Moreover, the North-East Derbyshire bye-election (Chron., May 20) resulted in a Unionist success, due, indeed, to a split between the Liberal and Labour parties, whose joint aggregate poll had increased largely as compared with that of December, 1910, though the Unionist poll had also somewhat increased. But still it meant a Unionist gain, to be followed by many others if the split were not speedily closed. Again, a keen electoral contest was in progress at Ipswich (Chron., May 25). For the seat vacated by the sudden death in the United States of Mr. Silvester Horne (L.), Mr. Masterman, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and recently defeated in Bethnal Green, was the Ministerial candidate, and the struggle in an always uncertain constituency was so acute that both Sir Edward Carson and the Chancellor of the Exchequer went down on the last day to speak for their respective sides. The former laid stress on the determination of the Ulster people to resist Home Rule, and declared that he had never been so proud of his leader as he had been on the occasion of the scene in the House; the latter declared that the scene was part of a deliberate plot for destroying representative government, because the Tories saw that the people meant to use it for their own redemption. Ipswich had 1,700 old-age pensioners; it was getting 21,400l. a year on that head, 35,000l. out of the Insurance Act, and some 15,000l. out of the new Budget; the weary and the heavy laden in all climes were looking with hope to England. All this, of course, the Unionists denounced as a direct appeal to the cupidity of the people. And, in an essentially working-class constituency, the Liberals lost the seat. Not only was Mr. Masterman defeated by 532 votes on a poll of 12,675, but the combined Liberal and Socialist vote was 137 below that given to the Unionist victor.
Possibly the Unionist satisfaction at this new success helped to intensify the calmer feelings brought by the week-end, and by the diversion of the attention of members to a non-party measure, the Weekly Rest Day Bill. At any rate, when the House reassembled on Monday, May 25, it reverted to its best traditions. After the introduction, amid enthusiastic Unionist cheers, of the two new members, Major Bowden (U., Derbyshire, N.E.) and Mr. Ganzoni (U., Ipswich), the Speaker made a personal explanation. He now understood that the Opposition had had some reason when they interrupted the debate on May 23 to expect that a statement would be made by the Prime Minister; and with regard to the Opposition leader he was betrayed into an expression he ought not to have used. He did not mean to imply that Mr. Bonar Law was responsible for the demonstration, and he was sure that he might always look to the leaders to maintain order. He suggested that the Prime Minister should give further information as to the Amending Bill. Mr. Bonar Law expressed his gratitude to the Speaker for his generous statement, and then the Prime Minister, after associating himself with the tribute paid by the Opposition leader to the dignity and impartiality of the Chair, stated that the Amending Bill would give effect to the terms of agreement if arrived at, and, if not, to the proposals outlined on March 9 (p. [39]). Mr. Bonar Law, while acknowledging the conciliatory tone of the Prime Minister's speech, held that it had not altered the situation. The strain on the minority was more than they could stand. The climax was reached then, when the House was asked to give a final verdict on the Irish policy of the Government without knowing what it was. It was useless to discuss the third reading. Ring down the curtain, the sooner the better. The Government had the power to carry their Bill through Parliament, but not in the country.
The Prime Minister replied with dignity that he held his office not as the slave of taskmasters, but by the consent and with the confidence of the majority of the House. He contrasted the ample opportunities of debate enjoyed by the Opposition since 1906 with the position of the Liberals in the preceding Parliament, and declared that it was because the balance had been redressed against the Liberal party that the Opposition took up its present attitude. The Amending Bill was introduced, not because Ministers thought the Home Rule Bill imperfect, but for the sake of peace.
Mr. W. O'Brien (I.U.) denounced the "resurrecting of the House of Lords" and the introduction of the Amending Bill as designed merely to put off the day of disillusion. So long as it was clogged by an Amending Bill, partitioning Ireland, it was a Bill for the murder of Home Rule.
The third reading was passed by 351 to 274. A scene of great Nationalist enthusiasm followed. Then, after a brief and discursive debate on the occasion of the adjournment, the House adjourned for the Whitsun recess.
Two Liberals (Sir Clifford Cory and Mr. Agar-Robartes) voted against the Bill, and Mr. Pirie abstained, as did the eight Independent Nationalists. Three Nationalists and two Labour members were absent through illness.
Mr. Redmond that evening told a representative of the Freeman's Journal that "the Union, as we have known it, is dead," and that, while no amendment of the Bill was desired by either the Government or the Nationalists, it was worth paying a great price to ensure that the Bill should come into operation peacefully. He appealed earnestly to Irish Unionists for a conciliatory discussion of points on which they required further safeguards. There was no disorder, as had been feared, in Ulster; but the strain was severe, and Sir Edward Carson, speaking at Mountain Ash, South Wales, three days later, declared that the third reading was only the first act in a gruesome tragedy, and that the Government would only hold Ulster as a conquered province, if at all.
