secretary since Nov. 1910); Mr. Reginald McKenna (First Lord of the Admiralty from 1908 till Oct. 1911, and then Home Secretary); Mr. J. A. Pease (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1910 till Oct. 1911, then Education Minister); Mr. Walter Runciman (Education Minister from 1908 till Oct. 1911, then President Board of Agriculture); Mr. Herbert Samuel (Post- master-General); Sir Rufus Isaacs (Attorney-General since March 1910) and Sir John Simon (Solicitor-General since March 1910). The Labour party was led by Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, and the Irish Nationalists by Mr. John Redmond.
In the Upper House Liberalism had but a small following, under the leadership of Lord Crewe (Sec. of State for India Nov. 1910), but it included Lord Morley (Lord President of the Council, Nov. 1910) and Lord Loreburn (Lord Chancellor since 1905). Lord Rosebery continued to plough a lonely fur- row, and Lord Courtney of Penwith to play the part of a political Aristides.
On the Unionist side, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain being phys- ically incapacitated and now only an abiding inspiration to his political followers, Mr. Balfour had no rival as a parliamen- tary figure. He was loyally supported in the House of Commons by ex-Ministers in Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Walter Long, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. H. Chaplin, Mr. G. Wyndham, Mr. A. Lyttelton, Sir R. B. Finlay and Sir E. Carson (leader of the Irish Unionists). In Mr. F. E. Smith, K.C. (afterwards Lord Birkenhead), who had made a rapid and brilliant success both at the bar and in politics, the party had an indefatigable worker and an audacious orator, a good foil to Mr. Churchill.
In the House of Lords Lord Lansdowne was the recognized Unionist leader, actively supported by such ex-Ministers as Lord Halsbury, Lord Londonderry, Lord Curzon, Lord Midle- ton, Lord Selborne, Lord Cawdor, Lord Salisbury, Lord St. Aldwyn; and the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Cromer and Lord Milner were other important figures on the same side.
The Unionists were now united by the common bond of re- sistance to the Radical-Socialist programme of their opponents. The precise form which the tariff-reform policy would take if the party were returned to power was debated according to varieties of opinion on electioneering tactics; but it was sufficient for the moment for those Unionist politicians who had opposed it altogether, or still wavered as to details, to await events. While a protective national economic policy was advocated by the Tariff Reformers as an essential condition of the im- provement of industrial and social conditions at home, the Unionist leaders were looking anxiously to the wider Imperial issues beyond the solution of immediate domestic problems. Hopes were still entertained that, either by agreement between the parties or through the failure of the Ministry to obtain the King's consent to actual coercion of the House of Lords, the immediate constitutional crisis might be solved or the Govern- ment forced to resign or once more dissolve in circumstances more favourable than before to a Unionist success at the polls.
It was clear from the first that the Government could rely on the support of the Irish Nationalist party. The passing of the Parliament bill was an essential preliminary to the sue- The posl _ cessful accomplishment of Home Rule, and it had tioa of the been Mr. Redmond's policy ever since the elections Oovera- of Jan. 1910 to press the destruction of the peers' veto to its final issue for that purpose. The only doubtful element in the situation was the Labour party. Its parlia- mentary programme included a " Right to Work " bill which the Liberal party could no more support than the Unionist; and having successfully extorted the Trade Disputes Act from Parliament in 1906, it was set on obtaining from the Government a bill for reversing the " Osborne Judgment " and freeing the employment of trade-union funds for political purposes. The fact, however, that the " independence " of the Labour party was dominated by reluctance to put Liberal- ism in a minority, is so far as it stood for causes with which the Labour party also identified itself, made its parliamentary position one over the manoeuvring of which the Govern- ment's Whips had the upper hand.
On Feb. 6 1911, the first Parliament of George V. was opened. On Feb. 21, the Parliament bill was reintroduced in the House of Commons, and had a first-reading majority The of 124 next day; the second reading was carried on Pariia- March 2; and on the isth the third reading was ment Bl "- carried by a majority of 362 to 241, and the bill was sent up to the House of Lords. A few trivial changes had been accepted in its wording, but all the substantial amendments proposed by the Opposition had been negatived. A Labour party amend- ment to omit the words in the preamble, pledging the Govern- ment to set up a reformed Second Chamber, was rejected (May 2) by 218 to 47, Mr. Asquith declaring that the Govern- ment regarded it as an obligation, if time permitted, to propose a scheme for reconstituting the Upper House within the life- time of the existing Parliament.
Every attempt of the Opposition to modify the operation of the Parliament bill was met by dogged resistance. The principal demand of the Opposition, that important con- stitutional changes should not become law, if rejected by the House of Lords, until they had been submitted to the judgment of the country, was of no avail. The Government's reply was that the country, in giving them a majority, knew quite well what the Parliament bill would be used for, and that the two years' interval it allowed for delay was an ample safeguard against legislation to which the people were opposed.
Meanwhile the alternative policy of the Unionist party was being made clearer in the more congenial atmosphere of the Upper House. A bill proposed by Lord Lansdowne f^g^dio,, for reforming its constitution was read a second time of the on May 22. The whole principle of this scheme of re- ?JJJ 0/ form was that, while the composition of the Up- per House would be changed and put on a representative basis, in accordance with the policy of Lord Rosebery's reso- lutions in 1910 (see 20.847), its powers would remain as they
