Mr Balfour's Poodle(71)

The Prime Minister, even if unprepared for a creation of the size envisaged in Mr. Churchill’s somewhat oracular pronouncement at the end of the censure debate,1 was obviously in earnest about, and ready for, a very substantial creation. But he was sufficiently loath to act that he made no attempt to override the King’s desire to give the Lords another chance, even though there was no firm evidence to suggest that this would not mean the loss of the bill. Curzon’s efforts had increased to 320 the number of those who were prepared to abstain with Lansdowne, and a list containing these names was published at the end of the first week in August. Morley had also been active on behalf of the Government. He sent out an interrogative whip to all the nominally Liberal peers, and received firm promises of support from eighty, which was a better result than had been expected. But it was not in itself good enough. The die-hards were not at this stage divulging their strength, and Lansdowne declined to place his information at the disposal of the Government in order to help them determine what this strength might be. Halsbury would obviously not muster all the peers not listed by either Lansdowne or Morley—had he done so he would have got more than 200—but he was known to be increasing his strength from day to day. ‘Backwoodsmen’ were often difficult to communicate with, but they were likely, if present, to support Halsbury; and the fact that numbers of peers who had not previously bothered to do so were engaged each day in taking the oath indicated a large attendance of the little known. On July 31, Morley, having gone carefully through the list of peers, came to the conclusion that a creation could not possibly be avoided without union  ist votes for the Government, and that at least forty of these would be necessary. By August 3, however, when the answers to his whip had come in, he was more hopeful and thought that the Government might scrape by under its own steam. On the following day Selborne wrote to Halsbury giving a slightly different version of the Government estimate, which he had obtained by a very circuitous route. ‘So the Government are going to risk it on Wednesday without any creation of Peers,’ he wrote. ‘Lovat tells me that Newton told him that he knew as a fact that the Government are relying on the Bishops for their majority! Can you take any measure to put a spoke in that wheel?’ he added.f

Fortunately Curzon was also taking measures to put a spoke in the wheels of Lords Halsbury and Selborne. He realised at least as clearly as did Morley the dangers of the position at the end of July and he set in train a series of private enquiries as to how many union  ists might be prepared to vote for the Government. This action, taken against the wish of Lansdowne, produced an encouraging result. Curzon himself, as a member of the union  ist Shadow Cabinet, did not feel entitled to go beyond the official party attitude, and St. Aldwyn, who is given by Newton as one of the most prominent of those who were willing to vote, either never took up or did not maintain this position; but about forty others indicated that they would go into the lobby against Halsbury. Notable amongst these were Cromer (who was in fact prevented from voting by illness), Minto, Camperdown, Desart, and Fortescue. Despite close personal relations between Curzon and Morley, there is no evidence that this information was passed to the Government.

The plan for an immediate creation had been abandoned, and the Cabinet had decided to defer to the King’s suggestion and not reject the Lords’ amendments en bloc; without immediate creation the Cabinet itself was no doubt attracted to this suggestion on its own merits, for the goodwill of the moderate union  ists became of paramount importance. Consequently the amendments had to be dealt with seriatim. This was done on August 8, the day of the censure debate in the Lords. Mr. Churchill was in charge, for Asquith had lost his voice, but the attitude of the Government was quite conciliatory. The amendment excluding from the scope of the bill any measure which would extend beyond five years the duration of a Parliament was accepted, and a concession was also offered on Cromer’s amendment to Clause One. The Speaker, in determining what was a money bill, should take into consultation the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the latter being by firm tradition a member of the Opposition. The exact form of this concession did not commend itself to the House, however, and after debate a change which substituted two members of the Chairman’s Panel, nominated by the Committee of Selection, was put forward by J. F. Hope and accepted by the Government. The motion for disagreeing with the Lords’ other amendments was carried by a majority of 106.