On August 10, 1911, the ancient British House of Lords gathered in
somber and resentful session and solemnly voted for the "Parliament
Bill," a measure which reduced their own importance in the government
to a mere shadow. This vote came as the climax of a five-year struggle.
The Lords have for generations been a Conservative body, holding back
every Liberal measure of importance in England. Of late years the
Liberal party has protested with ever-increasing vehemence against the
unfairness of this unbalanced system, by means of which the
Conservatives when elected to power by the people could legislate as
they pleased, whereas the Liberals, though they might carry elections
overwhelmingly, were yet blocked in all their chief purposes of
legislation.
When the Liberals found themselves elected to power by a vast majority
in 1905, they were still seeking to get on peaceably with the Lords,
but this soon proved impossible. In January of 1910 the Liberals
deliberately adjourned Parliament and appealed to the people in a new
election. They were again returned to power, though by a reduced
majority; yet the Lords continued to oppose them. Again they appealed
to the people in December of 1910, this time with the distinct
announcement that if re-elected to authority they would pass the
"Parliament Bill" destroying the power of the Lords. In this third
election they were still upheld by the people. Hence when the Lords
resisted the Parliament Bill, King George stood ready to create as many
new Peers from the Liberal party as might be necessary to pass the
offensive bill through the House of Lords. It was in face of this
threat that the Lords yielded at last, and voted most unwillingly for
their own loss of power.
Of this great step in the democratizing of England, we give three
characteristic British views--first, that of a well-known Liberal
member of Parliament, who naturally approves of it; secondly, that of a
fair-minded though despondent Conservative; and thirdly, that of a
rabid Conservative who can see nothing but shame, ruin, and the extreme
of wickedness in the change. He speaks in the tone of the "Die-hards,"
the Peers who refused all surrender and held out to the last, raving at
their opponents, assailing them with curses and even with fists, and in
general aiding the rest of the world to realize that the manners of
some portion of the British Peerage needed reform quite as much as
their governmental privileges.