The Parliamentary conflict was resumed when the Prime Minister introduced a resolution (May 12) to dispense with discussion on the Committee stage of the Home Rule, Welsh Church, and Plural Voting Bills, and on the financial resolutions necessary for the two former measures. The discussion on the financial resolutions, he said, had proved valueless in 1913; and the so-called "suggestion stage" was intended to apply only to exceptional cases—to the correction of some error or oversight, or to amendments consistent with the principle and purpose of the Bill in question. But the Opposition declined any responsibility for the Home Rule Bill, so that the consideration of suggestions was nugatory. The only proper way of carrying out an agreed settlement, for which he hoped, was by an Amending Bill. The House would be asked to give the Home Rule Bill a third reading before Whitsuntide, but the Government would go forward another step, and make itself responsible for an amending Bill, which might pass—perhaps not in its original shape—practically at the same time as the Home Rule Bill. As to the Welsh Church Bill, the suggested amendments, which seemed to have been put down as part of a concerted policy, would completely transform the Bill into a measure which the House could not accept. The House of Lords might amend these Bills if it liked, and the Commons would consider their amendments. To the Plural Voting Bill no amendments were suggested. The course proposed evoked protests from the Opposition, and Mr. Bonar Law (U.), in a bitter speech, declared that the Parliament Act had taken the interest out of the debates. Ministers did not trouble to attend, and great damage had been done to the House and still more to the representative system. The forces which would decide the Home Rule question were outside the House. He charged the Government with a change of front on the suggestion stage with regard to the Welsh Church Bill; whether they had it or not now depended on the House of Lords. It would be quite possible to let the Chairman select suggested amendments for discussion. As to the projected Amending Bill, he saw less hope of a settlement than there had been six months earlier; the Government must either (1) submit the Bill to the country, (2) coerce Ulster, (3) or exclude Ulster. While refusing all responsibility for Home Rule, the Unionists, if it were to be carried, would do their best to help the Government to carry it without civil strife. The only conversations of any interest would be those between the Prime Minister and Mr. Redmond. He attributed the Ministerial refusal to disclose the Amending Bill to Mr. Redmond's insistence that the Home Rule Bill should pass before Whitsuntide, so as to strengthen the Nationalist position. When it had passed, however, the Nationalist members would find it difficult to make concessions, and the Ulstermen would have no confidence that the Amending Bill would pass, and so there would be a real and unnecessary risk of bloodshed.
Mr. Gladstone (L., Kilmarnock Burghs) protested against the suppression of the suggestion stage for the Welsh Church Bill as a bad precedent and an encroachment on the independence of members. Later, Mr. Balfour (U.) said that the suggestion stage, for which the Speaker had had to improvise the machinery, was ill thought out at first and excessively difficult to work in practice. He complained that the House was asked to force through under the Parliament Act a Bill admittedly requiring amendment without knowing how it was to be amended. They were to vote without knowing what the real measure was which was being forced on the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer retorted that, if every offer by the Government was to be treated as an admission that their proposal was defective, that was the way to promote civil war (a declaration which caused a stormy scene). He added that the proposals embodied in the Amending Bill were known to be those made by the Premier (p. [39]), and that a suggestion stage on the Welsh Bill would be useless if, as had been intimated, the House of Lords meant to reject it. The Opposition wanted one, in order to waste time and to embarrass the Government. Mr. Redmond said that the Government had had another lesson as to the inevitable effect of making advances to the Opposition. He could not, however, approve of the Prime Minister's decision to introduce an Amending Bill even if the negotiations between the leaders should fail, and if one were introduced after such failure he held himself absolutely free to deal with it. It could not be passed except by agreement, and every fresh offer by the Government only hardened the Opposition, who had made no concession. He was prepared to run great risks and make great sacrifices for a peaceful settlement, but the position in which it was sought to put the Nationalists was unfair and intolerable. They had the consolation of knowing that the vision which had sustained them would be realised. (Mr. Redmond's closing words were greeted with prolonged Liberal cheers.) Later, Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen (U., Dudley) moved an amendment declining to restrict the time for discussing the remaining stages of the Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills till the Government had given an opportunity for discussing suggestions for amendment. Eventually this was rejected by 293 to 217; but, at the instance of Mr. Cassel (U., West St. Pancras), an opportunity was given for discussing the financial resolution under the Home Rule Bill. The Government's motion, thus amended, was carried by 276 to 194.
Just before the first of these divisions a Unionist victory was announced at the Grimsby bye-election, due to the death of Sir George Doughty (Chron., May 12). The Unionists retained the seat, but with a reduced majority, on a heavier poll than at the last general election; but the Liberal candidate, though no politician, was popular (as the late member had been) among the fishermen, and the Liberals had hoped to win.
