The Struggle for the Budget.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 16, 20 October 1909, Page 33

The Struggle for the Budget.

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By a Member of the Mouse of Commons

IN ENGLAND we have, socially speaking, no individuals. W]ho plays a “lone hand” plays to lose. We are caste-ridden; the rich peer is the Brahmin, the penniless commoner the pariah. Speaking broadly, we are servile to the castes above us, overbearing to inferiors. Were it not so the fragment from the wreck of feudalism known as the House of Lords would

In theory indefensible, the House of Lords as a senate seems in fact irreplacable. England has no Supreme Court to guard the Constitution; the Royal veto has fallen into disuse; no Alexander Hamilton has planted in our constitution the fundamental principles of liberty, life, and ownership. Nothing forbids legislation that would Impair faith in contracts. Any Jack Cade or Jack Straw

never have floated safely into the twentieth century. How completely the caste principle still dominates English society is clear to any competent observer. Schoolmasters, navy and army crammers, and other experts in preparing the middle and upper classes for their careers, openly state that direct connection with the peerage gives a young roan ten years’ start in the handicap of life. In the political arena the cadet of a noble house who becomes a candidate for Parliament is already half a winner. Essential details concerning him are in “Debrett”- —a guide-book to the peerage. His rival may have the grace of Mercury, the strength of Sandow, the tongue of Savonarola, the virtue of St. Anthony, and the wisdom of Solon; but if he be a middle - class Smith or Jones, he is required to prove himself in public for ten years before he ceases to be furtively regarded as a scheming adventurer with nefarious designs on the public. This public’s desire to know who a man is, its dislike of strangers, and its reverence for caste, partially account for the feline vitality of the House of Lords—these things, together with, the reverence paid to the Upper House as representative of property, arid the actual grip of the Lords on the land.

who can secure a majority in the Commons could alter the laws of life and property —after getting rid of the Hous e of Lords. In fact, our only existing safeguard against despotism, socialism, and extravagance, or other results of brain-storm in a demagogue who has captured the House of Commons—to our shame be it said — is the Hereditary House. Legal power to suggest second thoughts to the omnipotent, but never unanimous proletariat belongs to the Lords alone. And — an extremely important point, since it means an assurance against arbitrary use of the veto—the one condition of existence to the Lords is that they shall always be right in the view of the majority of the people. For the heredity principle is abhorred by sensible people, whether philosophers or demagogues, and the fact of land-ownership in town or country creates among Radicals and Socialists permanent hostility to the House of Lords; the Lords, therefore, legislate with a halter round their necks. An important bill send up from the House of Commons can be rejected only when the political barometer is at “set fair.” In other words, the Peers will sign their own death-warrant the first time they fail to discern the true feelings of

the country more accurately than the House of Commons. When they err, they fall. Twice in the last fifteen years general elections have confirmed the view taken by the Lords, and have contradicted the assumption of ministers in the Lower House that they, and not the Peers, represent the people. The House of Commons represents our moods; the House of Lords our settled opinions. A Sloth when the Tories are in power, the Upper House is a Porcupine with the Liberals. The position of the Peers if they throw out the Budget, it is almost certain will be seriously challenged for the first time since the great Reform Bill; and the agitation gives fresh reason for an examination of the House of Lords, as it now is. 11. Battle is joined on the issue of the land. During the nineteenth century the dedication of land to pleasure and sport advanced by leaps and bounds, greatly increasing the power of the House of Lords by restoring the worst features of that feudalism which, throughout the eighteenth century, was crumbling. The Lords now own in the aggregate 15,500,000 acres of land with an annual rent roll of £17,000,000, or an average of £30,000 a year - each. Children who are to inherit this land are labelled lawmakers in their cots. And a bankrupt, a voluptuary, or an idiot, though himself suspended, hands on to his son or successor the power of legislation. It goes without saying that no legislature so composed can act impartially in dealing with questions affecting the land laws. It is the demand of the people for rights in this vast territory that is threatening the existence of the House of Lords. The late Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in beginning

