Mr. Wedgwood (L., Newcastle-under-Lyme) mentioned that unless the local authorities were limited to using the grants for improvements, the Liberals who desired taxation of land values would block all other legislation, and Mr. Steel Maitland (U., Birmingham, E.) said that what was wanted was not control by the Treasury but control of the Treasury.

On May 11, after further criticisms, the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied. He remarked that nothing had been said of Tariff Reform. The criticisms were "muddle-headed and contradictory"; the money raised would help employment in more effective ways than those it was supposed to injure. Grants in aid had been applauded and asked for by the Opposition, and the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896 had been financed out of the revenue from Sir William Harcourt's death duties. He admitted that the taxes on small incomes raised certain grievances, but the difficulty was that allowance on unearned incomes was hampered by collection at source. The case of widows with small incomes and children would be met by doubling the allowance made [under the Budget of 1909] for the children, and in other cases by extending rebates on application-which, however, would involve the establishment of a horde of officials. For incomes under 3001. the tax would be 1s. instead of 1s. 2d. As to the settlement estate duty he promised to consider one case-where a testator left a life interest in his property to his wife with reversion to the children; but as to the other taxes, there was really no criticism. The Government would insist, before the money was distributed, on a valuation differentiating between improvements and site value, and on a statutory provision that relief should be granted only in respect of improvements, not of site; till this could be done-in the second half of the financial year 1915-16-there would be provisional arrangements for distribution. He defended the expenditure as a good investment and spoke of "a 1s. 4d. extra insurance against revolution." His defence was severely criticised by Mr. Long (U.), but the Budget resolutions were agreed to by majorities varying from 81 (in the case of the tea duty) to 102 in the case of the tax on earned income, which was carried by 290 to 188. The members dividing numbered approximately

370 to 400.

Meantime a well-meant effort towards at least a provisional solution of the women's suffrage question was being attempted in the House of Lords by the Women's Enfranchisement Bill, conferring the Parliamentary franchise on those women-estimated at about 1,000,000-who possessed the municipal suffrage. The Earl of Selborne, in moving it (May 5), after condemning militancy as "not only criminal, but stupid," said that there were very few facts in dispute. Many of the most able and highly educated women earnestly desired the franchise, and even if many women did not, that was no reason for depriving those who did,

Women would divide along the same lines as men. The antisuffragists held at bottom that only the fit should vote, but in that case many men would lose the vote, and many women would have it. Instinct and character had to be considered more than fitness, and he thought women generally cared more for their religion and their country than men did. The Bill would therefore add to the stability of the State. The majority of those whom it would enfranchise were poor women-many of them widows with children-who had fought the battle of life and triumphed. Dominion and American experience was treated as irrelevant, but the human nature of women was the same. Women would be on the side of the angels against the political machine. Earl Curzon of Kedleston, opposing, held that the measure would weaken British prestige. Hitherto Bills affecting the franchise had always originated in the Commons. The great majority of the women admitted by the Bill would be unmarried, and if women were to be enfranchised at all, married women were the best qualified. Only 25 or 30 per cent. of the municipal women electors voted, and an insignificant number stood. To give women the vote would entail their admission to Parliament and the Cabinet. The militant organisation was widespread and powerful, and militancy was widely connived at by other organisations, such as the Church League for Women's Suffrage. Would it cease if women got the vote, or be carried into politics? The question was not of equality of the sexes, but of fitness to discharge public duties. The million would eventually be swollen to five or ten millions, and then women might combine as a sex against men. Lords Newton and Tenterden supported the Bill; so did the Lord Chancellor, partly on the ground of the need of women's help in industrial questions and social problems, notably in infant mortality and the decline of the birth rate. Militancy was a bad symptom which showed the need of action. Lord Ampthill opposed the Bill; the Bishop of London avowed himself a convert, in spite of the bomb placed under his throne (A.R., 1913, p. 112). The unrest was caused by a deep-seated feeling of injustice. The qualification for municipal bodies excluded all women but a tiny minority. Housing, the raising of the age of consent, and Sunday closing needed the support of women's votes. The Bishop of Oxford also strongly supported the Bill, eulogising the suffragist women. Next day Lord Courtney of Penwith supported the Bill" as a small experiment," dwelling on the progress made by the women's movement, not yet fifty years old, and dwelling on the action of women in School Board elections, on Royal Commissions, and in political work. Of later speakers, Lord Willoughby de Broke complained that the Press suppressed the public expression of the movement and so misled the public as to its strength; Viscount St. Aldwyn said that the municipal franchise was the least suitable basis for extension, and

the Bill would be rejected by the electorate. He deprecated the increasing activity of women in political work. The Marquess of Crewe thought that, while the cause of women's suffrage was making progress, the country was not yet convinced. Amid laughter, he said that, regarding the Bill as a purely Conservative measure, he would give a purely party vote against it. The Earl of Lytton said that separate legislation for women implied their separate representation. There were five million women workers competing with men represented in Parliament. Women, he showed in detail, had given overwhelming evidence of their demand for the vote, and would be satisfied with any removal of the sex disability. The Bill would settle no more than that. He laid stress [being the brother of a militant] on the magnificent qualities wasted in militancy-courage, self-devotion, self-sacrifice -waste which could only be stopped by granting the demand. The Bill was rejected by 104 to 60.

