Hugh Chisholm

“ The government had been losing ground in the country, and Mr Lloyd George and Mr Winston Churchill were conspicuously in alliance in advocating the use of the budget for introducing drastic reforms in regard to licensing and land, which the resistance of the House of Lords prevented the Radical party from effecting by ordinary legislation. The well-established doctrine that the House of Lords could not amend, though it might reject, a money-bill, coupled with the fact that it never had gone so far as to reject a budget, was relied on by the extremists as dictating the obvious party tactics ”

“ The discussions on the budget entirely monopolized public attention for the year, and while the measure was defended by Mr Lloyd George in parliament with much suavity, and by Mr Asquith, Sir Edward Grey and Mr Haldane outside the House of Commons with tact and moderation, the feelings of its opponents were exasperated by a series of inflammatory public speeches at Limehouse and elsewhere from the chancellor of the exchequer, who took these opportunities to rouse the passions of the working-classes against the landed classes and the peers. ”

“ There was no majority in the Commons for the budget as such, since the Irish Nationalists only supported it as an engine for destroying the veto of the Lords and thus preparing the way for Irish Home Rule. Instead, therefore, of proceeding with the budget, the government allowed the financial year to end without one, and brought forward resolutions for curtailing the powers of the Lords, on which, if rejected by them, another appeal could be made to the people (see Parliament) . ”