the long-pending assault on the land system, declared that a strong demand for small holdings existed in many parts of the country, and that in one district after another official returns show that the request for land was met by a blank refusal on the part of the Lords. These assertions, were, however, vigorously denied by the Marquis of Lansdowne on behalf of the Peers. Whatever the truth as to this may prove, it is certain that the immediate hindrance to the distribution of rural land in England is, contrary to general belief, less the unwillingness of landlords to sell than the inordinate coat of transfer caused by' the opposition of the lawyers for the simplification of the land system. The great leaders of the legal profession are peers themselves, and a sinister alliance exists between here-

ditary privilege and the trades-union instinct of ennobled lawyers. To be sure, there is no land hunger in England of the kind with which Ireland is familiar. Almost anybody content to satisfy the attorney and the landlord can buy' land in plenty. The absence of the vine and olive in this climate simplifies the agricultural problem. English rural labourers are without the revolutionary instinct, and prefer the glow of great cities to the monotony of the spade. Yet, when all this is said, the fact remains that it is the resentment by masses of people who are neither Socialists nor Radicals, of their exclusion from the land and of the enormous unearned wealth accruing from the land to the Lords, that is prompting the efforts now being made tc abridge the power of the Peers. And these efforts are not likely to fail. The powers of the Lords already have been restricted until the control of the

Commons in all the great affairs of State is practically supreme. The Lords may not meddle with money bills, however much they would like to interfere on the present occasion; they have no control over the navy or army; may not interfere with the control of the House of Commons over foreign and colonial affairs, matters relating to peace and war, treaties, nor internal administration. The Lords cannot upset the Cabinet nor exercise control over the monarch.. All these things are in the domain of the

elected House. Practically the only power left to the Lords is that of the veto, which is now threatened. As individuals, however, the Lords have the same personal privileges as formerly—they are free from arrest in civil process in •‘coming, going, or returning”; every peer has the right of access to the crown, and dukes are officially the king’s cousins. A peer accused of crime may refuse to recognise the courts. He then must be tried by his fellow members of the Upper House. But this has come to be regarded as a dangerous practise, since the majority of the peers themselves seem to resent such use of privilege. A recent instance of this was the trial of Earl Russell, accused of bigamy. The evidence tended to show that he had remarried after an American divorce that was proved invalid. Lord Russell demanded a j ur y of his peers, and although there was good reason to believe that a common jury would have dealt leniently with him, on the ground that his offence was purely technical, the House of Lords sent him to prison. 111. The title to nobility in England rests on two conditions—upon the Royal summons to Parliament, and, according to modern doctrine, upon taking the

seat. Unlike the Continental noble, therefore, who is noble by birth, children of a British Peer are commoners during the father’s lifetime. Sons of the higher nobility are by courtesy permitted to use the prefix “Lord,” as in the case of Lord Charles Beresford, but they are not peers. Eldest sons of peers are often given titular rank because courtesy permits them to use their fathers’ lesser titles —as in the case of the Earl of Yarmouth, who is not and will not be a peer until the death of his father, the Marquis of Hertford; Irish and Scotch peerages do not of necessity give membership in the House of Lords. For instance Lord Curzon has an Irish peerage, but is eligible to membership only in the House of Commons. In the reign of Elizabeth there were only sixty lay Peers. The Stuarts created 108, PUt 141. Taking the whole House there are only sixty Peers who can boast of old titles.

There are, in fact, two orders in the House of Lords, and the Peers themselves never forget the difference between the old and the new men—although it is concealed from the outer world. New creations are resented by peers of ancient lineage as a dilution of the privileges that their ancestors monopolised. If the peers are to-day ten times as numerous as they were under the Tudors, the Liberals are responsible. Mr Gladstone, despite the fact that his farewell speech in Parliament was a solemn warning to the Hereditary House that its days were numbered, created more Peers than any one minister since the Revolution, while the secret favour with which the peerage is regarded by the rich members of the Liberal Party contrasts sharply with the menaces commonly uttered from the platform. Since the great Reform Bill, Liberals have created 232 peers to 131 created by the Conservative and Unionist Governments. The Radical, Mr Cyril Flower, for instance, won a seat in -the Commons by the eloquence with which he condemned the House of Lords. He then accepted a peerage—is now' Lord Battersea.

