other Ministers and Opposition leaders were in demand everywhere. On the Liberal side Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd-George and Sir Edward Grey attracted special attention, the last named largely through the confidence inspired by his recognised moderation. Among the Unionists, Mr. Long, Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Bonar Law were perhaps the most conspicuous of the regular leaders; but they were partially eclipsed by Lord Charles Beresford in his independent campaign for a stronger Navy, and still more by the three independent Peers who were regarded as the prime movers in the rejection of the Finance Bill (p. 246). Mr. Chamberlain, despite his ill-health, was to be returned unopposed for his old constituency; and he and Mr. Balfour, from their enforced seclusion, assured the country through letters to Unionist candidates that Tariff Reform would not increase the cost of living. Mr. Chamberlain even said that it had not done so in Germany; Mr. Balfour contested the Liberal doctrine that it would enable India to put duties on British manufactures; the relations of the Home and Indian Governments he said would remain unchanged, and trade would be stimulated within the Empire. And a number of Peers, many of them little known in the House of Lords, took an active part in the campaign. They were ridiculed by their opponents as "backwoodsmen," and were not always well received or happy in their language; but their influence on the ultimate outcome was probably considerable.

A few, however, of the speeches on both sides must be mentioned. At Oldham (Dec. 16) Lord Curzon vigorously defended the House of Lords; the hereditary principle regulated professions in the East universally, and frequently in the West; political ability was hereditary in many great English families; and the principle enabled the House to represent the permanent sentiment and temper of the English people. But there were non-hereditary elements in the House; 170 of its members, too, had served in the Commons, 200 in the Army or Navy, 70 had seen service in South Africa. If there were no working-men in the Lords-though he would not be averse to seeing them there -there were no great generals or ex-Colonial Governors in the Commons. Two hundred and fifty-five Liberal and 181 Conservative Peers had been created since 1831. Renan had said that all civilisation had been the work of aristocracies; Maine that a democracy in England would have prevented the Reformation and a series of other great political and economic reforms. The House of Lords had inspired factory and Labour legislation, and the Bills it had rejected had usually been repeatedly rejected in the Commons. He insisted on its right to reject money Bills, defended its action, and urged that an unfettered House of Commons would be dangerous.

At Derby next day Lord Curzon attacked the Liberal appeal to the Irish vote, Home Rule, and the Budget; he laid stress on the growth and merits of the cause of Tariff Reform, and

the need of national defence-notably against Germany; and described the Liberal programme as only the old Newcastle programme over again.

Speaking at Huddersfield on December 17, Viscount Milner declared that the clamour against the House of Lords was mechanical; it was absurd of the Liberals to be furious with an enemy who had given them the chance of a lifetime. Singlechamber despotism was the real danger to popular government. But he preferred to turn to Tariff Reform; and he pointed out that of the 14,000,000l. of new revenue which the Budget proposed to raise 6,000,000l. were to come from beer, tobacco, and spirits; the people would not have to pay more under a Tariff Reform Budget. The over-taxation of the rich tended to diminish employment. He cited numerous examples to indicate that "the foreigner" did pay import duties, and contended at some length that new duties need not raise prices; the important thing was to increase the production of the nation and the Empire.

At Leeds next day, Earl Cawdor, after defending the Second Chamber and its action, declared that the Government wanted us to copy Bulgaria and Greece in getting rid of a Second Chamber, and Nigeria in its land laws; referred to the allegations of Mr. Mulliner, the late manager of the Coventry ordnance works, that he had fruitlessly drawn the attention of Ministers in 1906 to the increased preparations of German ordnance works, and had eventually been dismissed from his post under pressure from the Government; and asked, supposing Home Rule was given, how could England prevent the establishment of a German naval base at Belfast? He himself had been defeated in the Parliamentary election of 1885 on tariff reform; and he laid stress on the growth of German exports and the necessity of securing the Colonial market.