The financial resolution necessary for the Welsh Church Bill was discussed for three hours on May 13. It authorised the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums necessary to pay the principal and interest of money borrowed by the Commissioners for the purposes of the Bill—no money being available from the endowments taken until life interests began to fall in. The object of the resolution was to enable the Commissioners to borrow at a lower rate than they could have without this Treasury guarantee. It was still doubtful whether the Church would accept commutation, and the Opposition pressed in vain for the Commissioners' names. Ultimately an amendment omitting "principal" was rejected by 215 to 304, and the resolution was carried by 306 to 218.
The "Federal Solution" of the Home Rule problem was indirectly touched upon on May 15, when the second reading of the Government of Scotland Bill was moved by Mr. Macpherson (L., Ross and Cromarty). He explained that the Bill was practically the same as that of 1913 (A.R., 1913, p. 124), except for the inclusion of a clause giving the suffrage to women. It was not a Separation Bill, and the seventy-two Scottish members would remain at Westminster pending a complete scheme of devolution; but Scotland sought control of limited and local functions peculiarly her own. The Bill was the first plank in the Scottish Liberal programme, and devolution was supported by the Royal Convention of Scottish Burghs and was necessary to end the neglect of Scottish interests—especially education, the land law, and the fishermen's vote. Mr. W. Young (L., Perthshire, E.), seconding, dissented strongly from the clause introducing women's suffrage. The Bill was opposed by Mr. Mackinder (U., Glasgow, Camlachie), who, while approving of devolution, objected to the retention of the Scottish members at Westminster, which would rivet the Liberal tyranny on England; the financial clauses would create friction, and Scotland would lose her influence on Imperial affairs. The objects of the Bill might be attained by a Standing Committee sitting in Scotland. Subsequently Mr. Clyde (U., Edinburgh, W.) argued that industrial and trade legislation should be assimilated in England and Scotland, and that one Parliament could do this better than two. The two countries, however, might well revise their common administrative system. Mr. Balfour (U.) said that none of the supporters of the measure had dealt with its practical operation, and that nothing would be done by giving administrative or even legislative Home Rule to Scotland to facilitate the expression of Scottish nationality; it was only after the Union that Scotland showed what she could do in literature, art, government and war. The advocates of the Bill were mixing up two questions—separate administration and Scottish nationalism. A system of devolution was impossible if the different local Parliaments and Executives were to have different powers. If such crazy methods were adopted, how could the Imperial Parliament be relieved? England would not approve a system under which it would have less power to manage its own affairs than Scotland or Ireland. Claims would be made for the removal of restrictions in the Scottish Bill which were absent from the Irish, and then the Imperial Parliament would be again plunged into discussing the re-hash of our Constitution. The machinery established would tend further to disintegrate the Union. For devolution there must be a thought-out plan equally applicable to each several part of the United Kingdom. After a reply from the Scottish Secretary, who commented on the absence of Unionist Federalists, and described the question as simply one of administrative and legislative convenience, the Bill was talked out; but the speech of the Scottish Secretary, coupled with previous Ministerial utterances, led some Scottish members to press, though vainly, for the introduction of a Government Bill.
The Welsh Church Bill finally left the House on May 19, after two days' debate. In reply to a question, the Home Secretary announced the names of the Commissioners—Sir Henry Primrose, Sir William Plender, and Sir J. Herbert Roberts (L., Denbighshire, W.). (Only the first named accepted a salary—1,500l. annually.) The Report of the financial resolution and the resolution suppressing debate on the Report stage of the Bill were carried on the previous day, each by precisely the same numbers (298 to 204), and then, on the third reading, the rejection was moved by Mr. Hume Williams (U., Notts, Bassetlaw). He laid stress on the demonstrations and "miles of petitions" against the Bill, and said that it had only been carried by the Nationalist vote. What good, he asked, would Disendowment do to any one? Mr. E. Wood (U., Ripon), seconding the rejection, quoted the Dean of Ripon, a Liberal and Broad Churchman, as saying that the Bill would intensify the difficulties in the co-operation of Churchmen and Nonconformists, and laid stress on the danger of weakening the Church in the struggle for social reform and the conversion of the heathen. Mr. W. Jones (L., Carnarvon, Arfon) said that the Nonconformist quarrel was not with religion or with the Church, but with Establishment. Petitions only showed what a grand thing the ballot box was. In all the great divisions on the Bill, if the Ulster members were eliminated as well as the Nationalists, the British majorities ranged from 27 to 42. The movement for separation of Church and State originated in the Welsh religious revival, which had transformed the moral, religious and intellectual life of the people. The endowments were wanted for the nation; and he laid stress on the multiplication of Welsh Nonconformist and Welsh Anglican Churches, without State endowment, in London, Liverpool, North America and Argentina. Young Churchmen in Wales were going to the national Colleges instead of to