A day earlier the Postmaster-General, speaking at Henley-on-Thames, had stated that, besides the measures to be passed under the Parliament Act, the Prime Minister within the year would lay before Parliament proposals for the complete elimination from it of the hereditary principle and the thorough democratising of the Second Chamber.
The Ministry thus sat tight and defied its assailants, and the Opposition felt that their best chance lay in Ulster. Mr. Austen Chamberlain made it the chief theme of his speech at Shirley, Hants, on January 23, when he declared that Ulster, in the last resort, would save herself by her own right arm, and that England would follow her example.
But within the Unionist party itself there was fresh trouble on fiscal reform. The Farmers' Tariff League appealed by advertisement to Unionist agriculturists, manufacturers, and those dependent on fixed incomes, to vote against supporters of the existing Unionist fiscal policy; Mr. Rowland Hunt, at the Horncastle branch of the Farmers' Union (Jan. 14), denounced the postponement of food duties (A. R., 1912, p. 267) as disastrous, and the existing tariff policy as "rotten." A 10 per cent. duty was too low for manufactured goods, and home food producers were left unprotected, although their contribution to rates and taxes was equivalent to a duty of 15 per cent. Mr. Hunt, of course, was an independent and irresponsible Unionist, but he did not stand alone.
More responsible Unionists, too, were constrained by the Government programme to concede that something must be done to redress the alleged social grievances, and to propound an alternative and more moderate policy. Thus Mr. Long, speaking at the Holloway Empire (Jan. 17), after referring briefly to the threatening cloud of civil war, and promising that a Unionist Ministry would ask for power to make the Navy adequate, criticised the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement in that hall (A. R., 1913, p. 247), pointing out that the number of separate freehold estates in St. Pancras was not ten, but 1,550. He went on to suggest that instead of the Chancellor's reform proposals, which would take some years to carry out and entail a horde of officials and much un-English Government interference, there should be (1) facility for continuity of tenure by industrial tenants in London and large towns under reasonable conditions, or else compensation for loss of tenancy; (2) reasonable compensation for tenants' improvements which increased the letting value; (3) protection or relief from unreasonable covenants restricting the development of property. The Unionists would give redress through a tribunal modelled on the Wreck Commissioners' Court, and a non-controversial Bill embodying these changes might be introduced in the coming session. This would redress the existing grievances in six or eight months, but, as with housing reform (A. R., 1912, p. 57) the Radicals were determined that the Unionist party should not have the credit of carrying a measure of social reform. [Other items of a Unionist "social programme" were understood to be in preparation.]
Meanwhile an important subject of non-contentious legislation for any Ministry that might be in office was afforded by the International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea, originally suggested by the German Emperor and called by King George, which had met in London on November 12, 1913, and signed a Convention as the result of its deliberations on January 20. Publication was postponed till it had been communicated to the eighteen Governments participating (among them those of Canada, Australia and New Zealand); but the results were summarised in a speech by Lord Mersey, the Chairman of the Conference. Five Committees had dealt respectively with Safety of Navigation, Safety of Construction, Wireless Telegraphy, Lifesaving Appliances, and Certificates. The provisions are too numerous to be given in detail here; it may be said that an international service under the control of the United States was established for dealing with ice and dangerous derelicts within certain limits in the North Atlantic; ice must be reported, speed reduced at night in its neighbourhood or the course altered, boat decks properly lighted, and Morse signal lamps carried. Steps were taken to revise the international regulations dealing with collisions. Strict regulations were laid down as to the subdivision of ships into watertight compartments, and other provisions against sinking, fire, or collision; and also as to the equipment of all merchant vessels of the contracting States, when on international voyages and carrying more than fifty persons, with wireless telegraphy; lifeboats or their equivalents must be provided for all on board, and there were minute regulations both as to these and as to other forms of life-saving apparatus; a specified number of men must be carried competent to handle boats and life-rafts; and provision was made for the detection of fire. Ships of the contracting States complying with the requirements of the Convention would receive certificates which each of the States would acknowledge. The Convention was to come into force on July 1, 1915.
A foretaste of the expected Labour troubles was afforded in London by a strike (Jan. 21), in very cold weather, of the coal porters, after the failure of negotiations with the employers for increased pay; two days later the coal carmen came out also, and the number on strike was about 10,000. Permits were at first given by the strikers, but afterwards stopped, for the carriage of coal to hospitals and infirmaries; but the clerks and travellers of the employers, and the students at the hospitals, volunteered to take the places of the strikers, and vehicles of all sorts, including motor-cars, were lent to replace the carts. The strike ended (Jan. 28) with concessions by the employers, one firm having previously given way. But the dispute in the London building trade (p. [3]) was more serious. The Master Builders' Association complained that, some twenty times in the past nine months, men employed on one or other building job had suddenly refused to work with a non-unionist; and they demanded that each employee individually should sign an undertaking not to strike against the employment of non-unionists, under penalty of a fine of 20s. The men declined to discuss these conditions; and on Saturday, January 24, a number were dismissed, and a general lock-out was threatened. There was some doubt if the proposed fine would be legally enforceable; and, as the men were dismissed, they claimed unemployment benefit under the Insurance Act, but in vain. And the dispute was complicated by the raising of other questions as a condition of the resumption of work. About a thousand of the men submitted; the great majority remained firm. Among other examples of unrest was a prolonged strike of chairmakers at High Wycombe, which led to some rioting; of the taxi-drivers of London; of the municipal employees at Blackburn; and of the elementary school-teachers in Herefordshire. And the Prime Minister (Feb. 3) felt constrained to decline the request made by a deputation of the Miners' Federation to extend the principle of the Minimum Wage Act to surface workers, thus widening the visible rift between Labour and the Government.