On the other side, Mr. Lloyd-George rallied Free Churchmen to the contest at Queen's Hall, London, on December 16. They in particular, he said, were interested, because it was their efforts that had established the control of Supply by the Commons, and because they were fighting for freedom and conscience in the schools. The Lords were essentially biassed against them; yet the Nonconformist class was specially entitled to consideration, both as providing much industrial labour, and as having won political and religious freedom. He insisted on the Church Schools grievance-mentioning that he might himself have been a Church pupil-teacher, had he been willing to abandon his creed; dwelt on the loss of the Education Bill and on the Lords' record as obstructors of the wishes of Free Churchmen; and, replying to Lord Curzon's quotation of Renan (p. 268) he said that Free Churchmen thought the Carpenter of Galilee had had more to do with the best and highest element of civilisation. In rural England you would see a baronial castle and a little unsightly red-brick chapel, "the only place

Noncon

in the village which would stand up to the castle." formity had freed the Welsh farmers from their landlords' tyranny; and had tried to rescue the victims of drink, but was frustrated by the Peers. Unless the Churches made an effort to save those victims, the responsibility must rest with them.

Before this meeting a man and a women were concealed in the hall for nearly twenty hours, waiting to interrupt the proceedings; but they were discovered in time. And, as Mr. Lloyd-George arrived, a woman suffragist jumped into his car, locked the door, lectured him, and finally shook him by the shoulders; but she narrowly escaped maltreatment by the crowd.

Speaking at the Liverpool Reform Club on December 21 the Prime Minister poured ridicule on Lord Cawdor's fears as to Belfast, and declared that the Army and Navy were never more efficient, and that the issue really was the future of representative government. Referring to Mr. Balfour's manifesto, he said. that the verdict of the electors in 1906 had combined reprobation of the past with hope and intent for the future; but the majority had been baffled in its aims as to education, licensing, and finance. He ridiculed Lord Curzon's and Mr. Chamberlain's arguments as to a Second Chamber; the real issue was whether, when the Liberals were in a majority, the House of Lords should be supreme. At a mass meeting at Birkenhead, he sketched the record of the Government, described the Unionist attitude on old-age pensions as "the most discreditable chapter in the annals of British politics," and elaborately defended the Budget, assailed the inconsistencies of Tariff Reform, and defended the Free Trade policy.

Speaking at the Welsh Liberal Convention at Cardiff on December 22, Mr. Lloyd-George said he thought the Peers had discovered their mistake, but too late; Wales had a special grievance against them, for their veto blocked Disestablishment. He defended his account of the valuation of the "tailor's shop and gave additional examples; and at Swansea in the evening he dwelt on the danger of Tariff Reform to British shipping, and on the Government plans for labour. "The Government mean, before they have done, to eliminate hunger from British civilisation."

Meanwhile a number of minor incidents tended to complicate the contest. Much interest attached to the action of those politicians who had already taken a middle course, especially the Free Trade Unionists. Their organisation formally left its members at liberty to vote as they pleased, but urged them to make it clear to any candidate whom they supported that they were opposed both to Tariff Reform and to Home Rule. Its President, the Earl of Cromer, speaking at Sheffield on December 17, urged them to vote for Unionists, in the interests of national defence, the Union, the Church, and the preservation of a Second Chamber; he dwelt on the special merits of that Chamber in private Bill legislation, in revising Bills in Committee, and in

knowledge of foreign and Imperial questions; but he held that it needed reform. He attacked the Liberal tendency to Socialism, and insisted-citing the instance of Egypt-on the value of peasant proprietorship. His advice, however, was not inconsistent with his open support of a Free Trade Unionist, Mr. Seely, against the regular Unionist candidate at Lincoln. Another eminent Independent, Viscount St. Aldwyn (pp. 255, 258), declared (Dec. 20) in a letter that he had felt unable to vote against its proposals, which did not amount to "tacking"; but he would have opposed them had he still been sitting in the Commons. Lord Rosebery, still standing apart, asked in the Times that both parties should clearly declare their policy in regard to the Lords. Less conspicuous persons, however, were drawn over definitely to the Unionist camp, among them the Earl of Durham, the Earl of Portsmouth, late Under-Secretary for War, and several Liberal ex-members or former local leaders of the party, who were apprehensive of "Socialism" or convinced of the need of Tariff Reform.

