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carried by 256 to 113. The other resolutions were then carried without debate by large majorities, the Liberal strength varying from 274 to 252, and that of the Opposition from 104 to 84. On three or four there was no division. The Finance Bill was

then introduced, and the House adjourned.

The taking of divisions on these resolutions was interrupted by a debate on the two-Power standard. A resolution was moved by Captain Craig (U., Down, E.) deprecating any modification of that standard as defined by the Prime Minister on November 12 and 23, 1908--" viz., a preponderance of 10 per cent over the combined strengths in capital ships of the two next strongest Powers," whatever and wherever those Powers might be. The speech advocating the resolution, however, was made by Mr. C. Craig (U., Antrim, S.), who had put down a similar motion earlier in the session. The Premier's statements, he declared (ANNUAL REGISTER, 1908, pp. 54, 219), had been modified by the letter of the President of the Board of Trade. He specially asked if the United States were included among the Powers in view. Mr. Asquith, in reply, referred to his own speech of March 3, 1908, defining the standard to be maintained as "that which would give us complete and absolute command of the sea against any reasonably possible combination of hostile Powers," and to his speech on the Navy Estimates. The Government had made no new departure, and the question at that moment was academic. The recent return (p. 117) showed that the combined effective naval strength of any two Powers anywhere was far below our defensive strength. The two-Power standard was a "rule of thumb "; such rules were merely means of ensuring us, under all conditions and against any hazards, an unassailable naval superiority. That end must be kept in view at any sacrifice. He quoted definitions of the two-Power standard by Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour, and added some practical considerations. Mr. Goschen and other distinguished naval administrators had pointed out that two co-operating Fleets were not equally effective with one powerful homogeneous Fleet. Again, the rule only applied to battleships and ships ejusdem generis. We must also have regard to geographical conditions. A Chinese fleet of Dreadnoughts could not be treated as equivalent to one belonging to Germany or France. Nor would the United States count for as much as Germany, France or Austria.

Mr. Lee expressed profound dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister's reply. The Opposition desired a standard applicable at all times and under all conditions and independent of the political exigencies of the moment. It was impossible to exclude America through geographical considerations. To include America, or any other Power, showed we had no arrière pensée. Moreover, we were not maintaining the standard for 1911 and 1912. Mr. Bellairs denounced the Prime Minister's speech as a complete abandonment of the two-Power standard, and a

surrender to the President of the Board of Trade and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Sir William Collins (L., St. Pancras, W.) moved an amendment, accepting with confidence the Prime Minister's statement; and he declared that Mr. Asquith's explanation had put his original view in a clearer form, and that it commanded almost unanimous confidence on the Liberal side. Mr. Balfour (who had come in late) said that he gathered that the Prime Minister's statement had "befogged and beclouded" his previous utterances, which were perfectly clear and unmistakable. Replies to questions were given after consideration. Mr. Asquith's speech had qualified his reply of last November. He had said that geographical considerations must be taken into account, and implied that the two-Power standard applied only to defence in home waters. To abandon the old formula without substituting a new one, to leave the whole matter obscure, blurred and vague, was to do the greatest possible disservice to national defence. A formula accepted by both sides was the best way of keeping the Navy out of party politics. Let them have a new and explicit policy if the old was abandoned.

Mr. McKenna delivered a spirited reply. Mr. Lee, and through him Mr. Balfour, had completely misapprehended the Prime Minister's speech. Three qualifications had to be taken into account in calculating the combined strength of any two Powers: (1) the standard, according to Lord Goschen in 1898, referred only to "ships that can lie in the line of battle"; (2) homogeneity of construction and unity of command gave a single Power a margin of advantage; (3) distance must be taken into account, as Lord Selborne had said in August, 1904. What the Government had to do was to provide a Navy which would secure us victory in a contest with any possible effective combination of two Powers. This provision had been made, and the Government meant to maintain it. This speech was loudly cheered; the resolution was rejected by 270 to 114, and Sir W. Collins's amendment carried by 272 to 106.

