Contents - Constitutional Court of Georgia

62
Lucas Prakke
‘dreadnoughts’. Something needed to be done about this fast, and the resources also needed to be
found for the recently introduced old-age pension. So the Chancellor of the Exchequer needed a lot
of money, and he had drafted his plans to cover this need in line with the principle of those with the
strongest shoulders carrying the heaviest burden. For this reason, and because the plan contained
a number of social measures, it soon came to be called ‘the People’s Budget’. After a war of attrition
lasting months, during which the Tories did not shrink from using any form of obstruction, the
budget was finally passed by the House of Commons in November 1909. In the meantime, however,
it had become fairly clear that the Lords would reject this Finance Bill, basing their authority
to do so on the argument that in view of the social measures it contained the bill could no longer
be counted among the category of ‘money bills’, legislation of a kind that the Lords by reason of
long tradition were supposed to leave alone. At first Asquith did not think this possible: ‘That way
revolution lies’, he had said, but it still looked as though it was going to happen. Roy Jenkins, the
author of Balfour’s Poodle, rejects the theory that the People’s Budget was deliberately aimed at
being unacceptable to their Lordships and tempting them to act recklessly. What is certain is that
Lloyd George and other radical ministers, e.g., Winston Churchill, hoped by November 1909 that
the Lords would reject the Finance Bill and thus dig their own grave. On 4 November the House of
Commons finally passed the Finance Bill. In celebration Lloyd George, who for months had worked
his fingers to the bone to achieve this, gave a dinner party at which the only toast appears to have
been: ‘May the Lords reject the Budget’. Which they actually did on 30 November 1909 by 350
votes to 75, knowing full well that this would result in the dissolution of Parliament.
* * *
When Parliament rejects an important bill, a government can resolve to acquiesce in this. That
is what Gladstone did in 1893 when the House of Lords rejected his Home Rule Bill, and so did
the Campbell-Bannerman government when the Lords rejected the Education Bill and numerous
others. They could have dissolved Parliament, but they did not; neither did they step down. They
stayed on and continued to govern. A government whose Finance Bill is rejected does not have this
latter option. All it can do is resign or dissolve Parliament, because without money it is impossible to
govern. It was clear to everyone that Asquith and his cohorts would take on the Lords. Actually, the
confrontation had been postponed for far too long. Parliament (i.e., the House of Commons) was
dissolved with the aim of allowing the electorate to referee in the dispute between the government
and the Lords about the Finance Bill and, more generally, about the government’s programme of
legislation. At an election meeting held in the Albert Hall on 10 December 1909 Asquith impressed
on his audience that one of the three most important matters in these elections was ‘the effective
limitation and curtailment of the legislative powers of the House of Lords’, and he continued: ‘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.’ 24
24 Ibid., p. 109 and 122.