10. THE POLITICAL PARTIES 1906-18. With the accession of the Campbell-Banner man (q.v.) administration in January 1906, the Liberty Party returned to power after nearly 20 years' political exile. Excepting for two short spells of one year and two years the Con servatives, joined by the Liberal Unionists, had been in power since 1886. The so-called °khaki election" of 1900 had kept the Unionists in office to carry on the South African War, to which most of the Radicals and Laborites were bitterly opposed. The late Lord Salisbury had resigned in 1902 and was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. Arthur James Balfour, who carried on the government till December, 1905, when he in turn resigned with his cabinet. Rent asunder over the fiscal or reform" ques tion, the Unionist party was said to be suffer ing from °senile decay') and the country was only too willing °to give the other side a chance." Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman came in with an overwhelming majority. The Liberals captured 379 seats out of the total of 670; the Unionists only had 157. In addition, the gov ernment had at their disposal the votes of 51 labor members and 83 Irish Nationalists. Though a pronounced Home Ruler, the new Premier did not touch the thorny problem of Irish separation during his tenure of office. The two previous Liberal administrations had been shattered on that rock. He introduced several highly contentious measures which were promptly killed by the House of Lords. 'Yet his brief administration (he died in 1908) was marked by some daring and really useful acts of legislation; he settled a very old controversy of many years' standing by passing the De ceased Wife's Sister Act in the teeth of fierce clerical opposition; he introduced a court of criminal appeal —a much-needed measure; created a public trustee; a system of probation for juvenile and first offenders; a protective patents act, and a merchant shipping act. The Liberals undoubtedly possessed a set of brilliant and enthusiastic leaders in Mr. Asquith, Mr. David Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. (now Viscount) Haldane, Mr. (now Lord) Morley and Mr. Birrell. Beyond offering de structive criticism the feeble opposition could exert a very limited influence over what they called the °socialistic orgy') of the Radicals, a generic title applied to the heterogeneous party then in power. Mr. Asquith succeeded to the the premiership shortly before the death of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Opinion differed little about Mr. Asquith: a cool, clever, strong and determined man possessing little imagina tion and no illusions. His predecessor had held • the party and its allies together with amiable tact; Mr. Asquith dominated by sheer force of a commanding personality. He was
ably seconded by the Chancellor of the Exche quer, Mr. Lloyd George, the fiery little Welsh lawyer and orator who, but a few years before, had been the "best hated man" in the United Kingdom. In 1900 the latter had had to adopt the disguise of a policeman to escape from the threatened violence of an infuriated mob in Birmingham. Also a convinced Home Ruler, Mr. Asquith realized the futility of introducing any measure of Home Rule for Ireland while the Lords possessed the power of the veto. He at once opened a campaign to deprive the Lords of that power. Needless to say, he had the hearty support of the whole Liberal, Labor and Nationalist members, and the most strenuous opposition of the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists. The two latter parties, now fully united, forced a general election in January 1910, when the government's big majority melted away; from 513 it fell to 124 all told. The Irish Nationalists and the labor parties now had the government in their power; nor did they fail to press their demands. The bill of the Parlia ment Act (see article II PARLIAMENT) was in troduced in April 1910. Numerous conferences on the subject between representatives of both houses failed to produce an agreement, and Mr. Asquith again appealed to the electorate in De cember of the same year. The result of the election was that his majority rose by only two; the same number of Liberals were• returned as Unionists, namely, 272, and the government was now entirely dependent for its existence upon the Irish and labor votes. The Parliament Act Bill was reintroduced in February 1911 and passed by the Lords, and the road to Home Rule lay open. As the "Osbornejudgment," upheld by the highest court, had deprived the trade unions of the right to pay the salaries of labor members in Parliament, every private member of the House of Commons was voted a salary of $2,000 per annum. The Unionists vehemently opposed the measure, and a number of them have never accepted the payment. By this means were the Liberals, Laborites and Irish Nationalists welded into one party pledged to mutual support. Profiting by the example of their opponents, those Liberals who seceded from their party over the Home Rule splits of 1886 and 1893, and retained the title of "Liberal though acting always in accord with the conservatives, have since gone over entirely to the latter and amalgamated with them. Hence the two parties were simply styled "Unionists," i.e., pledged to maintain the union between Great Britain and Ireland. Home Rule was definitely passed in 1914, but its operation was postponed pending the duration of the war.