e "Black Sheep Bill") providing for
the discontinuance of writs of summons to undesirable members of the
peerage. The bills, however, were withdrawn after their second reading
and an attempt on the part of Lord Carnarvon, in 1889, to revive the
second of them failed.

*110. The Lords and the Liberal Government, 1906-1907.*--Thence-forward
until 1907 the issue was largely quiescent. During a considerable
portion of this period the Unionist party was in power, and between
the upper chamber, four-fifths of whose members were Unionists, and
the Unionist majority in the Commons substantial harmony was easily
maintained. During the Liberal administration of 1893-1894 the Lords
rejected Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill and mutilated and defeated
other measures; but, although the Liberal leaders urged that the will
of the people had been frustrated, the appeal for second chamber
reform failed utterly to strike fire. With the establishment of the
Campbell-Bannerman ministry, in December, 1905, the Liberals entered
upon what has proved a prolonged tenure of power and the issue of the
Lords was brought again inevitably into the forefront of public
controversy. In consequence of the Lords' insistence upon an amendment
of the fundamentals of the Government's Education Bill, late in (p. 105)
1906, and the openly manifested disposition of the Unionist upper chamber
to obstruct the Liberal programme in a variety of directions,[150] the
warfare between the houses once more assumed threatening proportions.
A resolution introduced by the premier June 24, 1907, was adopted in
the Commons after a three days' debate by a vote of 385 to 100, as
follows: "That, in order to give effect to the will of the people as
expressed by elected representatives it is necessary that the power of
the other House to alter or reject bills passed by this House shall be
so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single
parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail." It was
announced that a bill carrying into effect the substance of this
declaration would be introduced, and it was understood that the
Government's plan contemplated a reduction of the maximum life of a
parliament from seven years to five and the institution of a system of
conference committees whereby agreement might be effected upon
occasion between the two houses, reserving the eventual right of the
Commons, after a third rejection by the Lords, to enact a mea