ill
to-night," he declared, "then his Majesty will consent to such a
creation of Peers as will safeguard the measure against all possible
combinations in this House, and the creation will be prompt." In
numbers the "Die-hards," as they were called, were known to exceed a
hundred, and it was extremely doubtful right up to the actual moment
when the division was taken if the Government would receive the support
of a sufficient number of cross-bench Peers, Unionist Peers, and
Bishops to carry the Bill. After a heated debate, chiefly taken up by
violent recriminations between the two sections of the Opposition, the
Lords decided by a narrow majority of seventeen not to insist on their
amendments, and the Bill was passed and received the Royal assent.

Now that the smoke has cleared off the field of battle, let us state in
a few sentences what the Parliament Bill which has caused all this
uproar really is. It is by no means unnecessary to do this, as those
who take a close interest in political events are, perhaps, unaware of
the incredible ignorance which exists as to the cause and essence of
the whole controversy, especially among that class of society who read
head-lines but not articles, who never attend political meetings, but
whose strong prejudices make them active and influential. The
Parliament Bill, or rather the Act, does not even place a Liberal
Government on an equal footing with a Unionist Government. It insures
that Liberal measures, if persisted in, may become law in the course of
two years in spite of the opposition of the Second Chamber. It lays
down once and for all that finance or money Bills can not be vetoed or
amended by the House of Lords--which, after all, is only an indorsement
of what was accepted till 1909 as the constitutional practise--and it
limits the duration of Parliament to five years. The preamble of the
Bill, which is regarded with a good deal of suspicion by advanced
Radicals, indicates that the reform of the Second Chamber is to be
undertaken subsequently.

This is the bare record of the sequence of events in the Parliamentary
struggle between the two Houses, each supported by one of the two great
political parties. In the course of the controversy the real
significance of the conflict was liable to be hidden under the mass of
detail connected with constitutional law, constitutional and political
history, and Parliamentary procedure, which had to be quoted in
speeches on every platfor