Question 1
Using these four sources in their historical context, assess how far they support the view that the
Budget of 1909 was a device to force a constitutional clash with the House of Lords.
Source A: The Chancellor of the Exchequer explains his reasons for the taxes contained in his Budget.
The Budget proposes taxes that provide for the aged and deserving poor. It is hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We are raising money for pensions for the elderly and to provide against the evils of unemployment and sickness. The rich are now protesting against paying their fair share of taxation. In framing the Budget I decided no-one’s lot would be harder to bear. By that test, I challenge the Lords to judge the Budget.
Lloyd George, speech, 31 July 1909
Source B: On the day the House of Lords rejected the Budget, a leading newspaper comments on the significance of the decision.
This event – the exercise by the House of Lords of an unquestionable right – is of the highest constitutional and historical importance. There is no precedent for a Government avowedly pursuing the policy of destroying the power of the House of Lords to reject or amend any measure that a temporary majority in the Commons may be pleased to pass, whether that measure is desired by the country. But that, and nothing else, has been the policy of the present Government, and the Budget is merely the culmination of a design deliberately adopted and steadily pursued.
The Times, editorial, 30 November 1909
Source C: In calling for an election, the Prime Minister explains his reason for doing so to the House of Commons.
We are living under a system of false balances and loaded dice. When the democracy votes Tory we are submitted to the uncontrolled domination of a single Chamber. When the democracy votes Liberal, a dormant Second Chamber wakes from its slumbers and is able to frustrate our efforts as it did with regard to education, licensing, measures for Scotland, and finance. They proceed to frustrate the clearest expressed intention of the elective House. The House of Lords have deliberately chosen their ground. They have decided to ignore in regard to finance the time-honoured conventions of our Constitution. We have not provoked the challenge, but we welcome it.
H.H. Asquith, speech, 2 December 1909
Source D: A member of the House of Lords explains his opposition to the Parliament Bill being debated in the House of Lords.
The Government manoeuvred the House of Lords into rejecting the Budget. Since 1906 the Liberals proceeded to legislate, not for the welfare of the people, but underlying the whole of their policy was the purpose of making war upon the constitution of this country. The rejection of the Budget is the very reason why your lordships should stick to your guns now. It is part and parcel of the same policy. We do not intend to allow the ancient tradition of parliamentary practice to be applied to a class of measures which has never been before parliament in the recollection of generations.
Lord Willoughby de Broke, speech, 9 August 1911
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