force to preserve order and protect the free labourers. On
June 12 Mr. Austen Chamberlain moved a vote of censure
on Mr. McKenna, which was rejected, however, by 337 to
260. On July i Mr. O'Grady (Labour M.P. for E. Leeds)
moved a resolution " that it was expedient that the represen-
tatives of the employers and working men's organizations
involved in the dispute should meet with a view of arriving
at a settlement," and Mr. Asquith left the matter to the House,
saying that he himself would not vote on it, as he did not think
Government intervention would be justifiable or expedient. Mr.
Bonar Law, for the Unionists, having expressed his surprise
that in those circumstances Mr. Asquith did not oppose the
resolution, moved as an amendment, " that this House regrets
the continuance of the strike and the consequent suffering, and
approves of the declaration of the Prime Minister that the con-
stitutional and normal attitude of the Government should be
one of complete detachment and neutrality, and is of opinion
that the intervention of this House in this instance can serve no
useful purpose." The amendment was rejected by 260 to 215,
and the resolution was carried by 254 to 188. This was the end,
however, of any parliamentary action. The strike was already
collapsing, and its only political result was to focus public
opinion on the desirability of compulsory arbitration, or at any
rate some improved machinery for making agreements, once
entered into, binding on both sides.
Parliament met again for the autumn session of 1912 on Oct. 7, and the political conflict was once more renewed in the House The of Commons. The effect of the Ulster demonstrations
Autumn on the Government, up to this point, had not been session, specially terrifying; and Mr. Asquith, speaking at Ladybank on Oct. 5, dealt somewhat scornfully with Sir Edward Carson's movement and the Unionist attitude towards it. The Government, he intimated, were ready to consider any proposals for safeguarding Ulster, but Ulster had nothing to sug- gest she simply would not allow Ireland to have what the other four-fifths of Ireland demanded. It was impossible for the Gov- ernment to give way to intimidation, prompted by the spirit of Orange ascendancy ; they meant to go on with their bill. On Oct. 10 he introduced in the House of Commons a series of resolutions for completing the various stages of discussion on it by Christmas under the closure. Including the time already occupied, 50 days (to which two were added a few days later) were, on this scheme, to be devoted to debate. An Opposition amendment, proposed by Mr. Bonar Law, was defeated by 323 to 232. The operation of the guillotine, combined with the " Kangaroo " system by which the chairman of committees was left to choose which among the various amendments proposed should be discussed in the time available, made the resumption of the committee stage simply a question of whether the Government cbuld maintain their majorities; any effective debate was obvi- ously impossible, and Mr. Bonar Law bluntly declared that the Government might just as well have moved that the bill should be passed without further delay. On the other hand it was equally true that, without such a time-limit, the Opposition would have protracted the debates indefinitely; the Govern- ment had no option in the matter if they were to send the bill up to the House of Lords during that session, as they must, in order to obtain the benefit of the terms of the Parliament Act. Even if the Home Rule bill were to be passed through the House of Commons by Jan., the Government programme was over- loaded, for they had announced their intention also to pass the Welsh Disestablishment bill, the Franchise bill and other measures, before the session ended.
At the same time, with Mr. Lloyd George's active encourage- ment, yet another political issue was being made prominent throughout the constituencies, in the shape of an or- ganized agitation for land-tenure reform and increased taxation of land-owners, promoted more particularly by a section of the Radical party who had long been advocates of the single-tax theory on Henry George's lines. The Budget of 1909 (as incorporated and passed in the Finance Act of 1910), with its provisions for effecting a complete valuation of the land,
paved the way for such a movement, and the land-reformers saw their opportunity now for pushing their views and preparing for legislation. The fact, indeed, that the yield of the new land- value duties in 1911 and 1912 proved disappointingly meagre had even driven them to seek this extension of policy. For, with the comparatively humdrum budgets of those years, the critics of " Lloyd George finance " in that respect were already taunting it with utter failure. The unpopularity of the Insur- ance Act made it opportune, moreover, for'Mj. Lloyd George's section of the party to try to divert electioneering attention on the Radical side to something more attractive, and at the summer and autumn by-elections the new land campaign was made a leading feature by Radical candidates. Intense exas- peration was created on the Conservative side, representing as it did to so large an extent the landed interests of the country, by the organization of an unofficial committee of inquiry under Mr. Lloyd George's auspices, with the authority of the Cabinet, in order to obtain evidence of various sorts of agrarian grievances in furtherance of a new Radical policy.
An important change in the Home Rule bill was made when on Oct. 30 the discussion in committee reached clause 8, con- cerning the composition of the Irish Senate. It f he Pro- was suddenly announced by Mr. Asquith that, posed Irish while the proposed nomination of the first senators Settate - by the Imperial Government would be adhered to, the Govern- ment had decided to .abandon the idea of their successors being nominated by the Irish Government. Instead of this, the method would be substituted of election by the voters in the four Irish provinces, taken as units, on a plan of pro- portional representation, each elector having a " transferable " vote (see 23.115). The term of office for senators would be five years, and all would retire together at the end of the fifth year so that the elections might then be taken. The next day (Oct. 31) the revised clause was introduced and carried. Mr. Asquith insisted that it would be an additional safeguard for the Unionist and Protestant minority in Ireland, but Mr. Bonar Law regarded it as worthless for any such purpose, and Mr. Healy frankly declared that in his opinion the Irish Union- ists would have been better off with the method of nomination. Mr. Redmond, while accepting the Government's decision, expressed much the same view. The fact was that the whole idea of a nominated Senate was distasteful to most of the Liberal party, and it seemed a favourable opportunity for putting the experiment of proportional representation, which had recently made many converts, into practice.
On Nov. 8 Mr. Asquith introduced a " guillotine " time- table for the Welsh Church bill, allocating 14 days to the com- mittee stage, two to report, and one to third reading. Oovera . So short a shift excited much bitterness on the Opposi- meat De- tion benches, the discussion that day being adjourned; feataadits and on Nov. 1 1 the situation in the House of Com- mons was changed by an unforeseen event. On a resolution required as a preliminary to discussion of the financial clauses of the Home Rule bill Sir F. Banbury moved an amendment without notice, providing that the total payment from the Imperial to the Irish exchequer in any one year should not exceed 2,500,000. It was early in the afternoon, when the Unionists were in unaccustomed force, and the Government was defeated by 228 to 206. Mr. Asquith immediately moved the adjournment of the House; and next day it was announced that the Cabinet had decided to move a resolution rescinding the vote and providing (so as to regularize further proceed- ings under the time-table, which was entirely upset by the incident) that the next day on which business was taken on the Home Rule bill should count as the " i6th allotted day," though, as previously fixed, the i6th day was Nov. n; when this had been done, they proposed to reintroduce their financial resolution and proceed as though nothing had happened. On the i3th Mr. Asquith accordingly moved to this effect. This proposal to rescind the vote and set up the resolution afresh was, however, as the Speaker agreed in reply to Unionist ob- jections, absolutely unprecedented in parliamentary procedure.
