The NUWSS’s main aim was to have equal voting rights between men and women, not to give every male the vote just the social equals to the men. The NUWSS was not only women, there were men as part of the organisation too, those who felt that women should too have a say in running the country. The NUWSS was commonly known as the suffragists. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst, the daughter of a wealthy cotton manufacturer, set up the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The members were known more commonly as the suffragettes, their slogan ‘deeds not words’, they believed in more direct action, their more militant purpose was to gain people’s attention. The Suffragettes became notorious for the actions that their members took to become noticed. In 1905 Christable Pankhurst, Emmeline’s daughter shouted out ‘Votes for Women’ during a speech by a government minister, she was arrested and imprisoned, this was a great deal in this era. 1908 two suffragettes chained themselves to the railing outside 10 Downing Street in London. But by far the most remembered Act for the suffragettes was in 1913 Emily Davidson at Epsom racecourse, where the Derby is held each year, where she flung herself in front of the king’s horse in order to stop the race waving the purple-white-green suffragette colours, but ended up by killing herself.
As you can see the suffrage movement made a large impact on the Liberals.
The constitutional Crisis was another major issue. The proposed budget included increased expenditure on both welfare and on defence. But how they were going to manage this as the budget wasn’t enough to support both for long (as well as smaller projects such as better roads, now the motor car was running more often), yet they couldn’t politically afford to cut back on either sector, they would have to increase taxes. Income tax was increased, including a super tax for incomes of over £5000, Death Duties were increased and a land tax was introduced on the increased value of land when it changes hands.
The conservatives in the House of Lords rejected the budget. The Conservatives were bound to criticise the budget as rich men who have a wealthy lifestyle and will be taxed on their land, their alcohol, their tobacco and their cars, but for them to declare this would damage their political status, as they would seem un-willing to contribute to the defence nor the relief of poverty in their country. The Conservatives’ objections to the budget were that it were a ‘class’ budget directed against the rich, and particularly land owners. They complained about the tax on petrol because at this stage the motor car was still a luxurious toy for the rich, the liquor taxes were a frontal attack on the brewing industry which since Gladstone’s days had been a conservative pressure group. They launched an attack on the budget not only in the house of commons but in the country.
Lloyd George tried to defend his budget by saying that we do need to have welfare and defence because its imperative that we have defence but it is equally important that they gave welfare, in order to have something worth protecting. “This is a War budget. It is for raising money to rage war implacable warfare against poverty and squalid ness”, this was part of a speech aimed at not only the house of commons but at the general public also, this would tell the public why the taxes were going up, that it was not only for protection but also to give the country something to protect.
The Crisis itself, the lords had not rejected a budget in over 200 years, this made it unconstitutional by the sheer amount of time between the two rejections .
The Liberals threatened a government bill that would pass using a vast creation of peers, although they needed to have another general election before this could be set up on orders of the King.
The Liberals called the election of 1910 because the Liberals were struggling against the highly conservative House of Lords, so they were going to try and put a government bill through which the Lords would almost certainly reject, so they realised they only was to overcome the resistance of the House of Lords was a vast creation of peers. But there was a problem with this, King Edward let Asquith know that the only way to do this was through another general election so they could put the precise terms of the constitutional revision squarely before the electorate. But the one problem was that the Liberals and Conservatives came very close in the election. This outcome of the election was a serious set-back for the Liberals. They won 275 seats which was only 2 above the Conservatives at 273.
The Parliament act of 1911 had stopped the Lords from voting on financial legislation and a limit of two rejections or amendments on other legislation in successive sessions within the life of a Parliament. The maximum duration of a Parliament was reduced to 5 instead of 7 years. In essence this means that means the Lords could expect to delay a legalisation for a minimum period of 2 years, assuming that the proposals were immediately passed again by the commons after each rejection as long as there was no general election in the interim.
The last issue that I’m going to be looking at will be Industrial Unrest, which along with the Suffragettes and Constitutional Crisis built up to make the problem that Britain face in the years of 1910-1914.