Lampeter, and, after the Bill had passed, a great religious spirit apart from Anglicanism and sectarian domination would flow and commingle for the regeneration of Wales. In the second day's debate, the Home Secretary announced that the King had placed his interests in bishoprics and other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in Wales and Monmouthshire at the disposal of Parliament; and then the Under-Secretary for the Home Department spoke. He said that unless the Welsh dioceses were separated from the Province of Canterbury the English Church would predominate in governing the Welsh Church. By ending the traffic in the cure of souls, giving more power to the laity, enabling congregations to choose their own clergymen, and helping to reconcile national sentiment to the Church, the Bill would do good. What with the fabrics, the rectories and vicarages, the movable property, and the income left to the Church, capitalised, the Church would retain a capital of 10,000,000l. for 200,000 communicants. The Church desired to retain its Establishment and endowments, and to be free from State control. Lord Hugh Cecil (U.) said that there was nothing behind Disestablishment but the will of the Welsh representatives; Welsh Nonconformity was only 103 years old and was in a state of flux. He laid stress on the prospective injury through Disestablishment to religion in other countries, and described the Bill as immoral and unjust. Later Mr. Cave (U., Surrey, Kingston) contended that the House had a right to have the suggestion stage, and that, even had the suggestions been accepted by the House of Lords and the Bill rejected there, they would have been part of the Bill sent up for the Royal Assent. The endowments were not given to "the Church," or in trust, but for religious purposes, and to secularise them broke the cy-près rule. On disendowment no Parliamentary majority was even relevant, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, after commenting on Mr. Cave's first point, said that disendowment followed inevitably on Disestablishment. The Opposition claimed at once that the Church was endowed as a great national institution and as a sect. Would not the pious founders have been shocked to learn that their gifts were being used to support a married clergy? The title was not legal but Parliamentary, and much of the property was derived from an Act of Parliamentary spoliation. The payment of stipends to ministers was the least of the functions recognised by the founders, and Parliament was recognising the trusts and restoring them. Mr. F. E. Smith (U.) declared that the Welsh could long ago have had Disestablishment without disendowment; they were after the money, and he noted that the Government had not attempted to deal with lay impropriators. The Bill was passing by a bargain with the Nationalists. The Home Secretary, in his reply, said that the Church was being disendowed because it held national property. Half the parochial endowments belonged to parishes with 27,800 communicants, some with less than five, the other half to parishes with 163,000. After Disestablishment, the total income of the Church if the voluntary subscriptions remained constant would be 511,000l. instead of approximately 556,000l. as in 1906. The loss of 45,000l. would be met by amalgamating parishes. The Bill would restore freedom to the Welsh Church. The third reading was carried by 328 to 251.
The financial resolution requisite for the Home Rule Bill was the subject of a stormy debate next day (May 20). The President of the Local Government Board explained its meaning and effect. It proposed to authorise the payment into the Irish Exchequer each year of a fixed sum based on the cost of the services to be administered by the Irish Government on the passing of the Bill, plus a subsidy of 500,000l. annually. The President of the Local Government Board explained that in 1912-13, when the Bill was introduced, Irish revenue amounted to 10,600,000l., expenditure on Irish services to 12,600,000l.—a deficit of 2,000,000l. But the increased revenue due to the pending Budget was estimated for 1915-16 as follows: Income tax, 185,000l.; supertax, 175,000l.; estate duty, 75,000l. As about 35,000l. of this was arrears, the normal yield of the new taxes in Ireland would be 400,000l. The additional grants would be in all 765,000l.,—education, 112,500l.; other services, 517,500l.; Post Office wages, 3,000l.; tuberculosis nursing and laboratories, 65,500l.; insurance, 65,000l.; collection of duties, 1,500l. After the Budget changes in 1915-16 the revenue would be 11,450,000l., the expenditure 14,150,000l., and the deficit 2,700,000l. No calculation, he told Sir E. Carson, had been made as to the amount of the new grant which would go to additional purposes in Ulster. The grants would be handed over to the Irish Parliament to dispose of as it pleased. He was much questioned by members, and Mr. T. Healy (I.N.) declared that Ireland was being tricked and over-taxed, while Mr. A. Chamberlain said that the Government were increasing the grievance that the Home Rule Bill was supposed to diminish—that Ireland had to keep up to the level of England, the richer country. Every time the burdens on Great Britain were increased, a heavier subsidy was to be paid out of British taxes to Ireland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied, saying that under Home Rule it would be possible to leave local services to the local Parliament. If money was to be raised from Ireland, it must be treated like Great Britain in distributing the funds, Ireland had been contributing 1,800,000l. to Imperial taxation; she was now getting 2,000,000l. After an amendment moved by Sir F. Banbury, providing that the payment in connexion with Irish services should not fall on the British taxpayer, had been rejected by 305 to 213, the resolution was carried by 303 to 215.
