through; there was considerable opposition to the increased tax on cheques. Mr. Law also proposed a tax on luxuries, following the general principles adopted in this matter by the French Government. He got the House to set up a select committee to prepare a schedule with the advice of the traders who would be affected; but the report of the committee was not received sufficiently early in the year to enable Parliament to pass upon it, and the project was abandoned. He also appointed another select committee to consider how to control expenditure, the chairman of which, Mr. Herbert Samuel, told him that his fault as a Chancellor of the Exchequer was that he was " too amiable." The fault that the City of London found with him was that he was too much occupied as Leader of the House and member of the War Cabinet to give sufficient attention to finance.
His influence in the Government was especially felt in eco- nomic questions. It must have been with peculiar gratification that he announced to the House of Commons in April 1917 that the Imperial War Cabinet had accepted the principle of Impe- rial Preference; and that it was hoped that each part of the Empire, having due regard to the interests of the Allies, would give specially favourable treatment and facilities to the produce and manufactures of other parts of the Empire a hope which, as regards the mother country, was translated into action in the budgets introduced under Mr. Law's leadership after the war. After the sittings of the Imperial War Cabinet in 1918 he spoke of the resolutions then passed in favour of retaining the control of essential raw materials as an immense move forward in the whole conception of trade policy. In May 1918 he told the House of Commons that the French Government had denounced all commercial conventions containing " most- favourable-nation " clauses; and that, in view of the probable scarcity of raw material after the war, the British Government would take a similar course. He had warned the German Gov- ernment in the previous Dec. that the longer war lasted, the less raw material there would be to go round, and, as the Allies would help themselves first, the less there would be for Germany to receive. In regard to Ireland, he frankly admitted, Unionist though he was, the need for a change. What was wanted was a settlement, but the sacrifices would have to be on all sides if a settlement was to be obtained. He remonstrated, however, with the Nationalists for their threats in the session of 1918 and indignantly rejected as preposterous their claim to self- determination as a condition precedent to the entry of Britain into the Peace Conference. He opposed throughout the war a firm front both to pacifists and to pessimists. He asked the pacifists what other method there was, in the circumstances, of saving the liberties of the country except by fighting for them; and the constant readiness of his countrymen to bear the heaviest taxation and to subscribe to loan after loan was again and again treated by him as a certain pledge of eventual vic- tory. Nor was he ever in doubt as to the necessity of fighting until the Germans surrendered. " We are fighting," he said, some six weeks before the Armistice, " for peace now and for security for peace in the time to come. You cannot get that by treaty. There can be no peace until the Germans are beaten and know that they are beaten."
As the general election approached he responded heartily to Mr. Lloyd George's proposal that the Coalition should be con- tinued, and that the country should be definitely invited to return candidates who should undertake to support the Coali- tion Government; and he joined with him in issuing the letters or certificates, nicknamed " coupons," accepting Coalition can- didates. He also signed with Mr. Lloyd George a joint mani- festo, in which a good measure of his own economic doctrines held a conspicuous place. He left Bootle and stood for Central Glasgow, the business quarter of his own city, being returned by a huge majority. The result of the general election greatly strengthened his position, as the Unionists had a considerable predominance in the new House of Commons.
When the Ministry was reconstituted in Jan. 1919 the arrange- ment by which Mr. Law led the House of Commons was con- tinued, as the Prime Minister would be much away at the Peace Conferences ; but he was relieved of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which was transferred to Mr. Austen Chamberlain, he himself taking the sinecure office of Lord Privy Seal. He was constituted one of the British plenipotentiaries at the Conference; but his duties at Westminster seldom allowed him to go to Paris, though he ultimately affixed his signature to the Treaty of Ver- sailles. The business of the session mainly consisted of measures either to demobilize the forces which had been mobilized for the war and restore previous peace conditions, or to improve the social condition of the people in accordance with the pledges of the joint leaders' election manifesto. Mr. Law's handEng of the business of the House was, as ever, efficient and conciliatory; but for the greater occasions Mr. Lloyd George returned; and Mr. Law's most outstanding appearance in this session was when he announced that the Government were prepared to adopt the Sankey report in the spirit as well as in the letter, and to take all necessary steps to carry out its recommendations without delay. This was said of the first report, which con- tained no decision on nationalization; but it was afterwards unfairly alleged by Labour speakers that the Government, by refusing to accept the principle of nationalization, approved in a subsequent report, had broken Mr. Law's pledge. The main business of the session of 1920 was the Irish Home Rule bill, which Mr. Law justified as giving to Ireland the largest meas- ure of self-government compatible with national security and pledges given. He strongly upheld in the House of Commons the measures taken, first by Mr. Macpherson and then by Sir Hamar Greenwood, to restore law and order in that country; and definitely refused to interfere in the case of the Lord Mayor of Cork who, sentenced to imprisonment for conducting a rebel organization, went on hunger-strike and eventually succumbed in gaol. The affection in which Mr. Law was held by the House which he led was shown this session in a peculiarly happy manner. The members, with few exceptions, subscribed to give a wedding present to his daughter on her marriage to Maj.-Gen. Sir F. W. Sykes, Controller-General of Civil Aviation.
Mr. Bonar Law was whole-heartedly in favour of the Coali- tion, and frequently adjured his Conservative friends to remain true to it. In its cause he sacrificed his health. In March of the following session, that of 1921, while he was in the full swing of his multifarious activities, he suddenly broke down, and was recommended by his medical advisers to abandon his work at once. The shock to the public, to the House of Commons, to his party, and to Mr. Lloyd George was great; and genuine expressions of regret were heard on every side. Mr. Lloyd George seemed almost unmanned in telling the news to the House; and it was clear that he felt that a great prop of his Government had fallen. Mr. Law resigned office, but not his seat for Glasgow. He went away immediately to rest in the south of France; and his health rapidly improved, so that by the autumn he was well again. He married in 1891 Annie Pit- cairn, daughter of Harrington Robley, of Glasgow, by whom he had a family; but he was left a widower in 1909. Two sons perished in the World War. (G. E. B.)
LAWES-WITTEWRONGE, SIR CHARLES BENNET, 2ND BART. (1843-1911), English sculptor, was born at Teignmouth Oct. 3 1843. The only son of Sir John Lawes of Rothamsted (see 16.300), he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he was a notable athlete. Subsequently he devoted himself to sculpture, while doing much also to further the scientific side of the Lawes Agricultural Trust, founded by his father, of which he was chairman. In 1882 he was defendant in a famous libel action, brought by another sculptor, Mr. Belt, for a criticism published in Vanity Fair, imputing dishonesty to Mr. Belt in taking credit for work done by another man. The question of how much a sculptor may be aided by others in work to which he attaches his name was inconclusively debated through a long and costly trial, and the verdict of the jury, awarding 5,000 damages to the plaintiff, was much discussed at the time. He died at Rothamsted, Herts., Oct. 6 1911.
LAWLESS, EMILY (1845-1913), Irish novelist and poet, was born at Lyons, co. Kildare, June 17 1845. She was the
