a university of the residential type, like that in which he had himself been an undergraduate. A highly contentious measure was also carried in the Land Act of 1909. But a new power was coming to the front, at once assisting and thwarting our efforts. Mr. Lloyd George put a new fighting spirit into Liberalism: but the objects which he had at heart could only be achieved by a great expenditure of electoral power, and among those objects Irish self-government found only a secondary place. When Mr. Gladstone spoke of liberty he thought of what he had helped to bring to Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Montenegro—what he had tried to bring to Ireland. When Mr. Lloyd George spoke of liberty, he thought of what he wanted to bring to England first, and to Ireland by the way; his conviction that Ireland needed self-government was not so deeply rooted as his conviction that the poor throughout the United Kingdom needed help.
Old Age Pensions had been popular, but had not been a fighting issue. Mr. Lloyd George provided the fighting issue with a vengeance when he set himself to pay for them. Unfortunately, Nationalist Ireland had no enthusiasm for the Budget which English Radicalism made its flag. A country of peasant proprietors was easily scared by the very name of land taxes. But above all the Finance Bill dealt drastically, and many thought unfairly, with the powerful liquor trade, which in its branches of brewing and distilling included the main manufacturing interest of southern Ireland, and on its retail side was incredibly diffused through the whole shopkeeping community.
The dissident Nationalists saw their chance. Mr. O'Brien emerged from one of his periodic retirements to lead a whirlwind campaign against the "robber Budget." Redmond and our party were obliged to oppose a measure which pressed so hard as this undoubtedly did on Ireland. Our opposition to the land taxes was withdrawn when valuable concessions had been made, but no such compromise was considered possible on the liquor taxes. On the other hand, it grew clear that the measure was likely to produce a conflict in which the power of the House of Lords might be challenged on the most favourable ground: and for that reason, when the third reading was reached, the Irish party abstained from voting against it. This course, while it facilitated close co-operation with Liberalism in the general election which followed, weakened us in Ireland; and eleven out of the eighty-three Nationalist members returned in January 1910 ranked themselves as outside the party; though Mr. O'Brien's actual following was limited to seven Cork members and Mr. Healy.
IV
The action of the Lords in rejecting the Budget of 1909 had an important personal result. It placed Mr. Asquith in a rôle which no one was ever better qualified to fill—that of a Liberal statesman defending principles of democratic control menaced after a long period of security. The Prime Minister, not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now became the protagonist; and this was to Redmond's liking, for he felt that Mr. Asquith was more concerned with the problems which had occupied Gladstone's closing years and Mr. Lloyd George with those of a later day.
Yet in the first grave encounter after the rejection of the Budget, Redmond and the leader of the Liberal party came to sharp differences. The general election had amply justified the advice which was urged by him on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when the House of Lords rejected the Education Bill in 1906—namely, that the Liberal party should take up at once the inevitable fight before their enormous strength had been frittered away in a series of disappointments. The majority of 1906 was too swollen to be healthy: owing to the ruling out of Home Rule, it included a number of men only partial adherents of the full Liberal programme; and a diminution of its proportions owing to the traditional swing of the pendulum was certain. But in January 1910 the losses were more than even sanguine Tory prophets predicted. Tories came back equal in strength to the Liberals: Labour was only forty, so that the Irish party held the balance in the House.
The election had been fought expressly on the issue of Government's claim to enable a Liberal Government to deal with certain problems, among which the Irish question occupied the foremost place. It was easy now for the Tories to argue that the Government appealing to the country on that issue had lost two hundred seats. They said: "You have authority to pass your Budget—but for these vast unconstitutional changes you have no mandate." The temper of their party, which had more than doubled its numbers, was very high: in the Liberal ranks depression reigned and counsels were divided.
At the beginning of the election Mr. Asquith had made a great speech in the Albert Hall in which he outlined the Liberal policy. In it he declared that the pledge against introducing a Home Rule Bill was withdrawn, and that the establishment of self-government for Ireland, subject to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, was among the Government's main purposes. But the House of Lords was in the way.
"We shall not assume office and we shall not hold office unless we can secure the safeguards which experience shows us to be necessary for the legislative utility and honour of the party of progress."
This was universally taken to mean that he would obtain a guarantee that the King would, if necessary, consent to the creation of sufficient new peers to override the hostile majority. But as the election progressed, uncertainties developed and an alternative policy of attempting to reform the Upper House was advocated in certain quarters. The question arose also as to whether the first business of the new House should be to pass the Budget which the Lords had thrown out or to proceed with the attack on the power of veto.
Redmond's view on this was not in doubt. At a meeting in Dublin on February 10, 1910, he declared in the most emphatic manner that to deal with the Budget first would be a breach of Mr. Asquith's pledge to the country, since it would throw away the power of the House of Commons to stop supply. This speech attracted much attention, and the memory of it was present to many a fortnight later when Mr. Asquith was replying to Mr. Balfour at the opening of the debate on the Address. The Prime Minister dwelt strongly on the administrative necessity for regularizing the financial position disturbed by the Upper House's unconstitutional action. He indicated also the need for reform in the composition of that House. But, above all, he disclaimed as improper and impossible any attempt to secure in advance a pledge for the contingent exercise of the Royal prerogative.
"I have received no such guarantee and I have asked for no such guarantee," he said.
The change was marked indeed from the moment when he uttered in the Albert Hall his sentence against assuming office or holding office without the necessary safeguards—an assurance at which the whole vast assembly rose to their feet and cheered. Every word in his speech on the Address added to the depression of his followers and the elation of the Opposition. Redmond followed him at once. In such circumstances as then existed, it was exceedingly undesirable for the Irish leader to emphasize the fact that his vote could overthrow the Government: and the least unnecessary display of this power would naturally and properly have been resented by the Government's following. No one knew this better than Redmond, yet the position demanded bold action. His speech, courteous, as always, in tone, and studiously respectful in its reference to the position of the Crown, was an open menace to the Government. He quoted the Prime Minister's words at the Albert Hall, he appealed to the House at large for the construction which had been everywhere put on them; and it was apparent that he had the full sympathy not only of his own party and of Labour, but of most of Mr. Asquith's own following. He concluded in these words:
"If the Prime Minister is not in a position to say that he has such guarantees as are necessary to enable him to pass a Veto Bill this year, and if in spite of that he intends to remain in office and proposes to pass the Budget into law and then to adjourn—I do not care for how short or how long—the consideration of the Bill dealing with the veto of the House of Lords, that is a policy which Ireland cannot and will not support."
The effect on the House was such that no one rose to continue the debate. Next day it was resumed, and not only Labour speakers, but one after another of the Liberals, including some of the Prime Minister's most docile, old-fashioned supporters rose and declared that Redmond and not the Leader of the House had expressed their views. So began a remarkable struggle in which the combined
