On the 30th November, the Finance Bill was resolutely rejected by the House of Lords, by 350 votes to 75. The Prime Minister, Asquith, subsequently moved a motion to dissolve Parliament, declaring the act to be a breach of the constitution and the rights of the Commons. The House of Lords had gone one step too far this time, breaking an ancient, yet unwritten constitutional ‘law’ forbidding the Upper Chamber from rejecting financial bills put forward by the elected Lower House. The issue was portrayed as one of the ‘peers versus the people’ at the ensuing election in January 1910 and Lloyd George toured the country addressing working class crowds and stressing that the rich landowners that filled the red benches of the Lords, would rather see the food of the masses taxed, rather than pay for important measures to fight poverty from their own overflowing pockets. His most renowned speech at Limehouse used particularly forceful language and even provoked a letter of complaint from the King.
The Conservatives suggested there were other ways to raise the money, such as tariffs on foreign imports, and that it was the duty of the House of Lords to restrain governments from making sweeping changes that the electorate had not voted on. The Liberals won the 1910 election, but only VERY NARROWLY. They in fact won by just two seats. The Irish Nationalists won 82 seats and the Labour Party 40, the Liberals therefore had to depend on Irish support to pass the budget and this they were willing to give, in return for an attack on the powers of the House of Lords. They were keen to see the Lords weakened so that they could achieve their desire for Home Rule for Ireland. As the Commons were able to show a majority for the Budget, endorsed by an election, the Lords at last agreed to pass the budget. However their overall political position was weakened as they were now in dependant on the Irish Nationalists, who were determined to achieve Home Rule, an issue which was highly controversial amongst politicians and the British public alike. This issue was very difficult to resolve and with hindsight would drag on for a very long time to come.
On the other hand, although the Conservatives had reclaimed the majority of the seats they had lost in the 1906 elections, the Liberals still won an important moral victory over the Lords and Conservative opposition. Politically the budget was also of high importance as it allowed the Commons to achieve a lasting victory of the House of Lords.
The second Constitutional Crisis came over the Parliament Act of 1911. The Liberals were determined that the House of Lords should never again block a measure passed by the House of Commons. In 1910, they therefore drew up a bill to curb the power of the House of Lords by taking away its power of veto. The 1910 Parliament Bill proposed that the House of Lords was to have no power to amend or reject those bills that the speaker of the Commons certified to be true money bills. The House of Lords was to have no power to reject other legislation, but could delay it for no longer than two years and finally that the maximum period between general elections was to be reduced from seven to five years.
Eventually George V agreed that he would create enough new peers to pass the Parliament Bill, as long as the Liberals won a general election fought on the matter. Another General Election was called for December of 1910, this resulted in Conservatives and Liberals winning the same amount of seats, however the Liberals again used the seats won by Labour and the Irish Nationalists to rely on a working majority and on August 1911 the Parliament Act became law. However once again Conservatives had clawed back more seats and The Liberal Party were again heavily reliant on the Irish Nationalists who were gaining more seats and putting pressure on the Liberals to pass an act of Home Rule for Ireland.
There was also more dependency on the Labour Party, who forced the Liberals to pass two further reforms with far reaching political consequences. The Payment of Mps Act was passed in 1911. Where as before 1911, members of Parliament received no salary, so only those with private income could afford to be Mps, this provided a State payment of Mps at £400 a year. In addition, the Liberals passed a new Trade Union Act in 1913 that allowed unions to impose a ‘political levy’ as part of members’ fees provided that members could ‘contract out’. Those trade unionists who did not wish to support the Labour Party financially could refuse to pay the part of their union subscription which the party received. These two acts helped widen representation in the Commons, allowing men of humble origins to stand as MPs. It also gave a huge boost to the Labour Party and ensured them of a steady flow of funds and a strong union backing.
However the passing of the Parliament Act was in some terms a great success as it ensured British constitution was more democratic and never again could the Lords permanently override the Commons and therefore political power had shifted decisively to the lower house. For example, there had never been a British Prime Minister sitting in the Lords since this date. There was also to be more frequent elections as the span of a government was reduced from 7 to 5 years, this meant the public would vote on who they wanted in government more often which meant a party could not develop such a long stint in power without having the full backing of the majority.
In conclusion, I feel the Liberal Party were not very successful throughout the Constitutional Crisis (1909-11) because although they won both elections involved and therefore passed the Budget of 1909 and the Parliament Act of 1911 and I also agree that the Liberals were successful in containing the constitutional crises however they became two dependant on other parties and this left them vulnerable to being ‘exploited’. They should therefore be deemed as unsuccessful as they lost over 100 seats since their ‘landslide’ victory of 1906, and also because they only managed scrape a majority in the two elections because of heavy dependency on the Irish Nationalists and the Labour Party.