On the motion for the Whitsuntide adjournment (May 27) there was a discursive, but important, debate. Sir Charles Dilke, after a reference to the coming South Africa Bill, ascribed the existing nervousness in Europe to Sir E. Grey's speech on the Vote of Censure (p. 63), deprecated the hesitation attributed to Great Britain in the foreign Press regarding the union of Crete with Greece, and commented on the delay in reform on the Congo. This last point was pressed by Mr. E. N. Bennett (L., Woodstock, Oxon) who suggested a pacific blockade of the mouth of the Congo. Mr. MacNeill (N., Donegal, S.) pointed out that treaties were now made without the knowledge of Parliament, which had no effective control of foreign politics; the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1906 and the AngloRussian Agreement of 1907 had been, he asserted, deliberately delayed till Parliament was out of the way, and full particu

lars of the Denshawi incident of 1907 had similarly been kept back.

Sir Edward Grey thought that the nervousness in Europe had been due to the Near Eastern question, and perhaps to its excessive discussion. Things were now calmer; but if he had delivered Mr. Bennett's speech there would have been acute nervousness and misunderstanding of British policy. In regard to the impending withdrawal of troops from Crete, Great Britain had been neither the most backward nor the most forward Power. The question of the status of Crete was very difficult, but ought not to be insoluble. Too frequent offering of British advice might cause misunderstanding. As to the Congo, there was no solution but Belgian annexation. Rashly managed, the question might make a European issue compared to which others lately raised might be child's play. It was no use talking of "peaceful" blockade; only one bank of the Congo was Belgian, yet every ship entering would have to be stopped. Some questions regarding the Congo were suitable for arbitration; slavery, of course, was not. The Belgian reply was satisfactory as to general principles, but inconclusive as to the measures to be taken to end the abuses, which had not diminished since the annexation. The Government were drawing up a reply which would be sent in June, and which might be discussed, with the Belgian Note, on the Foreign Office Vote. There had been no undue secrecy as to the Denshawi incident, and the Anglo-Russian Agreement had been delayed, despite his efforts, until after Parliament had risen. As to treaty-making, the Government had adhered to the Constitutional practice. Really, whereas in foreign Parliaments statements on foreign policy were carefully prepared and confined to two or three chosen days in the Session, in the British Parliament the Foreign Minister answered twenty or thirty questions a week, besides supplementary questions, and important subjects were discussed on the Foreign Office Vote. Conventions requiring legislation like the impending Prize Court Convention would not be ratified till after the legislation had passed the Commons.

Mr. Lynch (L., Ripon, W.R. Yorks) found the Foreign Secretary's speech unconvincing. He desired a Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, and pointed out the danger of weakening the Young Turks by pressing for the cession of Crete to Greece. He was not satisfied as to the outlook in Persia. Mr. Lyttelton reverted to South African questions, especially the position of Basutoland under the South African Federation Act; Sir Gilbert Parker regretted the Foreign Secretary's speech on the Congo, and urged retention of control by the British Government over the native and other questions in South Africa. Colonel Seely, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, said that the stronger a Government was the more considerate it was, and unification would therefore benefit the

native races. He mentioned various provisions safeguarding their rights, and was confident that the more we trusted the people of South Africa the more likely were they to be just to the natives. Mr. McKinnon Wood gave reassuring information as to the position in Persia. A little later, Mr. C. Craig called attention to Admiral Mann's letter to the First Lord (p. 122), and Mr. Morrell (L., Henley, Oxon) and other members to the slow working of the Small Holdings Act, and the House adjourned.

So far, it seemed that the position of the Government, at any rate in Parliament, was not greatly affected by the Budget. But the portentous length and complexity of the Finance Bill gave the prospect of a struggle lasting, as was calculated, at least well into October; and the Opposition Press contended that its text did not fulfil Mr. Lloyd-George's repeated promise that the hard cases cited against it would be met.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM WHITSUNTIDE TO OCTOBER 8.