Brief mention only can be made of two discussions on subjects unexpectedly illuminated by the later experience of the year. On May 6 Mr. Morrell (L., Burnley) moved a resolution in favour of negotiation for the abolition of the capture of private property at sea; and the Foreign Secretary specified the terms on which the Government would agree. And on May 13 Mr. Bird (U., Wolverhampton) moved a resolution demanding State provision against the danger of starvation and enforced capitulation in case of war. He claimed that six months' supply of wheat should be ensured, as the actual amount in the country was sufficient for only six weeks, except just after harvest, when sixteen weeks' supply existed, and he advocated a scheme of free storage, suggesting also reduced taxation on grain-growing land and the building of swift grain ships. A scheme of Government insurance of foodcarrying ships was suggested in the debate. The President of the Board of Agriculture indicated that such a scheme was under examination, and further that the question of supply had been carefully studied, and that it had been ascertained that there need be no anxiety in war time, provided the arrangements made for distribution were carried out. The chief source of security must be the Navy. Both motions were talked out.

The monotony of the political struggle was somewhat relieved by the state visit of the King and Queen of Denmark (May 9-13), who were received alike by their Royal relatives and by the people of London with all possible honour and goodwill. Both Kings laid stress in the speeches at the state banquet at Buckingham Palace (May 9) on the growth of commercial and friendly intercourse between the two nations; so did the King of Denmark and the Lord Mayor at the entertainment given by the City Corporation at the Guildhall (May 12); the Order of the Garter was conferred on the Danish monarch, the visitors were entertained at a gala performance at the opera, and presented with an address

by the Common Council. The visit, however, had probably no great political significance.

The Parliamentary conflict was resumed when the Prime Minister introduced a resolution (May 12) to dispense with discussion on the Committee stage of the Home Rule, Welsh Church, and Plural Voting Bills, and on the financial resolutions necessary for the two former measures. The discussion on the financial resolutions, he said, had proved valueless in 1913; and the so-called "suggestion stage" was intended to apply only to exceptional cases-to the correction of some error or oversight, or to amendments consistent with the principle and purpose of the Bill in question. But the Opposition declined any responsibility for the Home Rule Bill, so that the consideration of suggestions was nugatory. The only proper way of carrying out an agreed settlement, for which he hoped, was by an Amending Bill. The House would be asked to give the Home Rule Bill a third reading before Whitsuntide, but the Government would go forward another step, and make itself responsible for an amending Bill, which might pass-perhaps not in its original shape-practically at the same time as the Home Rule Bill. As to the Welsh Church Bill, the suggested amendments, which seemed to have been put down as part of a concerted policy, would completely transform the Bill into a measure which the House could not accept. The House of Lords might amend these Bills if it liked, and the Commons would consider their amendments. To the Plural Voting Bill no amendments were suggested. The course proposed evoked protests from the Opposition, and Mr. Bonar Law (U.), in a bitter speech, declared that the Parliament Act had taken the interest out of the debates. Ministers did not trouble to attend, and great damage had been done to the House and still more to the representative system. The forces which would decide the Home Rule question were outside the House. He charged the Government with a change of front on the suggestion stage with regard to the Welsh Church Bill; whether they had it or not now depended on the House of Lords. It would be quite possible to let the Chairman select suggested amendments for discussion. As to the projected Amending Bill, he saw less hope of a settlement than there had been six months earlier; the Government must either (1) submit the Bill to the country, (2) coerce Ulster, (3) or exclude Ulster. While refusing all responsibility for Home Rule, the Unionists, if it were to be carried, would do their best to help the Government to carry it without civil strife. The only conversations of any interest would be those between the Prime Minister and Mr. Redmond. attributed the Ministerial refusal to disclose the Amending Bill to Mr. Redmond's insistence that the Home Rule Bill should pass before Whitsuntide, so as to strengthen the Nationalist position. When it had passed, however, the Nationalist members

He

would find it difficult to make concessions, and the Ulstermen would have no confidence that the Amending Bill would pass, and so there would be a real and unnecessary risk of bloodshed.

Mr. Gladstone (L., Kilmarnock Burghs) protested against the suppression of the suggestion stage for the Welsh Church Bill as a bad precedent and an encroachment on the independence of members. Later, Mr. Balfour (U.) said that the suggestion stage, for which the Speaker had had to improvise the machinery, was ill thought out at first and excessively difficult to work in practice. He complained that the House was asked to force through under the Parliament Act a Bill admittedly requiring amendment without knowing how it was to be amended. They were to vote without knowing what the real measure was which was being forced on the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer retorted that, if every offer by the Government was to be treated as an admission that their proposal was defective, that was the way to promote civil war (a declaration which caused a stormy scene). He added that the proposals embodied in the Amending Bill were known to be those made by the Premier (p. 39), and that a suggestion stage on the Welsh Bill would be useless if, as had been intimated, the House of Lords meant to reject it. The Opposition wanted one, in order to waste time and to embarrass the Government. Mr. Redmond said that the Government had had another lesson as to the inevitable effect of making advances to the Opposition. He could not, however, approve of the Prime Minister's decision to introduce an Amending Bill even if the negotiations between the leaders should fail, and if one were introduced after such failure he held himself absolutely free to deal with it. It could not be passed except by agreement, and every fresh offer by the Government only hardened the Opposition, who had made no concession. He was prepared to run great risks and make great sacrifices for a peaceful settlement, but the position in which it was sought to put the Nationalists was unfair and intolerable. They had the consolation of knowing that the vision which had sustained them would be realised. (Mr. Redmond's closing words were greeted with prolonged Liberal cheers.) Later, Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen (U., Dudley) moved an amendment declining to restrict the time for discussing the remaining stages of the Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills till the Government had given an opportunity for discussing suggestions for amendment. Eventually this was rejected by 293 to 217; but, at the instance of Mr. Cassel (U., West St. Pancras), an opportunity was given for discussing the financial resolution under the Home Rule Bill. The Government's motion, thus amended, was carried by 276 to 194.

Just before the first of these divisions a Unionist victory was announced at the Grimsby bye-election, due to the death of Sir George Doughty (Chron., May 12). The Unionists retained the