Two minor Bills, described by the Nation as "signs of a new spirit of freedom sweeping powerfully through the world," proposed respectively to prohibit the traffic in recommendations for titles and honours, and to permit any holder of a peerage or baronetage to disclaim it by deed poll lodged in the Chancery Division, in which case it would lapse. The former was introduced by Mr. O. Locker-Lampson (U., Hunts, Ramsey), the latter by Mr. Ponsonby (L., Stirling Burghs). Neither got very far, and the former was not quite untinged with party politics; but they at any rate marked a reaction against a craving for artificial distinctions which had reached proportions hitherto unknown in English life.
More definite signs of social change were exhibited in the series of further outrages by militant suffragists. As usual, some were very grave in character, others merely vexatious and even childish, but all were carried out with great determination by women for whom the punishments provided by the law appeared to have no terrors. On April 17 the pier pavilion at Yarmouth had been burnt down, apparently through the explosion of a bomb; on April 28 the Bath Hotel at Felixstowe, just made ready for the season, was also burnt, the damage being estimated at 35,000l.; on May 4, at the first public view of the Royal Academy Exhibition, a portrait of Mr. Henry James, the novelist, presented to him by his admirers and painted by Mr. Sargent, R.A., was damaged with a chopper by Mrs. Mary Wood; a week later (May 12) a similar outrage was committed on Herkomer's portrait of the Duke of Wellington in the same exhibition; at the gala performance in honour of the King of Denmark at the Italian opera (May 11) there were unsuccessful attempts to interrupt the performance by addressing King George V.; while on May 14 the houses of Lord Lansdowne and Sir Edward Carson were picketed by suffragists to emphasise the contention that the Ulster leaders should also be treated as in revolt. A few days later a cricket pavilion was burnt at Harborne, near Birmingham (May 15), and a like fate befell the grandstand and offices on the Birmingham racecourse; and on May 21 a deputation of women, in defiance of the principles of British constitutional government, attempted to force their way to Buckingham Palace to present a petition against forcible feeding to the King. The police had formed a cordon around the Palace, and a crowd had naturally assembled; the procession appeared suddenly to emerge from it near the top of Constitution Hill, and the painful and distressing spectacle was presented of a conflict, before a jeering crowd, between a group of women and the police. Sixty-six women and two men were arrested, and, for the most part, was sentenced to be bound over to keep the peace; they refused to be bound over, and were sentenced in default to one day's imprisonment. Others, sentenced to longer terms of incarceration, were speedily released after hunger-and-thirst strikes. Mrs. Pankhurst, who had appeared in the front of the procession, was rearrested, but released again after four days' thirst-and-hunger strike, and her arrest was the signal for fresh outbursts. The day after it five very valuable Italian pictures at the National Gallery were damaged, as well as a picture by Mr. Clausen, R.A., at the Royal Academy; and hence the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the Tate Gallery, and a few days later the Watts Gallery near Guildford, were closed till further notice. Again, at a special matinée of "The Silver King," attended by the King and Queen (May 22), a woman stood up and addressed His Majesty as "Russian Tsar"; another interrupter had chained herself to her stall; and others in the galleries showered suffragist literature on the audience. Next day Mr. Lavery's portrait of the King in the Royal Scottish Academy was damaged, and an attempt was made to cut off the aqueduct supplying Glasgow with water from Loch Katrine; but the criminals in this last case escaped. Finally, windows were broken at Buckingham Palace on May 27. The two Felixstowe incendiaries were sentenced at the Suffolk Assizes (May 29) respectively to nine months and two years' imprisonment, but the "Cat and Mouse Act" afforded them a certain, though painful, escape. A more efficient method of suppression was foreshadowed by the raiding of a flat on May 21 at Maida Vale, where several women and a man were arrested, and stones, hammers, and choppers were seized. Two days later, the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union in Kingsway were raided also, and the secretary was charged with conspiring with the inmates of the Maida Vale flat. The accused persons, following the example of the Felixstowe criminals, behaved outrageously in court, and their conduct and, indeed, the whole of the outrages, probably gave a severe set-back to the suffragist cause.
The Labour outlook, too, continued alarming. The railway servants' leaders decided on May 16 to demand the recognition by the companies of their trade union, a forty-eight hours' week, and an increase of wages in all grades by 5s. weekly; and in the building trade, the ballot taken upon an offer of compromise by the employers, which the men were advised by their leaders to accept, resulted, on the contrary, in its rejection by 21,017 votes to 5,705. The struggle was causing extreme suffering, and was kept up with a determination ominous of its long continuance. And behind all these signs of multifarious social unrest loomed the spectre of civil war.