he
Conservatives are far from united upon the Chamberlain programme), the
principal issues which separate the two leading parties to-day are
those which arise from the Conservative attitude of friendliness
toward the House of Lords, the Established Church, the landowners, and
the publicans. Most of the political contests of recent years have
been waged upon questions pertaining to the constitution of the upper
chamber, denominational control of education, disestablishment, the
taxation of land, and the regulation of the liquor traffic, and in all
of these matters the Liberals have been insisting upon changes which
their opponents either disapprove entirely or desire to confine within
narrower bounds than those proposed. In the carrying through of the
Parliament Bill of 1911, providing a means by which measures may be
enacted into law over the protest of the Conservative majority in the
Lords, the Liberals achieved their greatest triumph since 1832. The
party stands committed to-day to a large number of far-reaching
projects, including the extension of social insurance, the revision of
the electoral system, the establishment of Home Rule, and, ultimately,
a reconstitution of the second chamber as promised in the preamble of
the Parliament Act. At the date of writing (October, 1912) there are
pending in Parliament a momentous measure for the granting of Home
Rule to Ireland[231] and another for the overhauling of the electoral
system,[232] an important bill for the disestablishment of the Church
in Wales, a measure virtually annulling the principle involved in the
Osborne Decision,[233] and several minor Government proposals. The
recent victories of the Liberals have been won with the aid of Labor
and Irish Nationalist votes, and the concessions which have been, (p. 164)
and are being, made to the interests of these auxiliary parties may be
expected to affect profoundly the course of legislation during the
continuance of the Liberal ascendancy.[234] There are, it may be said,
indications that the Liberals possess less strength throughout the
country than they exhibited during the critical years 1910-1911. At
thirty-eight by-elections contested by the Unionists since December,
1910, the Liberals have suffered a net loss of eight seats; and one of
the contests lost was that in Midlothian, long the constituency
represented by Gladstone, which returned, in September, 1912, a
Conservative member for the first time in thirty-ei