The Governments of Europe. Frederic Austin Ogg
rejection of the Finance Bill by the Lords, November 30, 1909, sweeping aside as it did three centuries of unbroken precedent, brought to a crisis the question of the mending or ending of the Lords, and although the electoral contest of January, 1910, was fought immediately upon the issue of the Government's finance proposals, the question of the Lords could by no means be kept in the background. The results of this election were disappointing to all parties save the Nationalists. The final returns gave the Liberals 274 seats, the Unionists 273, the Nationalists 82, and the Laborites 41. The Asquith government found itself still in power, but absolutely dependent upon the co-operation of the Labor and Nationalist groups. Upon the great issues involved there was no very clear pronouncement, but it was a foregone conclusion that the tax proposals would be enacted, that some reconstitution of the House of Lords would be undertaken, and that free trade would not yet be in any measure abandoned.[227]
168. The Liberal Triumph: the Elections of December, 1910.—The developments of the ensuing year and a half have been sketched elsewhere.[228] They comprised, in the main: (1) the re-introduction and the enactment of the Finance Bill of 1909: (2) the bringing forward by Mr. Asquith of the Government's proposals relative to the alteration of relations between the two houses of Parliament; (3) the adoption by the House of Lords of the principle of Lord Rosebery's projected scheme of upper chamber reform; (4) the interruption and postponement of the contest by reason of the death of Edward VII.; (5) the failure of the Constitutional Conference in the summer of 1910; (6) the adoption by the second chamber of the reform resolutions of Lord Lansdowne; (7) the dissolution of Parliament, after an existence of but ten months, to afford an opportunity for a fresh appeal to the country on the specific issue of second chamber reform; (8) the elections of December, 1910, and the assembling of the new parliament in January, 1911; and (9) the re-introduction and the final enactment, in the summer of 1911, of the Government's momentous Parliament Bill. At the December elections the contending forces were so solidly entrenched that the party quotas in the House of Commons remained all but unchanged. Following the elections they stood as follows: Liberals, 272; Unionists, 272; Nationalists, 76; Independent Nationalists (followers of William O'Brien), 8; and Laborites, 42. The Unionists gained substantially in Lancashire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, but lost ground in London and in several boroughs throughout the country. Still dependent upon the good-will of the minor parties, the Government addressed itself afresh to the limitation of the veto power of the Lords and to the programme of social amelioration which during the recent months of excitement had been accorded meager attention. Effort in the one direction bore fruit in the Parliament Act, approved by the crown August 18, 1911; while upon the other side substantial results were achieved in the enactment, December 16, 1911, of a far-reaching measure instituting a national system of insurance against both sickness and unemployment.[229]
VII. The Parties of To-day
169. Significance of "Liberal" and "Conservative."—Of the four political parties of Great Britain to-day one, the Irish Nationalist, is localized in Ireland and has for its essential purpose the attainment of the single end of Irish Home Rule;[230] another, the Labor party, is composed all but exclusively of workingmen, mainly members of trade-unions, and exists to promote the interests of the laboring masses; while the two older and more powerful ones, the Liberal and the Conservative or Unionist, are broadly national in their constituencies and well-nigh universal in the range of their principles and policies. It is essential to observe, however, that while the programme of the Nationalists is, at least to a certain point, perfectly precise, and that of the Laborites is hardly less so, there is no longer, despite the heat of recurring electoral and parliamentary combats, much that is fundamental or permanent in the demarcation which sets off the two major parties the one against the other. Even the names "Liberal" and "Conservative" denote in reality much less than might be supposed. During the generation which began with the Reform Act of 1832 the Liberals, indeed, extended the franchise to the middle classes, reformed the poor law, overhauled the criminal law, introduced a new and more satisfactory scheme of municipal administration, instituted public provision for elementary education, enacted statutes to safeguard the public health, removed the disabilities of dissenters, and assisted in the overthrow of the protective system. But if the Conservatives of the period 1830–1870 played, in general, the rôle implied by their party designation, their attitude none the less was by no means always that of obstructionists, and in the days of the Disraelian leadership they became scarcely less a party of reform than were their opponents. Beginning with the Reform Act of 1867, a long list of progressive and even revolutionizing measures must be credited to them, and in late years they and the Liberals have vied in advocating old age pensions, factory legislation, accident insurance, housing laws, and other sorts of advanced and remedial governmental action. The differences which separate the two parties are not so much those of principle or of political dogma as those of policy respecting immediate and particular measures, and especially those of attitude toward certain important organizations and interests. The Liberals assert themselves to be more trustful of the people and more concerned about the popular welfare, but the Conservatives enter a denial which possesses plausibility. It is probably true that the Liberals have fostered peace and economy with more resoluteness than have their rivals, yet so far as expenditures go the Liberal administration to-day is laying out more money than was ever laid out by a Conservative government in time of peace. The Liberals are seemingly more regardful of the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, but the difference is not so large as is sometimes supposed.
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