4. Liberal challenges and crises

Question 1

What did the Conservative Lords see the People’s Budget as?

Answer 1

An attack on the rich

Question 2

When did the Lords reject the People’s Budget?

Answer 2

November 1909

Question 3

When the Lords rejected the People’s Budget, what convention did they break?

Answer 3

The unspoken agreement that the Lords should not interfere with any monetary bills. The Liberal government was left with no legal authority to collect taxes

Question 4

What were the Liberals forced to do because of the Lord’s veto? When did they do it?

Answer 4

• Forced to call a general election
• Called one January 1910

Question 5

What was the Liberal’s slogan for the January 1910 election?

Answer 5

‘The Peers versus the People’

Question 6

How did the Liberals try to fight the election of January 1910?

Answer 6

Whether Britain should be governed by a majority of elected MPs in the Commons or non-elected, hereditary Lords peers

Question 7

How did the Conservatives campaign in the election of January 1910?

Answer 7

By suggesting there was other ways to raise money and that the Lords were right to stop the government making sweeping changes that the electorate hadn’t voted for - that was their job!

Question 8

Who won the January 1910 election?

Answer 8

The Liberals (very narrowly)

Question 9

How did the Liberals get an overall majority?

Answer 9

• They only had a majority of two
• This forced them to appeal to the Irish Nationalists to support the passing of the budget in return for an attack on the powers of the Lords
• They wanted to see Lords weakened to achieve their desire for Home Rule

Question 10

What did the 1910 Parliament Bill propose?

Answer 10

• House of Lords would have no power to reject bills that the Commons speaker says are money bills
• House of Lords would have no power to reject bills for other legislation but can delay it for two years with a ‘suspensory veto’
• Max period between general elections reduced from 7 to 5 years

Question 11

What was the issue with passing the Parliament Bill?

Answer 11

• Could easily be passed by the Commons
• Any bill to curb the Lord’s power would actually have to be passed by the Lords themselves

Question 12

What solution did Asquith come up with to pass the Parliament Bill?

Answer 12

• Ask King Edward VII who, with the power to create new peers, could flood the Lords with enough Liberal peers to outvote the Conservative peers
• He promises to do this

Question 13

Who died suddenly in May 1910?

Answer 13

Edward VII

Question 14

How did the new King try to deal with the constitutional crisis? How did the Conservatives and Liberals react to this?

Answer 14

• Tried to get the Liberals and Conservatives to simply agree on a solution without creating new peers
• Constitutional Conference between June and November 1910
• Conservatives offer to reform the composition of the Lords but the Liberals stay determined to reduce constitutional powers
• Conservatives insist that the Lords should have power to veto any constitutional change unless the electorate approved a change in a referendum

Question 15

What did George V agree to do after the constitutional conference broke down?

Answer 15

Finally agreed to create more Liberal peers to pass the Parliament Bill as long as the Liberals won a general election about the issue

Question 16

When was the second 1910 election held?

Answer 16

December

Question 17

When did the Commons finally pass the Parliament Bill?

Answer 17

May 1911

Question 18

What did the Lords do when faced with whether to pass the Parliament Bill?

Answer 18

• Sharp divisions ensued about whether to pass it
• On August 11th 1911, the Lords actually showed sufficient enough support to pass the Parliament Bill in order to ensure they didn’t become swamped with Liberal peers

Question 19

What were Conservatives who cooperated with the Parliament Bill nicknamed?

Answer 19

‘the rats’

Question 20

Who led the faction of the Lords that was undecided about the Parliament Bill? What were their nicknames?

Answer 20

• Lord Lansdowne
• Nicknamed ‘the hedgers’

Question 21

Who led the faction of the Lords that was starkly against the Parliament Bill? What were they nicknamed?

Answer 21

• Willoughby de Broke
• Determined to oppose the bill ‘to the last ditch’ and therefore called ‘the ditchers’ or ‘diehards’

Question 22

What impact did the constitutional crisis have?

Answer 22

• Divided the Conservatives so much that Balfour was forced to resign leadership in Nov 1911
• Andrew Bonar Law succeeds Balfour
• Makes the constitution more democratic
• Liberals can move on with their legislative programme for reform

Question 23

Which Liberal was an open opposer to the issue of female suffrage?

Answer 23

Asquith

Question 24

What were the obstacles in the way of women being enfranchised?

Answer 24

• Campbell Bannerman was half-hearted in support for female suffrage. Asquith opposed it
• Political parties didn’t know how a female vote would impact politics and which party (between Liberals and Conservatives) it would benefit. Many Liberals were scared it would disadvantage the party
• Social reforms were taking up too much Liberal time. They couldn’t tackle another issue
• There were still some males who couldn’t vote which was meant universal male suffrage and women’s suffrage was intertwined
• Not all women support female suffrage
• Belief that men and women operate in different societal spheres: public vs private

Question 25

What did the NUWSS stand for?

Answer 25

The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies

Question 26

Who established the NUWSS? When?

Answer 26

Millicent Fawcett in 1897

Question 27

What did NUWSS members believe in to achieve their goals?

Answer 27

Non-violent methods eg discussions, processions, petitions, public meetings

Question 28

How many members did the NUWSS have by 1914?

Answer 28

500,000

Question 29

What did the WSPU stand for?

Answer 29

Women’s Social and Political Union

Question 30

Who founded the WSPU? Why?

Answer 30

• Emmeline Pankhurst (along with daughters Christabel and Sylvia)
• Did it out of frustration that the NUWSS was lacking progress in achieving women’s suffrage

Question 31

What suffragettes actions were happening between 1911 and 1914?

Answer 31

Things like arson, physical assault, and hunger strikes upon arrest/imprisonment

Question 32

What suffrage bill was thrown out in 1906?

Answer 32

An amendment to a voting bill that would have meant some women property owners were enfranchised

Question 33

What suffrage bill did the Commons reject in 1907?

Answer 33

A women’s suffrage bill

Question 34

What suffrage bill was passed in 1908? Why was it ultimately rejected, however?

Answer 34

• A women’s suffrage bill
• Ultimately rejected because of Asquith’s opposition

Question 35

When was Black Friday? What happened on Black Friday?

Answer 35

• November 1910
• 300 suffragettes try to storm the lobby of the House of Commons, angry at the refusal of a conciliation bill being implemented earlier that year (which would’ve given around a million wealthy property owners the vote)
• With an expectation that this would happen, police from rougher areas were sent to deal with it, leading to excessive police brutality. The crowd was also anti-suffrage, adding more violence to the crowd
• ## 119 suffragettes arrested, some sexually assaulted

Question 36

What developments in the suffrage movement took place in 1911?

Answer 36

• Second conciliation bill is rejected by Asquith
• On a census night in Parliament, Emily Davison hides illegally in a broom cupboard in Parliament
• National League for opposing women’s suffrage is formed

Question 37

What developments in the suffrage movement took place in 1913?

Answer 37

• Prisoners’ Discharge Act (informally known as the Cat and Mouse Act) leads to suffragettes who had been refusing food to be released and then re arrested once they’d regained strength, after there was public outcry about the force feeding of suffragettes with a metal clamp a feeding tube put in their mouth
• Emily Davison throws herself under the King’s horse in the Derby. She dies and her funeral is used as a suffrage demonstration
• January 1913, the government introduced a bill that gave universal male suffrage, but an amendment to enfranchise women is declared unconstitutional

Question 38

What idea of women did Coventry Patmore introduce and support?

Answer 38

• The “Angel in the House” view of women
• Showed the common idea that women were supposed to be supportive, domestic, submissive, obedient, and stay in the private sphere