However, a prominent Socialist-Mr. Robert Blatchford, editor of the Clarion-gave his aid to the Unionists. In a series of letters in the Daily Mail (Dec. 13-24) he described from personal observation the preparations of Germany for war, and imputed, in sensational language, the aims of the extremest German Anglophobes to the German Government. In Germany, however, he was not taken seriously, and it was not clear that his articles greatly intensified British fears. The case of Mr. Mulliner also found a place in the speeches of Earl Cawdor and other Unionists; but the Admiralty contradicted his allegations. Something was done to reassure the electorate by the placing of contracts for the four "contingent Dreadnoughts"-three battleships and a cruiser,-which were allotted respectively to Messrs. Vickers (Barrow) and to firms on the Clyde, Tyne and Thames. The last-named selection caused some comment: but the firm's tender was the lowest.

On December 23, it was announced that the writs for the general election would issue on January 10-the second Monday in January, as in 1906. The first possible polling day was thus Saturday, January 15, instead of January 8 as had been expected. An earlier day than the 15th had been hoped for by the Unionists, especially as Saturday was supposed to favour a large poll of workmen, while the small shopkeepers were specially busy; and these latter were believed to be largely Unionist, especially in London. The electorate for 1910 numbered 7,705,717, or 90,279 more than in 1909. England and Wales had 6,221,722; Scotland 785,208; Ireland, 698,787. There was even more than the usual disparity between constituencies; Kilkenny, the smallest, had but 1,742 electors; at the other extreme, the Romford division of Essex had 52,984.

Speaking at Burnley on December 21, Lord Curzon, while admitting that the hereditary principle might require modifica

tion, defended the composition of the Lords and their treatment of the Ministerial Bills. The Liberal party, he said, had no consistent policy of second-chamber reform; the Peers individually did excellent public work and were sought after for local administration; let class co-operation replace class warfare. Much the same line was taken by Earl Cawdor on the same evening at Rochdale; and Lord Milner at Cardiff two days later effectively summarised the case for the Peers and Tariff Reform. At all three meetings there was a considerable dissentient element. Lord Curzon, speaking at Bath (Dec. 30), after the truce interposed by Christmas, insisted that the real issue was between the Liberal and a possible Unionist Government, and there was no point of contact between the two. He criticised Ministerial policy on three points-the overtures made to Germany for reduction of armaments, and contemptuously rejected; the action of the Government in the Balkan crisis early in the year in pressing for a Conference; and the Anglo-Russian Agreement, to which the Amir of Afghanistan had not given his consent. Nor could Ministers claim credit for the South African Union. He defended, moreover, his own career as Viceroy of India, insisted on the needs of national defence, and questioned whether the Government possessed the confidence of the majority of the people. Working-men gained nothing by the destruction of the national institutions; they wanted employment at a fair wage, and a social and economic organisation in which they would get fair play, and so were daily and hourly turning in the direction of Tariff Reform.

Mr. Balfour was well enough to speak at Haddington on December 30 in support of the Unionist candidate, but his speech added nothing to those already before the electorate; and the year closed with a speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a Liberal demonstration at Queen's Hall (Dec. 31). He devoted himself mainly to the subject of unemployment, maintaining that since the introduction of the Budget trade had so increased and unemployment so declined that had the rejection been postponed for a year, it would have been no use to say, "Your job has been taken by the foreigner." During trade depression unemployment was worse in Protected countries, and capital was kept out of investment in Great Britain by the land system.

The year closed in obscurity. The Unionists while insisting -though still in general terms-on the blessings of Tariff Reform, were varying their attacks on the Government in a way that suggested to some observers that they were not quite sure of their ground. The Labour party seemed likely to be seriously hampered in the future by the decision of the House of Lords that members could not be legally paid out of Trade Union funds (Chronicle, Dec. 21); and, though some threecornered contests had been averted by the withdrawal of a Liberal or a Labour candidate, more than forty such contests