Including three princes of the royal blood, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, and Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, there are now 618 peers. There are also eleven Imperial peeresses and three Scottish peeresses in their own right, of whom Mona Josephine T. Stapleton, Baroness Beaumont, a girl of thirteen, has the most ancient title, her barony dating back to 1309. ■For two decades past the peer-making power has belonged to the leading men of a party who were of much the same strain of blood. The late Lord Salisbury’s government and that of Mr. Balfour—with the exception of Mr Chamberlain in the Cabinet and Mr Andrew Bonar Law, Under-Secretary for the Board of Trade—consisted of a coterie of peers and peers, relations. The Lords ruled the Cabinet. So intimate was one minister with another that almost everybody was known and ad-

dressed by colleagues as Freddie, Algy, Arthur, George, Alfred, Gerald, or Victor. These ministers never mixed on terms of equality with the middle classes. They had no violent likes or dislikes; they worshipped “good form” and decorum; and regarded vice and immorality with less aversion than a breach of etiquette. With a Cabinet that was practically a sub-committee of the Lords, the recommendations submitted to the King for the creation of peerages were governed by two considerations—political convenience and national advantage. It has never been denied that the late Lord Salisbury’s rather sudden retirement from office was the result of a difference of opinion with the Sovereign on the subject of the elevation of a certain financier to the House of Lords. The Marquis of Salisbury is reported to have said, “I am an old man, sir, and would ask permission to leave my successor the privilege of recommending the elevation of Sir to the House of Lords.” Many peerageis are granted as the re eult of bargains between party managers and aspirants to hereditary honours. Tn the majority of cases there is some ostensible reason which an easy-going

public opinion accepts as sufficient to justify the appointment. Does a man brew an ocean of arsenical beer, amassing a great fortune thereby—a small sum given to charity and a large sum bo party funds are counted as justifying the elevation of that brewer to the red benches of the Upper House. Occasionally the creation of a peer is accompanied by mystery. A case in point is a barony created in recent years. The recipient was a rich man, but there was no reason known to the public for con-

ferring on him even the honour of knighthood. This peerage is still the subject of angry comment, and may some day see the light as a chronique scandaleuse. The new peer is not a politician. He was unknown in any of the spheres in which men acquire such distinction as is conferred in Great Britain on an admiral who has won a battle, a statesman who has ruled a great department, or a philanthropist who raises a down-trodden class. The real fact was, I am informed on good authority, that it was necessary to provide an annuity for a lady who has played a prominent part in smart society during the last few years, and that the peerage was payment to one of the two men who would consent to provide the money required to prevent a colossal scandal. It is true, of course, that exceptional ability in science, marked success in the law, or distinction in army or navy, still

qualifies a man to a place in the Upper House. But nevertheless the sale of peerages and other titles has now reached such a point that the man in the street has begun to grumble. Mr Gibson Bowles has publicly declared without contradiction that a very large sum was placed at the disposal of Mr Balfour and his chief whip before the last election. Mr Bowles supports his statements by saying that the election fund has been enriched by the recipients of titles who have paid sums varying between £35,000 for a knighthood and £250,000 for a new peerage. Mr Bowles goes on to say that it was calculated a year ago that at least £650,000 must have been encashed from various sources by the party fund. IV. The Upper House, thus constituted, contains the best and the worst of the nation; the richest and the poorest. I know a peer of ancient lineage who has just been expelled from his club for not paying his annual subscription. The claims of the club committee were unmet because the peer in question did not possess the money and could not get it; yet he is not included among the “black sheep.” Collectively, the Lords are a strange sight—and a rare one, for four out of five seldom attend a debate. Stand in St. Stephen’s Hall and watch the demeanour of the peers as they file out into the night after a great division on a national crisis. A more extraordinary body of men to invest with the power of Constitutional veto cannot be imagined. The leaders, of course, look like other people, but among the others retreating chins and foreheads, the affectation of monocles, rickety legs, dried-up physique, and vacant faces are unpleasantly numerous. Certain noble lords, of the sort who never enter the House except in obedience to special Whips from their party, are just like average well-groomed men. Others are fusty eccentrics who might be mistaken for curio dealers in a 'back street in a cathedral town. One such is the Marquis of Clanricarde, whose treatment of his Irish tenantry has been a subject of Parliamentary debate for more than two decades, and who was compelled by a

special Act of Parliament to sell part of his estates to tenants he had wrongly evicted. His conduct aroused a considerable amount of personal hostility in England. Others prove in their bearing that they have risen from the ranks,

like the cheerful orator at the Mansion House banquet, who began his oration in rhe following terms: —“Sprung, my Lord, as you and I are, from the dregs of the people ” It would be a mistake, however, in