The remaining stages of the Home Rule Bill were to have been completed next day, May 21, but they were deferred through an outburst of passion on the part of the Opposition. At question time the Prime Minister, in answer to inquiries, stated that the Home Rule Bill would be introduced in the House of Lords, but he could not name the date, and refused to anticipate the disclosure of its contents there by a statement in the Commons. This course, he told Mr. Bonar Law, would be contrary to all Parliamentary precedent. This was resented by the Unionists and by some Liberals, among them Mr. Hogge (L., Edinburgh, E.). After the Report of the money resolution (p. [107]) had been carried by 316 to 228, and the Bill reported to the House without amendment by 316 to 227, Lord R. Cecil (U.), amidst a rising storm, moved the adjournment of the debate, on the ground that the Bill was to be passed before the House knew how it was to be amended. These amendments might change its whole character. The procedure of the Government was an insult to the Commons. Either they had not yet made up their minds, or they knew that their proposals would imperil the progress of the Bill. Mr. Worthington Evans, seconding, said the Government hoped again to raise the cry, "Peers versus People." The Prime Minister said that the language of the two last speakers would be appropriate if they were the dominant party dictating terms of surrender to an impotent minority. The Home Rule Bill had passed all its stages by substantially undiminished minorities, and represented the deliberate and considered judgment of the Commons. In its principle, details, and machinery it was a wise and statesmanlike measure; whenever the Government made any proposal towards peace it was treated as a hypocritical sham. Still they had made proposals in order to remove any possible sense of injustice and coercion, allowing the people to vote as to whether any would come in. But they must have as a preliminary the firm and deliberate judgment of the House on their main proposals. For that reason, the Amending Bill was to be introduced in the House of Lords. They had been told that whatever was done, that House would reject the Home Rule Bill. It would be waste of time to ask the Commons to spend weeks in elaborating suggestions which might be summarily rejected. The last voice in the matter would be that of the House of Commons. Mr. Bonar Law retorted that the Commons, after all, represented the people. If the Home Rule Bill was wise and just, why amend it, and why was the Commons not to know how it would be amended? He himself believed that the Prime Minister desired a peaceful settlement, but considered only what would give him a majority. He had gone back at Leeds on his speech at Ladybank (A.R., 1913, pp. 243, 219), and in his proposals on his speech on the Address (pp. 39, 21). He would not let the House know the proposed amendments because the Nationalists would not let him. They meant to pass the Home Rule Bill, and force the Prime Minister to use all the forces of the Crown to drive loyal men out of the Union. The course adopted was an insult to the Commons. A discussion of the third reading of the Home Rule Bill was an absurdity, and he could see absolutely no use in taking part in it. Among subsequent speakers, Mr. A. M. Scott (L., Glasgow, Bridgeton), Sir H. Dalziel (L., Kirkcaldy Burghs), and Mr. Pringle (L., Lanarkshire, N.W.) protested against the withholding of the terms of the Amending Bill, and Mr. Amery (U.) was sharply and repeatedly rebuked by the Speaker.
The motion for adjournment was rejected by 286 to 176, and Mr. J. H. Campbell (U., Dublin University) came forward to oppose the third reading of the Home Rule Bill. Before he had uttered a word the Unionists started a concerted cry of "Adjourn, adjourn." After it had continued for five minutes the Speaker rose, and asked the Opposition leader whether this was with his consent and approval. This unexpected and unprecedented question provoked an outburst of protest from the Opposition, and Mr. Bonar Law, after the cheers that greeted his rising had at length subsided, replied, speaking evidently under great excitement, "I would not presume, Sir, to criticise what you consider your duty. But I know mine, and that is not to answer any such question." The Opposition cheered savagely and waved handkerchiefs and papers, and the Speaker suspended the sitting in view of the grave disorder. The Opposition cheered their leader wildly as he passed out; some of them shouted taunts at the Ministerialists; one, carried away by excitement, stood before the Prime Minister and shouted abuse at him; the Liberals and Nationalists, meanwhile, laughed good-humouredly and made no response to the Opposition taunts. When the Prime Minister went out, however, they rose and cheered him enthusiastically.
The disturbance was thought to have been preconcerted, possibly in the lobbies during the division on the motion for the adjournment, and to have been suggested by Mr. Bonar Law's concluding words on that motion. At any rate it was in conformity with advice long ago given by the Observer (A.R., 1912, p. 156).