would ask for power to increase the numbers and introduce election alongside of nomination, so as to have representatives of different classes. They would propose to repeal the prohibition of resolutions or divisions of the Council in financial discussions, and to empower Legislative Councils to discuss matters of public importance and to pass recommendations, which would not bind the Government. The existing power of appointing a member to preside would be extended; the numbers of the Bombay and Madras Executive Councils would be doubled, and the Lieutenant-Governors would be given Executive Councils. A majority of officials would be retained in the Viceroy's Legislative Council, but would cease to exist in the Provincial Councils, the danger being met with the power of veto. This course would be inconsistent if they were setting up a Parliament in India, but this he would never desire to do. An Indian member would be appointed on the Viceroy's Executive Council, and in this Lord Minto fully concurred. The appointment of native members on the Council of India had been a great success. He proposed also to appoint at least one native member on the new Executive Councils of Bombay and Madras, and in at least four other provinces. The Government believed these reforms would strengthen the British power. They needed, not military strength, but moral strength to guide and control the people of India. Though not what was called an Imperialist, he felt that the task was a great national honour and one of the most glorious ever confided to any country.

The Marquess of Lansdowne referred in cordial terms to the absorbing interest of Lord Morley's statement, and generally agreed with it, though he urged stringency as to Press offences; and Lord Macdonnell also approved broadly, but questioned the appointment of native members on the Viceroy's Council, and strongly urged that the blunder of the partition of Bengal should be undone. In the Commons, a similar statement was made by Mr. T. R. Buchanan, Under-Secretary for India, who described the problem as the greatest and most difficult problem of government with which our race had ever had to contend, and appealed earnestly for unity and spontaneity in the reform. No discussion followed; but the rapid passing of the Summary Jurisdiction Bill in India and the deportation of Nationalist leaders caused acute misgivings among Liberals in England.

The chief remaining item of Parliamentary interest was now the Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Bill, to which amendments were moved in the Lords on December 17: (1) by Viscount St. Aldwyn, permanently excluding the two windings from the statutory eight hours, which was carried by 136 to 37; (2) by Lord Newton, striking out the concession made to the mine-owners in Northumberland and Durham; and (3) by Lord Avebury, providing that the Bill should not become operative until January 1, 1910. In the Commons next day the first of these amendments was accepted by the Government-to the disappointment

of the Labour members-and the other two disagreed with; the Lords gave way, and the Bill became law.

A few minor measures, however, deserve brief mentionan East India Loans Act giving power to the Secretary of State to borrow in England for railway or general purposes in India, which became law, but was adversely criticised by Dr. Rutherford, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Keir Hardie and other advanced Liberal members (Dec. 7), who objected chiefly to burdening the natives for railway development; the Poisons and Pharmacy Act, which somewhat extended the facilities for obtaining poisonous preparations used in agriculture, and required chemists having two or more shops to place qualified managers in each; an Incest Act, making that sin criminal; a Tuberculosis (Ireland) Act and a White Phosphorus Matches Prohibition Act, the outcome of an International Conference at Berne, and designed to check one of the worst diseases of industry. Among the Government measures, the Housing and Town Planning Bill had shared the fate of the Irish Land Bill (p. 231); but the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill had passed after some amendment in detail in both Houses. So had a private members' Bill enabling local authorities to make regulations for the admission of the Press, and (in its final form) to exclude them by a bare majority. Mention must also be made of a product of the Suffragist agitation, the Public Meeting Bill, introduced by Lord Robert Cecil on December 10, and imposing penalties for disturbing meetings. Condemned by some Liberals as likely to stop "heckling" and the pointed interruptions often so effective at public meetings, it yet passed both Houses, and an amendment moved by the Earl of Donoughmore was inserted by the Lords, making it punishable by imprisonment to break up an election meeting between the issue of the writ and the polling day. The Suffragist agitation had also caused the appointment of a Select Committee on the admission of strangers to the House of Commons, which reported (Dec. 16) that visitors should be admitted by ticket and pledged to behave properly, and that disorderly conduct should be made punishable by imprisonment, the decision as to prosecution resting with the Speaker. Among other suggestions it advised the admission of both sexes to the Members' Gallery. The Suffragists, however, gloried in their conduct, and welcomed the "martyrs" of October 13 at a demonstration on December 22.

