Lloyd George

1
Lloyd George The Peoples Budget

• Reading McLean, Ch. 6.

2
The Liberals Predicament

• Landslide victory of 1906
• Masks fundamental weakness of Liberals position

3
The Liberals Predicament

• Alliance with Irish Nationalists is constraining
• The Irish Question internally divisive (Home Rule
  Crisis, 1886)
• Reliance on vagaries of SMP electoral system
• Class dividing the Liberals urban social base
• Labour challenge on left an unstable bargain
• the greatest danger to the Liberals will arise
  from a split between Liberalism and Labour, such
  as destroyed liberalism in Germany and
  elsewhere. (McLean, 1999, 158)

4
The Strategic Prescription

• Similar to Kings situation in 1925
• Liberals need to
• Widen partys social intellectual base
• Incorporate Labour position and support
• Get rid of Irish Question (i.e., make politics
  unidimensional)
• Curb House of Lords
• Note 1-3 are closely related strategies.

5
The Conservative Blockade

• The difficulty the Conservatives use the Lords
  to undermine the Liberal government
• When the Conservative Party is in power there
  is practically no House of Lords it takes
  whatever the Conservative Government brings it
  from the House of Commons without question or
  dispute but the moment a Liberal Government is
  formed, this harmless body assumes an active
  life, and its activity is entirely exercised in
  opposition to the Government.
• (Lord Rosebery, quoted in Jenkins 1954, 17)

6
The Conservative Blockade

• Thus, failure to curb Lords undercuts attempts to
  deal with Ireland or outflank Labour
• Education Bill
• Licensing Bill
• Old Age Pensions
• Budget of 1909, The Peoples Budget

7
The Education Bill

• Lords votes 132 52 insisting on amendments
  gutting the bill
• However, the great majority of Liberal MPs
  thought that the education issue was not big
  enough to afford favourable ground from which to
  force the issue.
• (Jenkins 1954, 25)

8
Threatening Talk

• Liberals use 1907 Throne speech to sabre-rattle
• serious questions affecting the working of our
  parliamentary system have arisen from unfortunate
  differences between the two houses,and, His
  Majestys Ministers have this important subject
  under consideration with a view to a solution of
  this difficulty.
• (Jenkins 1954, 28)

9
But Little Action

• Liberals actually oppose a proposal to create a
  nominated or elected Second Chamber
• A Liberal Government would be extremely
  ill-advised to touch the composition of the
  Second Chamber until it had settled its powers.
  To set up a nominated Second Chamber compsed of
  grave and reverend i.e., legitimate but
  necessarily conservative-minded individuals
  would, if such a Chamber succeeded to the powers
  of the present House, both increase the evil and
  abolish the remedy which the present system
  provided
• (Jenkins 1954, 29-30)

10
The Licensing Bill A First-Class Funeral

• Bill to regulate public houses and liquor
• Resented by Irish (whiskey industry)
• Tories bitterly (opportunistically?) opposed
  Bill takes 8 months to get through Commons
• Tories kill it in the Lords 272-96.

11
Old Age Pensions

• Lords is opposed so prodigal of expenditure as
  likely to undermine the whole fabric of the
  Empire, and destructive of all thrift.
  (Jenkins 1954, 37)
• But Lansdowne convinces Tory Lords to defer to
  Commons The bill is primarily financial in
  nature, and finance is by constitutional
  principle the Commons preserve.

12
Stalemate

• Session of 1908 ends with Liberals in retreat
• A string of by-election losses
• Lack of legislation sparks an internal revolt in
  Commons
• Only financial matters pass through Lords
• Financial needs critical Pensions and German
  military build-up

13
Circumventing the Veto

• Liberal must incorporate social policy into
  budgets
• Accordingly he Lloyd George proceeded to
  frame his Budget for 1909 with the threefold
  purpose of raising the extra funds needed for old
  age pensions and other intended reforms of
  making provisions for these reforms in the
  finance bill and of adopting tax-raising devices
  which would be particularly distasteful to the
  Peers and might rouse them to throw out the
  Budget.
• (quoted by Jenkins 1954, 41)

14
Circumventing the Veto

• Liberal must incorporate social policy into
  budgets
• Accordingly he Lloyd George proceeded to
  frame his Budget for 1909 with the threefold
  purpose of raising the extra funds needed for old
  age pensions and other intended reforms of
  making provisions for these reforms in the
  finance bill and of adopting tax-raising devices
  which would be particularly distasteful to the
  Peers and might rouse them to throw out the
  Budget.
• (quoted by Jenkins 1954, 41)

15
The Peoples Budget

• Introduced 29 April 1909
• Addressed budget shortfall by increased taxation
• On incomes
• On spirits
• On land!

