pledged themselves on the eve of the election of 1906 not to introduce any measure for Home Rule in the ensuing parliament. As a result, thousands of free trade Unionists were able to vote for Liberal free traders, and seats which had formerly been regarded as safe Tory seats passed to the Liberal party. The ensuing majority was greater than any recorded in our parliamentary history.

Why, then, it may be asked, did the Liberals again take up the question of Home Rule? The answer is that as the result of bad leadership they found themselves once more dependent on the Irish vote. Hypnotized by Mr. Lloyd George, the bulk of the Liberal party had committed itself to the policy of taxing land values. This policy owed its origin to an American writer, Henry George, who in his book entitled " Progress and Poverty " claimed to prove that all the ills of mankind were due to the private ownership of land, and that universal prosperity would be ensured if a tax of twenty shillings in the pound were imposed on the rental value of all land. To give partial effect to this crazy doctrine, Mr. Lloyd George, in his budget of 1909, proposed a series of taxes on land values, and proclaimed to the House of Commons and to the country that these new taxes would, in a few years, yield a magnificent revenue which would suffice to pay the whole cost of Dreadnoughts and Old Age Pensions. This sensational budget was strongly opposed in the House of Commons on the ground that it was essentially unfair to select a special class of property for penal taxation, and also on the ground that the taxation of land values would check the building of houses by depriving the speculative builder of one of the principal elements in the legitimate profit he worked for. It was also urged by several critics of the budget that the proposed taxes would probably cost more to collect than they would ever yield in the shape of revenue. Opposition on these grounds to the Lloyd Georgian budget came, not only from the Conservative party, but also from the whole of the Irish party, and from one or two independent Liberals, including the present writer, who was then sitting as Liberal member for Preston. But the Liberals had a majority over all other parties, and the budget was forced through the House of Commons and sent to the Lords.

A difficult situation then presented itself to the Upper House. Here was an entirely novel scheme of taxation, which even its

authors did not claim would yield any net revenue in the current year, and to which a large section of the country was obviously opposed. A second chamber, endowed with adequate powers, would therefore have been justified in taking the line that, as these taxes added nothing to the revenue of the current year, and as they were obviously put forward for other than financial reasons, they could be-and ought to be omitted from the budget. To have taken this line would, however, have involved raising again an old issue between the two Houses, namely, the right of the Upper House to amend a Finance Bill. The Lords therefore decided to reject the budget altogether, and thus force the government to submit the issue to the country.

That decision was, in the opinion of the present writer, a mistake; but it might have been justified by its result if the Liberals and the Irish Nationalists had continued to adhere to their respective policies. The Liberals had shelved Home Rule; the Irish Nationalists were bitterly opposed to the Lloyd Georgian land taxes. Therefore, if the Conservatives won from the Liberals a substantial number of seats the budget would be defeated when it again came before the House of Commons. Foreseeing this possibility, the Liberal leaders, on the eve of the election of January, 1910, announced that they would hold themselves free to take up Home Rule again. By this astute move they rendered possible a new alliance between their party and the Irish Nationalists; the results of the election showed that without this alliance the budget could not pass. The Unionists won no fewer than 105 seats; the previous majority of the Liberals over all other parties disappeared; and the Liberal party was impotent unless it could buy the Irish Nationalist vote. Long negotiations took place between the Liberal and the Nationalist leaders, for the details of the bargain were difficult to settle. It was finally agreed that the Liberal party would bring in a Bill to place the whole of Ireland, including Ulster, under the rule of the Nationalists; that the Irish party would vote in favour of the Lloyd Georgian land taxes; and that the two parties would combine forces to secure the abolition of the veto of the House of Lords.

Thus proposals, neither of which could independently command a majority of the electors, were both to be passed through the House of Commons by means of a political bargain, and

forced into law by the abolition of the veto of the Upper House. That is the origin of the Parliament Act of 1911, and such an origin alone suffices to condemn the Act. For it demonstrates that until that Act was passed the House of Lords was able to protect the country from measures which might be forced upon it by means of essentially corrupt bargains between different political parties.

Equally significant is the fact that, as regards both the measures which were thus forced into law, time proved that the House of Lords was right and the House of Commons wrong. The people of Ulster refused to be separated from the people of Great Britain : they were prepared to fight rather than surrender their liberties. In face of this situation, the Home Rule Act that the Nationalists had bought from the Liberals was first suspended, and then altogether repealed. With equal conclusiveness, time proved, in the case of the Lloyd Georgian land taxes, the correctness of the view taken by the Upper House. These taxes, instead of paying for Dreadnoughts and Old Age Pensions, involved the exchequer in a heavy loss year after year for cost of collection, and were finally abandoned by their author himself. Incidentally, the land value duties as had been foretold by their opponents-checked the provision of houses by private builders, and so contributed to the housing shortage, which has been one of the most painful of our post-war experiences.

