VIII The Reply of the Peers
In 1907, as was described in chapter 111, Lord Newton’s House of Lords Reform Bill was given modified support by the union ist leaders and rendered temporarily innocuous by reference to a Select Committee. This committee deliberated for a year. Despite its strength—it had Rosebery as chairman, the Archbishop of Canterbury and an ex-Speaker1 among its independent members, and Lansdowne, Curzon, St. Aldwyn, and Midleton2 from the Opposition benches—it was not an entirely satisfactory body. Newton has made it clear how difficult it was to work with Rosebery.
‘It must be admitted, however,’ he wrote, ‘that Lord Rosebery was less successful as a chairman than might have been anticipated, for he allowed the members to stray from the point under discussion, frequently made discursive if entertaining speeches himself, and conveyed the impression that he was physically unequal to the moderate strain of work involved. He was also liable to fits of discouragement.…’a
Despite these handicaps, the committee eventually produced an agreed report. This adopted most of the proposals of the bill of 1907, notably those limiting and reducing the hereditary qualification. But it created little stir, and was not even debated in the House of Lords. Leisurely unconcern was the attitude of most of the union ist peers. The result of the first 1910 election drastically changed this atmosphere. In the first place it made a Liberal attack upon either the powers or the composition of the House of Lords inevitable. In the second place it revealed the not very surprising fact that in the constituencies, and particularly in Scotland and the North of England, the hereditary principle, so far from being treated with reverence, was decidedly unpopular. Already by January 3, Lansdowne was writing to Balfour saying that he had ‘received several letters pressing us for a strong declaration as to House of Lords reform’, but adding that, in his view, ‘we ought not to allow ourselves to be rushed by Sir Reginald MacLeod1 or anyone else’.b Balfour was never inclined to rush anyone, and certainly not Lord Lansdowne on this occasion. Even when he had received word, in the interval between the end of the election and the beginning of the session, that proposals for reform might strengthen the hand of the King and of the ‘moderates in the Cabinet’, he remained unenthusiastic.
‘The only objections that I can see to this course,’ he wrote to Lansdowne on January 29, ‘are (1) that it a little savours of panic, and (2) that we may not find it easy to agree upon a scheme of reform which would be agreeable to the House of Lords, which would meet the views of the union ist doctrinaires in the constituencies, and which would be workable. Still if the announcement that you mean to try your hand at the problem would strengthen the hands of the King and of the moderates within the Cabinet in resisting unconstitutional pressure by the extremists, I see no reason why it should not be made.…’c
Lansdowne himself was, if anything, still less enthusiastic, both because of his own predilections, and because, as leader of all the union ist peers, he could hardly fail to be cautious of a scheme which, whatever its details, would inevitably deprive a substantial number of his followers of their right to sit and vote. Nevertheless in his speech in the debate on the Address he not only indicated his willingness to consider proposals for reform but went further, saying that if the Government refused its co-operation, the peers would bring forward proposals of their own.
This was an invitation which Rosebery, who was indefatigable in taking a series of first steps towards reform, if in nothing else, was eager to accept. He quickly announced that he would move a resolution that the House of Lords should go into committee on the question of its own reform, and that if this were carried he would follow it up with three substantive resolutions in the following form:
‘(1) That a strong and efficient Second Chamber is not merely an integral part of the British Constitution, but is necessary to the well-being of the State, and to the balance of Parliament.
‘(2) That such a chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstitution of the House of Lords.
‘(3) That a necessary preliminary of such reform and reconstitution is the acceptance of the principle that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.’
The debate on these resolutions began on March 14. Rosebery himself led off with a speech of great oratorical distinction. He praised the House of Lords both because of its deliberative qualities and because it could claim to be the direct lineal descendant of the Witenagemot. But on the other hand there were the insuperable objections of Scotland and the North of England to the hereditary principle and a majority of 125 in the other place bent on the destruction of the existing chamber. The peers must act first, so that an Upper House able to see ‘that the voice of the people should be deliberate’ remained in being. He proposed that there should be an elected element in the new House, and that it should be chosen by corporations and county councils, existing members of the House being eligible for election. ‘I believe that at this critical moment,’ he concluded, ‘you have an opportunity of rendering your country a greater service than has fallen to any body of men since the Barons wrested the liberties of England from King John at Runnymede.… What is the alternative? The alternative is to cling with enfeebled grasp to privileges which have become unpopular, to powers which are verging on the obsolete, shrinking and shrinking until at last, under the unsparing hands of the advocates of single-Chamber Government, there may arise a demand for your own extinction, and the Second Chamber, the ancient House of Lords, may be found waiting in decrepitude for its doom.’d