Parliament was prorogued on Monday, December 22, till February 16, 1909. The very lengthy King's Speech, read by the Lord Chancellor, referred with great cordiality to the visits of the French President and the King and Queen of Sweden, to the Treaty of Arbitration with the United States and that for regulating differences between the United States and Canada, to the North Sea Agreement and the Berlin Copyright Convention (post, Foreign History, Chapter II.); it took a hopeful view of the Near Eastern outlook, mentioned that negotiations were

pending with the Belgian Government for the safeguarding of the treaties affecting the Congo Territory in consequence of its transfer to Belgium; and touched on Indian affairs, the Quebec celebration, the visit of the American fleet to Australia, the South African Federation Convention, the Army and Navy, and the chief legislative measures of the session. The failure of the Licensing and Education Bills was referred to in a colourless paragraph, and incidental mention was made of "several Acts. of unusual scope and comprehensiveness for consolidating existing enactments in various departments of law." The Speech concluded thus: "I thank you for the zeal which has characterised your protracted and arduous labours, and I pray that they may be rewarded by the blessing of Almighty God."

On the day of the prorogation Mr. Lloyd-George addressed a large meeting at the Sun Hall, Liverpool, in connection with the annual meeting of the Tariff Reform Union. No women were admitted; but the militant suffragists made themselves faintly heard through a megaphone from a house opposite. He attacked the Peers, insisting that their House was purely a Tory assembly, but he did not state clearly how the Liberals meant to deal with the situation. He said that Ireland, where the House of Lords had had full play for generations, was an object lesson of the effect of its unfettered action on property and credit; that Wales had for forty years been denied religious equality by it, and would refuse to continue paying tithe or education rates; referred to Charles I., and declared that the Government would no longer stand the "usurpation of Lord Lansdowne and his Royal Consort in the Commons." They had to fight, and the first necessity was to challenge a direct issue on finance. Should social reform be paid for by Free Trade finance or by Tariff Reform? And here Mr. Lloyd-George fell upon a speech delivered by Mr. Wyndham in the same place at a Tariff Reform demonstration on December 9, in which he had complained that British business contained too large an element of banking and commission agency, and had promised a 2s. tax on wheat, and a tax on timber with a preference to the Colonies, and had made various grotesque mistakes in statistics and otherwise about British trade. Mr. Lloyd-George's own speech, however, was not entirely accurate in these matters, and was somewhat extravagant in style for a Cabinet Minister.

The National Reform Union favoured prompt abolition of the Lords' veto, but not necessarily by an immediate dissolution; and the general belief was that the issue would be joined over the Budget of 1909.

Outside Parliament, two incidents of the latter part of December call for notice. On December 15 the Earl of Cromer delivered an address before the Eighty Club on the position in

These were: the Agricultural Holdings Act, a similar Act for Scotland, the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, the Companies Consolidation Act, the Statute Law Revision Act, and the Post Office Consolidation Act.

Egypt, which was in essence an argument for delay in granting a Constitution, on the ground that it must take in all the inhabitants of the country and that any effective scheme was at present barred by the capitulations; there was scope for progress, however, in the development of provincial councils. On December 23 a remarkable memorandum was published, addressed to Sir Edward Grey, signed by Peers, Church dignitaries, Nonconformist leaders, members of Parliament, mayors, editors, and chairmen of Chambers of Commerce and other public bodies, expressing cordial satisfaction at his recent communication to the Belgian Government, in which he had insisted on the need for guarantees of the native communal rights in land and produce.