These are the essential facts in the history of the Parliament Act of 1911, and yet, so curious is the mental twist of many of our politicians, that even some professed Conservatives speak as if that Act were possessed of a semi-sacred character, and hesitate to take the obvious course of demanding that it should be repealed without further delay. The need for prompt repeal is as urgent as the origin of the Act is scandalous. As long as the Parliament Act remains on the Statute Book it is possible for party politicians to force into law any measure that they can manœuvre through the House of Commons. The electors of the country may never have been consulted about the measure; or, if consulted, may have expressed so far as votes record opinions—their verdict against it. But that will not deter from action a political party that can by any means secure a majority in the House of Commons, and has motives of its own for pushing the measure through parliament.

In the case of schemes that can be incorporated in Finance Bills, the House of Lords has not even a temporary veto. If the Speaker of the House of Commons-who is the servant of that House-registers a Bill as a Finance Bill, it automatically becomes law in the form in which it leaves that House. Yet in practice Finance Bills offer one of the greatest political dangers to the country. The Labour party is deliberately planning, by means of various schemes of taxation-including a special surtax on incomes derived from investment-to make impossible the continuance of the capitalistic organization of industry, and thus to prepare the way for socialism. Clearly such schemes ought not to be allowed to pass into law until the country has had full opportunity for considering them and their probable results. But, unless the Parliament Act is repealed, or drastically amended, any number of such schemes could be imposed upon the country within a few months by a Labour Government that had-on some other issue secured a temporary majority in the House of Commons.

Nor does this grave danger represent the only disadvantage to the country that arises from the clause of the Parliament Act that deals with Money Bills. In minor matters also the country suffers from the autocracy that this clause confers upon the House of Commons. A useful illustration of the mischief done is furnished by the conflict that arose between the two Houses in 1921 over the Safeguarding of Industries Bill of that year. The purpose of this Bill was, not to raise money for the needs of the State, but to protect against foreign competition certain selected British industries which, for some reason or another, had secured the specially favourable consideration of the politicians then in power. When the Bill reached the Upper House it was severely criticized on the ground that the benefits which it conferred on some British industries would involve an injury to other British industries. In particular it was pointed out that the British farmer, who had no protective tariff to safeguard his industry, and was never likely to get one, would have to pay more for various articles he required. To meet this palpable injustice to the most extensive of all our industries, an amendment was moved, and carried, providing that articles for use in husbandry should be exempt from the operations of the Bill. Another very sensible amendment was passed by the Lords, limiting the operation of

this new experiment in protectionist legislation to two instead of three years. But, when the Bill was returned to the House of Commons with these amendments, the Speaker, acting under the authority of the Parliament Act, ruled that it was a Money Bill, and therefore could not be amended by the House of Lords. As regards non-financial measures, the Parliament Act provides that any Bill that is passed by the House of Commons in three successive sessions becomes law, in spite of its rejection by the House of Lords. But these successive sessions may be, and are intended to be, sessions of the same House of Commons, so that the country has no chance of expressing an opinion. In a word, the essential purpose of the Parliament Act is to make the House of Commons an autocratic body capable of acting, not merely in defiance of the peers, but in defiance of the people.

That both Liberal and Labour politicians should strongly oppose the repeal or the amendment of the Parliament Act, is perfectly intelligible. They joined hands to secure its passage, and the fact that it may enable them to force into law party measures which the nation has never approved is probably regarded by most of them as a distinct point in its favour. In practice, almost every politician puts the interests of his party before the interests of the nation. In addition, both these parties have a reasonable case against the House of Lords as at present constituted. Under present conditions the House of Lords is, to an appreciable extent, an annex of the Conservative party. The majority of the members of that House are always inclined to allow a Bill put forward by a Conservative ministry to pass unchallenged; and equally inclined to disallow the schemes promoted by Liberal or Labour governments.

This attitude, though naturally resented by the other two parties, is not quite so unfair as it appears to be, for the essential duty of a second chamber lies in the direction of conservatism— with a small " c." A second chamber exists mainly for the purpose of guarding the country against the risk of insufficiently considered schemes of legislation. So far as the Conservative party remains conservative, there is less risk of such schemes from that party than from its rivals, and therefore less necessity for the vigilance of the second chamber. Partly on this account, and partly on personal grounds, the House of Lords as an institution has more friends in the Conservative party than in either