-qnte of appearance-, to think that the House of Lords is composed largely of degenerate scions of an effete aristocracy, or that the ability displayed oy Us members either in debate or in the transaction of business in committee or in the Cabinet falls below the standard of the be,t men in the House of Commons. Outside the land question or their own privileges, the Lords are more impartial than the Commons. I once nad occasion to give evidence before a committee of the House of Commons on the alien question, and before a committee of the House of Lords on the sweating system. The impression left on my mind by the two committees was that the majority of the members of the Commons’ committee were always looking over their shoulders in the direction of their own constituencies, with an eye to the effect their report might have upon their electoral prospects; while the Lords’ committee seemed 'to have no other object than the investigation of truth. The late M. C. Bradlaufh, one of the Commons’ committee, laugh, one of the Commons’ Committee, for instance, used his great forensic powers .to browbeat me into admissions that might be of electoral value to the party to which he belonged. On the other hand, courtesy, patience, energy, wisdom, and impartiality characterised, the labours of the Lords’ committee, of which such men as the late Lord Derby and Lord Dunraven were members. The report of the Commons’ committee being a compromise of political opinions, was worthless; even intellectually it contrasted unfavourably with the report of the Lords. V. On the vices and follies of individual peers—the so-called “black sheep”—are founded the most telling attacks upon the Hereditary House. It is only fair to say that “black sheep” in the House of Lords are, however, not more numerous than in other walks of life. Among the twelve apostles was a Judas —nearly nine per cent, of the apostolate. Among 618 well-fed men of leisure, there will always be a certain number who are unworthy, nor

can more be expected of peers than of apostles. Some of the blackest of the flock are those whose crimes never reach the newspapers. Some years ago one of the scandals that afflict all highly organised and wealthy societies became public in consequence of procedures before a criminal court. In the course of this trial correspondence was impounded in which the names of no less than six peers were implicated. Blackmail to the extent of £25,000 was paid by one of them to the accused to prevent the mention of his name. As for the other five peers, the decision of a committee composed of a law officer of the Crown, a representative of the King, and a Cabinet Minister, was that it was better no prosecution should take place, as the public scandal would be so great as to counterbalance the advantages of bringing to justice a group of coronetted debauchees. Of the twenty-two ‘English dukes in the peerage of England, there are only five whose circumstances, abilities, and career entitle them to be regarded as possible leaders of the nation. The Dukes of Norfolk, Bedford, Devonshire, Portland, and Richmond have, outside their self-interested views on the huge land monopoly’ they hold, maintained the best traditions of public service. As for the other dukes, matrimonial scandals, impecuniosity, or dissoluteness are, or should be, disqualifications for member-

ship of an assembly that confers hereditary powers of government upon its members. But the best of the House of Lords is very’ good. Repose, straightforwardness, courtesy, coolness, ami courage are the characteristics of these English gentlemen who happen to be peers. Probably as good an example as any other of what is best in the House of lx»rds is the Duke of ‘Bedford. He is a middle-aged man who is without ambition, who shuns public notice and refuses office. He is very shy and silent, but buoyant in spirits, with the bearing of a man who lives much in the open air. When he was urged to take office and come to the front in politics, the unfitness for leadership of all other dukes was represented to him. This one was a drunkard, that one was an incompetent, the other one had a foreign wife. “Ah,” said the Duke of Bedford, “you wish to act on the principle that among blind men a one-eyed man is king.” But so well and so quietly has he served that shrewd judges speak of him in country houses and club smoking-rooms as a future Prime Minister when the country may be really in extremity. In money matters the story of the Bedfordshire estates writes like a romance. In eighty years the Dukes of Bedford have spent on education, churches, schools, pensions, compassionate allowances, etc., no less than £5,500,000, and a balance-sheet for that time shows nothing on the credit side of the account; but the critics point out that such a system is impracticable for other owners. Among the marquises, Lord Lansdowne stands first. During the early part of the Boer War, when he was War Secretary, and British Generals were retreating before a Boer potato-dealer,

