uivalent to rejection. But even a few days before those amendments
were returned to the Commons the Conservatives refused to believe that
the passage of the Bill in its original form was guaranteed. When at
last it was brought home to them that, if necessary, the King would be
advised to create a sufficient number of Peers to insure the passage of
the Bill into law, a howl of indignation went up. Scenes of confusion
and unmannerly exhibitions of temper took place in the House of
Commons. A party of revolt was formed among the Peers, and the Prime
Minister was branded as a traitor who was guilty of treason and whose
advice to the King in the words of the vote of censure was "a gross
violation of constitutional liberty."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Asquith was adhering very strictly to the
letter and spirit of the Constitution. Lord Grey, who was confronted
with a similar problem in 1832, very truly said: "If a majority of this
House (House of Lords) is to have the power whenever they please of
opposing the declared and decided wishes both of the Crown and the
people without any means of modifying that power, then this country is
placed entirely under the influence of an uncontrollable oligarchy. I
say that if a majority of this House should have the power of acting
adversely to the Crown and the Commons, and was determined to exercise
that power without being liable to check or control, the Constitution
is completely altered, and the Government of the country is not a
limited monarchy; it is no longer, my Lords, the Crown, the Lords and
Commons, but a House of Lords--a separate oligarchy--governing
absolutely the others."

Had the Prime Minister submitted to the Lords' dictation after two
general elections, in the second of which the verdict of the country
was taken admittedly and exclusively on the actual terms of the
Parliament Bill, he would have basely betrayed the Constitution in
acknowledging by his submission that the Peers were the supreme rulers
over the Crown and over the Commons, and could without check overrule
the declared expression of the people's will. The Lord Chancellor
pointed out the danger in one sentence. "This House alone in the
Constitution is to be free of all control." No doubt the creation of
ten Peers would not have caused such a commotion as the creation of
400, but the principle is precisely the same, and it was only the
magnitude of partizan bias in the Second Chamber that made the creation