THE Whitsuntide vacation afforded a brief interval in the political struggle. The usual annual Congresses of the Oddfellows and other Friendly Societies received unfavourably the invitation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to appoint a small representative delegation to discuss with him the details of a scheme for State industrial insurance, though he again promised that no Ministerial scheme should injure them. The Ancient Order of Shepherds, indeed, accepted it; but the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows passed hostile resolutions, and some of the speeches were even more hostile. The text of the Finance Bill, published May 31, was regarded by the Opposition Press as leaving many of the promised concessions still obscure and doubtful, and preparations were made to carry on the agitation against it with vigour. On the part of the Ministry a letter was issued accompanying the usual whip at the end of the Whitsuntide recess, inviting Liberal members to state whether they would attend the House to the end of September, and suggesting alternative arrangements such that members who desired holidays might take them by relays. The alternative of an adjournment during August and an autumn session was definitely rejected by the Prime Minister on June 15.

The House of Commons reassembled on Thursday, June 3, and passed the Vote for the Department of Inland Revenue. The London Elections Bill was taken next day. It was described by the Unionist Press as a Bill to secure a Liberal majority in London, and, after unavailing attempts at obstruction, the second reading was moved without a speech. Sir Edmund Kimber (U., Wandsworth) then moved an amendment declining to proceed with a Bill which "besides its own de

fects and injustice," provided neither a redistribution of seats nor a remedy for other anomalies in representation. He contended that plural voting should not be abolished in London only; that the provision that all polls should take place on the same day would prevent voters from helping each other, and would congest the postal service with 1,300,000 polling cards; that the Bill would create disabilities by disfranchising dual voters, who were chiefly Unionist, and that a redistribution of the boundaries of London constituencies would be out of order in connection with it. London was not a borough, but a county, and could not be treated as one town, like Birmingham. He laid stress on the existing disparity of constituencies, which gave the Government a majority of 260 instead of their fair proportion, according to the electoral vote, of 94. Only twice had they had a majority of 260 on a division. Mr. Remnant (U., Holborn, Finsbury) seconded the motion. Mr. Harcourt, First Commissioner of Works, rallied Sir H. Kimber, who had 37,000 constituents, on his passion for redistribution, and referred to the "haphazard scheme" of the late Unionist Government (ANNUAL REGISTER, 1905, p. 193) of which Sir H. Kimber did not approve. Hence the Unionists had no coherent scheme of redistribution. The Bill merely aimed at relieving London of certain exceptional anomalies; in County Council elections the Unionists had legalised "one man, one vote." He would willingly consider improvements in Committee. The Bill had no party object. After a debate which added little to these arguments, and was closured, the amendment was rejected by 141 to 49, the second reading carried by 140 to 46, and an attempt by Mr. Lyttelton to shelve the measure by reference to a Committee of the whole House, was rejected by 135 to 46. It was therefore sent to a Standing Committee, which passed it unamended; but it was rejected by the Peers on November 8.

During the following week public attention was partly diverted from the Parliamentary conflict by the Imperial Press Conference, of editors or other representatives of newspapers throughout the Empire. The delegates were entertained by the Government officially, the Prince of Wales, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Mayor and various public men. The proceedings were inaugurated by a banquet given to the Indian and Colonial guests by the Press of Great Britain at the "White City" or International Exhibition at Shepherd's Bush on Saturday evening, June 5. Lord Burnham (proprietor of the Daily Telegraph) presided; Lord Rosebery proposed "Our Guests"; and after sketching what they would see and the political problems of the countries whence they had come, interspersed with humorous and unfavourable references to the Budget, he urged that the most vital question before them was Imperial defence. There was a hush in Europe; profound peace was accompanied by a "silent warfare" of naval arma

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