, late
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most of the ministers
were continued in their respective offices, but Mr.
Lloyd-George became Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Mr. Winston Churchill President of the Board of
Trade, Lord Tweedmouth President of the Council,
and the Earl of Crewe Secretary of State for the
Colonies.]

*167. The Liberals Versus the Lords: the Elections of January,
1910.*--Four years of conflict with the overpowering Opposition in the
upper chamber brought the Liberals to a place from which they neither
could nor would go on until certain fundamentals were settled. The
first was the assurance of revenues adequate to meet the growing
demands upon the treasury. The second was the alteration of the status
of the Lords to make certain the predominance of the popular branch of
Parliament in finance and legislation. During the two years
(1909-1911) while these great issues were pending the nation was
stirred to the depths and party conflict was unprecedented in
intensity. On the side of finance, Unionists and Liberals were in
substantial agreement upon the policies--especially old age pensions
and naval aggrandizement--which rendered larger outlays inevitable;
they differed, rather, upon the means by which the necessary funds (p. 160)
should be obtained. The solution offered in the Lloyd-George budget of
1909 was the imposition of new taxes on land and the increase of
liquor license duties and of the taxes on incomes and inheritances.
The new burdens were contrived to fall almost wholly upon the
propertied, especially the landholding, classes. To this plan the
Unionists offered the alternative of Tariff Reform, urging that the
needed revenues should be derived from duties laid principally upon
imported foodstuffs, although the free trade members of the party
could not with consistency lend this proposal their support. The
rejection of the Finance Bill by the Lords, November 30, 1909,
sweeping aside as it did three centuries of unbroken precedent,
brought to a crisis the question of the mending or ending of the
Lords, and although the electoral contest of January, 1910, was fought
immediately upon the issue of the Government's finance proposals, the
question of the Lords could by no means be kept in the background. The
results of this election were disappointing to all parties save t