The militant suffragists, meanwhile, had not been inactive. A conservatory in the Glasgow Winter Garden had been damaged, and an unoccupied house near Lanark fired, on January 24; and two days later a deputation from the militant organisation submitted to the Bishop of London a statement (based wholly on inference) from Miss Ansell, a prisoner in Holloway Jail, to the effect that a fellow-prisoner, Rachel Peace, was being forcibly fed and brutally treated by the jail authorities. The Bishop, however, after personally investigating the matter and talking to Miss Peace, satisfied himself that the statement was unfounded. The Home Secretary was willing to advise Miss Peace's absolute release if she would undertake to abstain from crime; this she was conscientiously unable to promise, and, though the Bishop had pleaded that she might be released on licence, and she had agreed to abide by its terms, this course was impracticable under the Act. The Bishop's letter stating these facts was published January 31; the militants met it by interrupting the service while he was consecrating a church at Golder's Green next day, and on the day following another militant deputation asked him to visit two other women prisoners in Holloway, and state his experiences at a meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union. This last invitation he declined, but he visited the prison, talked to the two women, Miss Marian and Miss Brady, and found that while forcible feeding made one of them sick and gave the other indigestion, no harshness was shown them by the officials, and they complained of no personal unkindness. He told the militants, in conclusion, that their action was not only wrong, but impolitic. The militants were furious at this reply, and the Bishop's house was picketed by their emissaries, who were, however, unable to see him.
But none of these disturbing questions could interrupt the Home Rule controversy for long. Speaking at a Home Rule meeting of some 15,000 persons in Waterford on Sunday, January 25, Mr. John Redmond said that the British people remained absolutely unshaken in their support of Home Rule, and that, putting aside two unlikely contingencies, the Bill would in the current year automatically become law. The Prime Minister would not be intimidated into dropping it; he was the strongest and sanest Englishman of the day in British politics. Alarmist shrieks were filling the air, but business in Belfast and Ulster was booming, and the great body of the people of Great Britain remained unmoved. There could not be a war without two contending parties; and the Ulster "army" was for defence only, and would not be attacked. He saw no prospect of Ulster goodwill being purchased by any concession, but it was almost a blasphemy to say that "the Nationalists could do without them." Long ago he had said that there were no lengths, short of the abandonment of the principle of nationalism, to which he would not go, no safeguards to which he would object, which would satisfy the fears of Ulstermen for their religious interests. Subject to the limits recently laid down by the Premier (A. R. 1913, p. 220) he said the same that day, and was prepared to pay a big price for settlement by consent. The Nationalists of Ulster had shown admirable loyalty and self-restraint, and those of North Cork "magnificent discipline" in refusing a contest which, whatever its result, would greatly injure their cause (p. [6]). Ireland's travail was almost ended, and they were about to witness the rebirth of Irish freedom, prosperity, and happiness. Before the meeting Mr. Redmond had been presented with a number of addresses from public bodies, and had said that under Home Rule there would be a need for practical business men; politics would disappear, and their task would be to apply themselves to practical problems, and to lift Ireland from the slough of despond in which it had been for the past thirty years.
Sir Edward Carson replied next day, at Lincoln, that Mr. Redmond seemed to speak as if he held the Government in the hollow of his hand. If his speech were the last word, the country was in a lamentable and critical position. On the other hand, Mr. Birrell, at North Bristol, ridiculed the Unionist insistence on the danger of civil war as a mere party move; eulogised Mr. Redmond's speech, and said that before civil war began, Mr. Asquith would have stated to the world the opportunity offered to Ulster and refused. All Governments were experimental; Liberals saw that the only Government now possible for Ireland was one which should have the authority of the people and time for legislative work. Should the Tories come in, they would within six months be introducing a measure only colourably different from that on which they were threatening civil war.
Mr. Long, at Nottingham (Jan. 28), denounced the obscurity of this speech, and hinted at a suspicion that the Government were trying to force Ulster to prejudice its case by committing some act of violence; and Mr. Austen Chamberlain also replied to the Chief Secretary for Ireland at Skipton (Jan. 30), denouncing the Government for forcing on, during a time of turmoil abroad and at home, the Welsh Church, Home Rule, and Plural Voting Bills. They had found Ireland at peace, and brought it to the verge of civil war. Their methods had destroyed the moral basis of their authority. No concession worth speaking of would avert the dangers then threatening, unless it provided for the exclusion of Ulster from the sphere of a Union Parliament. The Chief Secretary's paper safeguards were of no value. The Lord-Lieutenant would be distracted between the advice of his Ministers and of the Imperial Government. He could not trust the Nationalists, nor, judging by the provisions in the Bill, could the Government. England was to conquer a province and hold it down at the expense of her friends and for the benefit of her enemies. Against this Ulster appealed to the nation, and the Unionist party would stand by them.