Mr Balfour's Poodle(21)

So the long battle began. Every stage from the Chancellor’s opening of his Budget to the end of the Finance Bill’s passage through the Commons was contested by the Opposition with the utmost vigour and at the greatest possible length. Anyone who wishes to believe that pre-1914 Parliaments were always leisured and gentlemanly affairs, membership of which conflicted little with the life of a country squire, must keep his eyes firmly averted from the session of 1909. The parliamentary exertions of that year have not since been equalled.

The Budget, as we have seen, was introduced on April 29. The debate on the various stages of the Resolution required fourteen days, and they were finally obtained only on May 26. Then came a long week-end, which was all that was possible in the way of a Whitsun recess.

The House came back on Thursday, June 3, and on the following Monday the debate on the second reading of the Finance Bill was begun. This lasted for four full days, at the end of which Austen Chamberlain’s amendment to reject was defeated by 366 votes to 209. There was no cross-voting amongst the main parties. The House then occupied itself with other business until June 21, when the long marathon of the committee stage started. For four weeks the pattern was quite regular. Each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was devoted to the bill, and such other business of the session as could not be postponed was fitted in on the Thursdays and the short Friday sittings.

At first the Government did not allow the committee days to continue too late. In the first week motions to ‘report progress and ask leave to sit again’ were moved from the Treasury bench on successive nights at 11.30pm, midnight, and 2.45 am respectively. By the second week there was a deterioration, and the corresponding times were 2.45 am, midnight, and 4.0am. The third week was worse still, with the House at work on the bill until 4.0am on the first day’s sitting, 1.30am on the second, and 3.45am on the third. And in the fourth week it was a case of 2.45 am, 1.45 am, and 9.0 am. The principle of an ‘early night’ on the Tuesday was preserved, but its ‘earliness’ became less absolute.

The fifth week began in a crescendo of lateness, with the Monday sitting lasting until 6.0am and the Tuesday sitting until 7.15am. But this pace of activity could not be continued. The next four full parliamentary days had to be devoted to Supply, and during this period of comparative relaxation the Government was able to consider the progress which it had so far made, and what were the future prospects for the bill. It was after July 20, and within two or three weeks of the date at which Parliament would normally expect to reach the end of the session. Fourteen days had already been devoted to the committee stage of the bill; largely as a result, the rest of the Government’s legislative programme for the year was in chaos. And, to show for this, the Government had obtained nine clauses of a bill which had started with seventy-four clauses and which was showing every sign of expansion.

No one could have accused the Opposition of lack of tenacity. They talked about everything that could be talked about, and they divided against everything that could be divided against. For such progress as they were able to make, the Government had to rely upon a very free use of the closure. Whenever the House sat late the Opposition ensured that as much as possible of the time so gained was devoted, not to dealing with the bill, but to discussing whether or not it was proper to continue the debate at that hour. At 1.0am Arthur Balfour or Austen Chamberlain would move to report progress. This motion would not be used, as is now generally the case, merely to obtain from the Government a statement of their intentions for the night, but would be debated at length, usually until the closure was moved from the Government front bench. This would be divided against by the Opposition, who, when it was carried, would force the Government into the lobby again to defeat the motion to adjourn the debate. At three o’clock, and probably again at five o’clock, if the House were still sitting, Balfour or Chamberlain or one of their lieutenants would be on their feet once more to move the same motion, and the same tedious procedure would again be gone through. The maximum amount of sleep was lost, and the minimum of Government business was transacted.

In these circumstances the Government made three decisions. They and their supporters would have to reconcile themselves to a long summer at Westminster; a part even of the exiguous legislative programme of the session must be jettisoned; and there must be some change in the Standing Orders of the House so as to facilitate the passage of Government business. The two proposals under this last head were introduced by the Prime Minister on July 28. The first was certainly not very drastic. It provided that, when the House was in committee, the Deputy Chairman, and not merely the Chairman as had hitherto been the case, should have the right to accept a motion for the closure. The effect of this was both to relieve the burden on the Chairman during long sittings, and to make sure that whoever was leading for the Government1 should not be prevented from moving to bring the debate to an end at the earliest possible moment. The second introduced a device which came to be known as the ‘kangaroo’, and which permitted the Chairman or Deputy Chairman to call amendments, by leave of the House, from among those for which he had accepted the closure. This, in effect, enabled the Government to exclude discussion on amendments of no importance or over which discussion had already ranged, without the consequence of excluding certain others in the same group with which it would clearly be improper not to deal. These changes were only carried against strong union  ist opposition. Arthur Balfour described them as instituting ‘martial law in the House’, and the impartiality of the Chairman and his deputy was challenged. After divisions and a sitting which lasted until nearly one o’clock, the proposals were carried.