Lord Lansdowne was held responsible by public opinion for the humiliating fiasco. With the gay unwisdom of his order, he went salmon fishing in Ireland in August, 1890, when Lord Wolseley and the staff officers at the War Office were entreating hint to mobilise an army corps with the object of preventing the disasters that afterward happened. Lord Lansdowne’s impeachment was called for, and the case against him has never been disproved; but at the height of his unpopularity the Prime Minister—Lord Salisbury—nominated Lord Lansdowne to succeed him as Foreign Minister, believing him the strongest man in the Cabinet. And as Foreign Minister Lord Lansdowne did well, while as Leader of the House of

Lords he is inimitable. His advice will be followed by the majority of the Peers, and in his hands practically rests the fate of the House of Lords. Lord Rosebery’s views on the Budget are biassed from the fact that he not only owns huge estates in Scotland, but that he married a daughter of Baron Rothschild, whose efforts towards the conservation of riches is well known Although the tendency of late years—due, it is generally supposed, to the personal views of the King—towards conferring titles on the grounds of intellectual merit, the House of Lords is still the House of Landlords and Money-lords. The two interests have naturally coalesced. A common picture of the Lords as a collection of languid and not very intel-

lectual aristocrats, with a few weedy youths and some elderly clergymen, is a myth. On the contrary, the House of Lords represents the most powerful and consolidated interests of land and capital in Britain, led by some of the most astute and ruthless lawyers of the day. To give a list of the measures opposed in some stage or another by the House of Lords would be to give a list of practically every political or social reform in Parliamentary history. The mere fact that a change is proposed has always been sufficient justification for the majority of the peers to oppose it, no matter whether the suggested change has been the introduction of a new, strange thing or the removal of an old corrupt thing. So far back as 1649 was the political status of the Lords challenged, when the Commonwealth Parliament adopted the famous resolution: “That the House of Lords is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished.” From the Restoration up to the Reform Act, 1832, the House of Commons was wholly subservient to the landed class. From the time the great measure was passed after a fierce struggle with the I.ords, the two Houses have been in incessant conflict. In 1884 Lord Rosebery, who stands to-day as a champion for the hereditary peers, endeavoured to effect certain reforms, but was defeated. Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Prime Minister, endeavoured to carry similar measures in 1888 without success. Mr Gladstone thundered

against the Lords in 1884 and again in 1894 for throwing out his legislation, but made no serious proposals for reform. Since the present Government came into power the systematic manner in which Liberal measures have either been thrown out or mutilated has revived the old controversy. In 1906, over 1000 delegates from Liberal Associations called upon the Government to formulate proposals for reform. The late Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman (Liberal Premier) carried through the House of Commons by 432-to 147 a resolution that, in order to give effect to the will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, the powers of the House of Lords should be so restricted so as to secure that the final decision of the Commons shall prevail within the limits of a single parliament. The death of the late Premier, however, delayed any further considerations of the proposal. The present controversy on Mr Lloyd George’s Budget threatens to bring down once more an attack on the Lords by the Commons, and there is no saying where it might end in view’ of the steady advance of public opinion against the former. The outcry of the Lords against the Budget has only helped to discredit their cause find to open the eyes of the people of England as to its real nature. Mr J. M. Robertson, M.P., voiced popular opinion very well when he said recently at Manchester: “The dukes threaten to make up for their increased taxation by retrenching in their charities. Well, these gentlemen are very much mistaken if they think the nation is going to let the poor starve if they stop their charities. If any new poverty should be produced by the Budget, the State will undertake to see to that poverty, and, if necessary, further tax these gentlemen to do it. (Applause.) “After this Budget has been passed I think the millionaires will find that England is still a very good country for mil-

lionaires, and we hope that for the poor it will be a rather better country to live in.” (Applause.) In the meantime, it is highly problematical whether the Lords will throw out the Budget.