ing, and of the institution of national shipyards, they were unable till the last month of the war to make shipbuilding overtake ship destruction. The destruction of British ships in 1917 amounted to a tonnage of 4,009,537, and the ships built only reached a ton- nage of 1,163,474. In the first nine months of 1918 the figures were: tonnage destroyed 1,925,512, built 1,310,741. In Dec. 1917, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss became First Sea Lord.
In 1917 German air-raids on England, especially on London, took a new form. They were carried out mostly by aeroplanes
of a greatly enlarged type; and on the first two occa- Secretary sions, on June 15 and July 7, a fleet of these new for Air. vessels bombarded with some effect the East End
and the City of London in business hours in broad day- light. Subsequent raids, which began early in September and continued at fairly frequent intervals throughout the winter, were, owing to improved defences, carried out by night, with comparatively slight damage and casualties. The enormous development of aerial fighting determined the Government in October to transform the Air Board into a Secretaryship of State for Air, and a bill was introduced and carried for that purpose. The Prime Minister invited Lord Northcliffe to become the first Secretary of State, but he declined, and his brother, Lord Rothermere, was appointed.
Such was the vigour of the Government that, despite the exacting cares and anxieties of the war, they were able to grapple
with, and in two cases temporarily to solve, three
questions about which there had been acrimonious
party differences for many years. They introduced and passed both a comprehensive Reform bill and also a com- prehensive Education bill; and they made a laudable but unsuc- cessful effort to get the Irish question solved by means of a repre- sentative conference of Irishmen sitting in Ireland. It became clear from the debates on a special Register bill which Mr. Asquith's Coalition Ministry introduced in 1916 that there was a general desire for a further Reform bill and a good deal of agree- ment as to its nature. The Speaker, accordingly, with the good- will of the Government and the House of Commons, collected a committee of unofficial peers and members of Parliament, some 30 in number, representative of all shades of political opin- ion, to discuss and report on the question of electoral reform. The report unanimously recommended the reduction of the qualifying period for registration as a Parliamentary elector from twelve months to six, and a revision of the register twice instead of once a year; and the substitution, for all existing franchises, of two simple ones, residence and occupation of business premises. Plural voting was to be abolished, save that a man might vote for his place of business or his university as well as his residence. Proportional representation was recommended in the case of two- member boroughs. By a majority, woman's suffrage was recom- mended to be exercised by every woman over a certain specified age, who, or whose husband, was on the Local Government register. As regards redistribution, a population of 70,000 was suggested as the standard unit for each member of Parliament. The report was well received, and a bill on the lines therein laid down was read a second time in May by 329 votes 1040.
The Government left the questions of proportional representa- tion and of woman's suffrage, in regard to which the qualifying
age was fixed at 30, to the unfettered judgment of the Su/hj"e' S House of Commons. It was found that the enormous OraSed. services rendered by women to the nation during the
war had broken down most of the opposition to their enfranchisement. Not only had they cooperated heartily in the time-honoured female occupations of nursing, housework, and knitting for the sailors and soldiers, but they had supplied the place of men in countless occupations at home, and even in France on the land as labourers, in the factories as munition workers, textile workers, and oxy-acetylene welders, as workers in canteens, as car and van drivers, as police, as omnibus con- ductors, as clerks and typists throughout an overgrown Civil Service, and in three semi-military uniformed organizations, Queen Mary's Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (W. A. A. C.), the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens), and the Women's Royal
Air Force (Penguins). One after another, the most prominent op- ponents of woman's suffrage, such as Mr. Asquith and Mr. Walter Long, announced their conversion; and the House of Commons accepted the proposal to give women the vote by an enormous majority the clause being added to by 214 to 17. The gift of the franchise to women was gracefully completed in the autumn of 1918 by the passing, with little opposition, of a bill enabling them to sit in Parliament. Proportional representation, after many vicissitudes, and a disagreement between the Lords who sup- ported and the Commons who rejected the system, was finally excluded from the measure, save in regard to university elections. Further interesting provisions in the bill disqualified conscien- tious objectors, unless they had done national service, until five years after the war, and gave the vote to sailors and soldiers at 19 (other men not being qualified till 21), on the ground that if they were qualified to fight for the country they were qualified to vote. Arrangements were also made for taking their votes in their absence on service. There were some warm debates as to whether there should be redistribution of seats in Ireland as well as in Great Britain; but finally Ireland was included, the quota for a member there being fixed at 43,000, as compared with 70,000 in Great Britain. Thirty-seven members were added to the House of Commons, making 707 in all. It was calculated that this Reform bill, which became law in Jan. 1918, enfranchised 8,000,000 new voters, of whom 6,000,000 were women.
Mr. Fisher's educational policy was sketched by him in speak- ing on the education estimates in April 1917, when he said that both trade unions and enlightened employers were demanding educational reform; and he further laid a bill before the House in August of that session with no serious intention of pressing it, but so as to familiarize the educational world with his proposals. In 1918 he reintro- duced it and passed it into law. One part of his policy consisted in a considerable increase in the pay of teachers, so that they might be relieved from perpetual financial anxiety. He also pro- posed a new system of special grants for secondary schools, which were, he said, the key of the situation. For these Objects he obtained, in 1917, an increase of four millions in his esti- mates. The proposals in his bill of 1918 he estimated would cost more than 10^ millions in addition. But, in spite of the cost, so strongly was the need felt, both in Par- Mr - liament and in the country, for improved education BUL" with a view to reconstruction and progress after the war, that the opposition was comparatively slight. As passed into law, the measure provided for the compulsory attendance at school of all children up to 14 years old, and at continuation schools in the day-time for 280 hours the year up to 18, unless they had received full-time educa- tion up to 16. Exemption after 16 was allowed for the first seven years after the coming of the Act into force. The main purpose of the continuation schools was to ensure that all the money and effort spent on the elementary schools should not be wasted. No child under 12 was allowed to be employed at all, and no child over 12 was to be allowed to be employed on school-days except after school-hours and before 8 P.M. Thus, in spite of the protests of Lancashire, the " half-timer " was abolished. No fees were to be charged in either public elementary schools or in continuation schools, on the principle that, when education is compulsory, it ought to be free. Provision was made for nursery schools, holiday and school camps, playing- fields, physical training, and the medical inspection of places of higher education. Local education authorities were made responsible in their areas; and the limit on the spending powers of authorities for higher education was abolished.
In spite of the failure of Mr. Lloyd George's Irish negotiations in the summer of 1916, he was still anxious to find an agreed settlement. The Nationalists threatened in March 1917 to adopt once more the old obstructive op- /r ' sft position to Government, unless Home Rule were at J/on. Ve ' once put in force. In May, the Prime Minister, in in a letter to Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson, offered to introduce a bill applying the Home Rule Act at once to southern
