Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/329

 labour parties, and one to the nationalists. Wales did not return a single unionist. Scotland only returned twelve, out of a total of seventy-two members. London (including north and south West Ham and London University sixty-two seats in all) returned twenty unionists, as compared with fifty-four in 1900. The rout of unionism was complete.

The liberals numbered 377, the labour members 53, and the nationalists 83, while the conservatives were only 132 and the liberal unionists 25. Independently of the Irish party the liberal and labour parties had a majority of 273 over the unionists. Not since the election of 1832, after the first reform bill, when the liberals numbered 486 against 172 conservatives, were the liberals in so strong a position. The first king's speech of Campbell-Bannerman's administration (19 Feb.) promised legislation on most of the lines to which the recent declarations of himself and his colleagues committed them. They pledged themselves at once to a policy of retrenchment and to a new education bill for England and Wales. Without directly raising the home rule issue, they announced undefined plans for associating the people of Ireland with the conduct of Irish affairs. Throughout the session Campbell-Bannerman took an active part in debate. At the outset the procedure of the House of Commons was revised with a view to economising the time of the house, and a Scottish grand committee was set up to deal with Scottish business (9 April). In South African affairs Campbell-Bannerman showed special resolution. While bringing Chinese labour to an end, he boldly insisted on establishing without delay full responsible government in the newly conquered Transvaal and Orange Free State colonies and on revoking the plan of the late government for giving a preliminary trial to a very modified scheme of representative government. The opposition declared this step unduly venturesome, but Campbell-Bannerman carried with him his colleagues and his party. After a committee had gone out to South Africa and had reported on the electoral basis of the constitution to be granted to the two new colonies, he announced the main provisions of the new responsible constitution on 31 July. The three domestic measures which mainly occupied the time of parliament were the education bill for the public control of all public money spent on education and for_the abolition of religious tests for teachers, the trades disputes bill for extending the rights of trades unions in trades disputes, and the plural voting bill for disallowing more votes than one to any voter. The discussion of these bills was prolonged through an autumn session. All passed the House of Commons by great majorities, although the trades disputes bill excited misgivings among some supporters who thought the prime minister making unwise concessions to his labour allies. 'C.-B. seems,' wrote the duke of Devonshire, 'prepared to go any lengths.' In the House of Lords all three bills were strongly opposed. The trades disputes bill was freely amended by the lords, but somewhat ironically they abstained from insisting on their amendments, and the bill became law. The plural voting bill was summarily rejected. Much negotiation took place over the lords' amendments to the education bill, but no compromise was reached, and the bill was dropped on the final adherence of the lords to their demand that in all non-provided schools denominational teaching should continue independently of the local authority. In the House of Lords the duke of Devonshire and the bishop of Hereford supported the government. Campbell-Bannerman on 20 Dec. laid the blame for the failure of the bill on Mr. Balfour, and argued that the lords' amendments would perpetuate and extend the very system which the bill was designed to abrogate.

But the action of the lords raised far larger issues than details of the education question. Campbell-Bannerman at the same time as he announced the withdrawal of the education bill charged the upper house with neutralising and thwarting and distorting 'the policy which the electors have shown they approve.' He warned the lords that the resources neither of the British constitution nor of the House of Commons were exhausted, and 'that a way must be found, by which the will of the people, expressed through their elected representatives in this house, will be made to prevail.'

In matters of foreign policy Campbell-Bannerman devoted his efforts to advocating arbitration for the settlement of international disputes, to urging the policy of limiting armaments by negotiation with rival powers, and to encouraging liberal sentiment in foreign countries. On 23 July 1906 there assembled in London the fourteenth inter-parliamentary conference, which was attended by members of the Russian duma, the newly instituted Russian parliament. Before the opening of the conference the duma was dissolved