16
The Peoples Budget

• Conservatives are implacably opposed
• Balfour vindictive, inequitable, based on no
  principle, and injurious to the productive
  capacity of the country.
• Carson the beginning of the end of all property
  rights.
• Landowne It is a monument of reckless and
  improvident finance.
• Rosebery It is inquisitorial, tryannical, and
  Socialistic.
• Blockade the Commons 554 divisions over 6 months

17
The Limehouse Speech

• Lloyd George ratchets up the rhetoric
• We are placing the burdens on the broadest
  shoulders. Why should I put burdens on the
  people? I am one of the children of the people.
  I was brought up amongst them, I know their
  trials, and God forbid that I should add one
  grain of trouble to the anxieties which they bear
  with such patience and fortitude.
• (Jenkins 1954, 56)

18
Overreaction

• Aristocrats threaten massive reductions in staff
• They become shrill a Conservative MP noted
• He only only wished the Dukes had held their
  tongues, every one of them. It would have been a
  good deal better for the Conservatives Party if,
  before the Budget was introduced, every Duke had
  been locked up
• (Jenkins 1954, 57)

19
Continued Provocation

• Lloyd George implicitly threatens the Lords
  should they exercise their veto
• The question will be asked Should 500 men,
  ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the
  unemployed, override the judgement the
  deliberate judgement of millions of people who
  are engaged in the industry which makes the
  wealth of this country?. The answers are
  charged with peril for the order of things which
  the Peers represent.
• (Jenkins 1954, 57)

20
Damn the Consequences

• Tories driven by Chamberlains extremism (and
  Chamberlain was electorally popular)
• the peers are not worthy of their seats if
  they do not reject the budget.
• The King, anxious to avoid a crisis, urges
  cross-party talks both sides refuse
• Tories prepare to veto

21
A Pyrrhic Victory?

• Not all Tories convinced
• A general election immediately following the
  rejection of the Budget would, beyond all doubt,
  be disastrous to the fortunes of the Unionist
  Party. The Government would be returned with a
  sufficient majority to re-enact the Budget and to
  remain in office another five years. This would
  be bad enough, but it would be still worse if
  they obtained as the must inevitably try to
  obtain power to curtail the veto of the House
  of Lords.
• (Lord Lytton, quoted in Jenkins 1954, 62)

22
A Pyrrhic Victory?

• Lyttons opinion is not isolated
• My Lords, if you win, the victory can at most
  be a temporary one. If you lose, you have
  altered and prejudiced the position, the power,
  the prestige, the usefulness of this House
• (Balfour of Burleigh, quoted in Jenkins 1954,
  66)

23
The Die is Cast

• Lansdowne moves on second reading,
• that this House is not justified in giving
  its assent to the Bill until it has been
  submitted to the judgement of the country.
• On 28 November 1909, the Budget is defeated by
  the Lords, 75-350

24
The Aftermath

• Two election take place in 1910
• The January election results in a hung
  Parliament, but the Peoples Budget is passed
  after land tax dropped.
• A December election fails to break deadlock
• Liberals rely on Irish nationalists to govern
• Pass the Parliament Act 1911 undercutting Lords
  veto.

25
Oligarchies are seldom destroyed and more
frequently commit suicide (Lord Reay)

• Why did the Unionist leadership act so
  recklessly?
• Moderates (e.g., Lytton) were free-traders,
  disliked by Whole-Hoggers (Chamberlain-protectio
  nists)
• Balfours leadership hinged on Whole-Hoggers
• Whole-Hoggers were a powerful lobby
• The agents, the organisations, and the Licensed
  Victuallers Trade all demand it. They know
  nothing of, and care nothing for constitutional
  Law.

26
Policy, Office, and Votes?

• Rejection suited the whole-hoggers policy goals
• What, then, are the two ways, and only two
  ways, before the country of meeting the
  necessities of the nation? On the one hand, you
  may do as we are doing. You may impose. taxes
  on accumulated wealth. What is the other?, the
  only other that has yet been disclosed or even
  foreshadowed to Parliament and the country? It
  is to take a toll of the prime necessaries of
  life. it is to surround your markets with a
  tariff wall
• (Asquith, quoted in Jenkins 1954, 64)
• Defeating the Budget, left protectionism as the
  only alternative.