Bannerman's Government set its face. He denounced Mr. Lloyd George's famous budget of 1909 as vindictive and social- istic. In the new Parliament returned in Jan. 1910 Mr. Austen Chamberlain and he had the satisfaction of mustering 254 votes (against only 285) in favour of a Tariff Reform amend- ment to the Address. He left his constituency to fight N.W. Manchester in the election of Dec. 1910, but failed to capture the seat. He returned to Parliament, however, in a by-election for Bootle in March 1911, in time to take his share in the fight over the Parliament bill. But he kept aloof from the " Diehard " movement, and warmly defended his leader, Mr. Balfour, from the reproaches cast upon him. This loyal attitude, no doubt, was one of the reasons, and his strong Tariff Reform programme was another, which recommended him to his party as Mr. Bal- four's successor in the leadership when the claims of Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Long appeared to divide the Unionists pretty evenly. Both the rivals stood aside, and on Nov. 13 1911 Mr. Law was unanimously elected Leader in the Commons, Lord Lansdowne continuing to lead the party in the Lords.
He remained' leader for nine years and a few months, the first three years and a half in Opposition and the rest in office. He was very trenchant in his criticism of the Government; thus giving satisfaction to ardent spirits in the Unionist ranks, but causing ministerial speakers to contrast his bitterness and vio- lence with Mr. Balfour's quieter methods. He led a strong fight against the ministerial bills introduced to take advantage of the Parliament Act, and protested vehemently against the relent- less closure by which they were driven through the House of Commons. He accused ministers of violating two fundamental conditions of representative government: that the Ministry should not ride roughshod over the minority, and that they should make no vital change till it was clearly desired by the majority of the people. Of the Welsh Disestablishment measure he said that a meaner bill, or one brought forward by meaner methods, had never been placed before the House; in view of the growth of materialism, he protested against depriving a spiritual organization of its funds. But his principal concern was the Home Rule bill and the situation created by it in Ireland. Before it was introduced he went to Belfast in Easter week, and at a great demonstration, presided over by Sir Edward Carson, encouraged the Ulstermen to trust to themselves; Belfast was again, he said, a besieged city; the Government by the Parlia- ment Act had erected a boom against them they would burst that boom; and it would be said of them that they had saved themselves by their exertions, and would save the Empire by their example. After nearly four months of strenuous opposi- tion to the bill in Parliament, he renewed and strengthened his encouragement to Ulster by declaring, at a large Unionist gathering at Blenheim on July 27, that the Ulster people would submit to no ascendancy, and that he could imagine no lengths of resistance to which they might go in which he would not be ready to support them, and in which they would not be sup- ported by the overwhelming majority of the British people. The Ulster Covenant was adopted in the following Sept.; and, in the course of the prolonged fight in Parliament in the autumn and winter over the bill, Mr. Law took occasion to say that his words at Blenheim were deliberate, written down beforehand, and that he withdrew nothing. Government, he maintained, had no moral right to force through a revolution. When Sir E. Carson moved on New Year's Day 1913 to exempt Ulster from the operation of the bill, Mr. Law defined his position thus. If the bill were as he claimed it should be submitted to the electors and approved by them, he and his party would not encourage Ulster to resist. But if it was forced on Ulster he would assist in the resistance. In spite of his efforts the bill was carried through all its stages by an unbroken phalanx of Liberals, Labour men, and Nationalists, showing a majority in important divisions of no; and was only rejected by the Lords in the early months of 1913.
Meanwhile Mr. Law had to encounter difficulties among his own followers. The two branches of the party, the Conserva-
tives and the Liberal Unionists, had indeed been fused, in May 1912, into one party with a combined national Unionist organi- zation. But the present differences were not on the old lines, but on the extent to which the policy of Tariff Reform should be carried. Mr* Law and Lord Lansdowne announced in Nov. 1912 that they no longer held themselves bound, by the policy advocated by Mr. Balfour before the second election of 1910, to submit the first Tariff Reform budget to a referendum. At once a large section of Unionists, especially in Unionist Lanca- shire, became alarmed lest their electoral chances should be jeopardized by the prospect of food taxes imposed without reference to the people. Mr. Law endeavoured to reassure these doubters by a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne on Dec. 16. He refused altogether to haul down the flag of Tariff Reform; it was his policy to give British workmen a preference, both in the home and in the colonial market; but he said that a Unionist Government did not intend themselves to impose food duties. What they would do would be to call a colonial conference; and they wished to be authorized to meet colonial views if in the conference the colonies considered a duty on wheat to be necessary. This declaration did not satisfy the free f coders; but there was a general disposition to compromise the question without injuring the unity of the party. Finally, on Jan. 14 1913, in answer to a memorial from the bulk of the Unionist M.P.'s a memorial which wished for a reassurance as to food duties, but strongly deprecated a change of leadership Mr. Law announced that he and Lord Lansdowne were willing to agree that food duties should not be imposed without the approval of the elec- torate at a subsequent general election; and to remain leaders in deference to their followers' appeal, in spite of the party's disregard of their advice. After this declaration the unrest in the party gradually died down.
Mr. Law maintained his stout opposition to the Home Rule and Welsh Church bills on their second and third appearances in the sessions of 1913 and 1914. But in the course of 1913 he found that, partly no doubt owing to his insistence, Ministers began to appreciate the serious difficulty to Home Rule pre- sented by Ulster's determined attitude. Accordingly he stated in the House that Unionists would welcome an Irish settlement by general consent, but would not make new friends by betray- ing old; and in Oct., in answer to Mr. Asquith's overtures at Ladybank, he said that he and his colleagues would consider any proposals with a real desire to find a solution if possible. If there were not such a solution, he foresaw national disaster and ruin. He attended a great demonstration in Dublin on Nov. 28 and declared then that Ulster would not submit, and the Unionist party would not allow her to be coerced. He did not find in Mr. Asquith's proposals, in the session of 1914, for exclusion by county option for six years, any sufficient com- promise; but he formally announced that, if they were endorsed by the country, Lord Lansdowne would use his authority in the Lords to have them passed without delay. The offer was not accepted, and Mr. Law, though he joined the Buckingham Palace Conference in a last hope of aiming at a reasonable set- tlement, was anticipating the immediate outbreak of civil war in Ireland when the World War supervened.
He had always been anxious for good relations with Germany, provided that they were not attained at the expense of France; for, like Sir Edward Grey, he based his whole foreign policy on the maintenance of the Entente, and therefore supported the Foreign Secretary steadily against Radicals and Labour men and Nationalists. The only quarrel he had with the increased armaments proposed by Mr. Churchill was that he doubted whether they were adequate. Accordingly, directly the crisis became acute, he wrote, on Sunday Aug. 2, on behalf of Lord Lansdowne and their colleagues, tendering to Mr. Asquith the unhesitating support of the Opposition in any measures neces- sary to support France and Russia; and he warmly welcomed Sir E. Grey's speech of Aug. 3, which converted the country to the justice and inevitableness of war. Not only did he render a steady support to Ministers in Parliament; but he aided the national cause and promoted recruiting by speeches at Guild-