This was a reminder that further difficulties might arise in connection with this subject in the coming year; but there were more immediate causes for apprehension in regard to the Near East and Central Europe. The expectation of eventual friction with Germany had been sedulously intensified by the naval and military alarmists; and in Vienna unfounded suspicions were expressed as to supposed British intrigues. But the domestic situation was ominous of a crisis. Mr. Lloyd-George's speeches, notably that at Swansea (p. 198), had caused disquiet; and a casual remark of his in the Committee on the Old Age Pensions Bill (June 29)-"I have no nest-eggs; I am looking for some one's hen-roost to rob next year -was seized on as a compendium of Ministerial designs on property, and used as a fresh argument for Tariff Reform. It was understood that the struggle would centre on finance; but a heavy programme of legislation was also before Ministers, comprising Poor Law Reform, further measures dealing with unemployment (promised afresh to a deputation by Mr. Asquith on Dec. 15), the postponed Irish Land Bill, and electoral reform. True, the Opposition had but few able debaters, and some of these were Peers. But it was not clear when or how the Ministry meant to come to close quarters with the House of Lords; and, though most of their supporters preferred a postponement, a minority regarded it as an exhibition of weakness foreshadowing ultimate disaster.

CHAPTER VI.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

I. SCOTLAND.

IN Scotland, more than in the other divisions of the United Kingdom, the dominant interest of the year was economic. The bye-elections of April and May (pp. 100, 111) showed that the electorate, unlike that of England, had not abated that support of the Ministry which was so marked at the general election of 1906. The more advanced character of Liberalism

north of the Tweed was seen at the meeting of the Scottish Liberal Federation in October, which passed resolutions in favour of Disestablishment, Women's Suffrage, and Home Rule for purely Scottish affairs, and deplored the excessive outlay on armaments, though not without an emphatic protest in the name of the younger members of the party. But the second rejection by the House of Lords of the Small Landholders Bill in March (p. 61) and the alteration and consequent abandonment of the Land Values Bill (p. 159) were not followed by any visible wave of popular indignation, and Lord Dalmeny was the only Liberal member censured by his constituents for his opposition to the Ministry on them; and towards the end of the year it was believed by Unionists that the great efforts made to organise a propaganda in favour of Tariff Reform, coupled with the grave industrial distress, were tending to alter the current of political feeling. Unemployment was serious, especially in Glasgow, and the disturbances in September and the demonstration during the visit of Prince Arthur of Connaught (p. 195) indicated the activity of the Socialist party. The speeches in October of Mr. Balfour at Dumfries and of Mr. Asquith at Kirkcaldy and Leven (pp. 199, 201) were not predominantly concerned with Scottish issues, and some effort was made earlier in the year to win Scottish sympathy for the English Licensing Bill. A more comprehensive measure was promised for Scotland by the Prime Minister (p. 198), but the great legislative feature of the year was an Education Act (p. 231) containing several provisions much in advance of the English law. Another notable Act affecting Scotland consolidated its agricultural law.

One episode of the land question attracted much attention in Parliament. The case of the Vatersay crofters, which had been going on since the spring of 1906, was set forth by Mr. Balfour in his speech at Glasgow on January 17 (p. 3) as a proof that the Crofters Act, the principles of which it was proposed to extend to the Lowlands, had utterly failed to check congestion. Lady Gordon Cathcart, the landlord of Barra and other islands of the Hebrides, had multiplied small holdings, but had not thereby permanently relieved congestion; and eventually, in June, 1906, a number of the inhabitants, impatient at the nonfulfilment of hopes which they believed to have been held out to them by the agent of the Congested Districts Board, invaded the island of Vatersay, which together with Sandray was leased to one tenant, put cattle on it and subsequently built huts for themselves. It was questioned if the island was suitable for small holders; however, Lady Gordon Cathcart reluctantly offered to let them remain, but suggested that the Government should purchase the island, and should compensate the tenant in any case; the Scottish Secretary, however, treated the settlement as a matter for the landlord, and refused to put the Trespass Act in force against the squatters. Interdicts had been served on