. A short history of England and the British Empire. nd a class. There arose, therefore, aninsistent demand for legislation that would curb the powerof the lords. The feeling that the upper house ought to be 1 Tuell and Hatch, No. 82. 2 Ibid., No. 77. THE PARLIAMENT ACT OF 1911 627 representative of all classes, creeds, parties, and interests wasshared by the Unionists as well as by the Liberals; The Asquithbut as to plans and methods there was hopeless Pr°P° The Asquith ministry decided to begin byreducing the power of theupper chamber and pre-pared a bill comprisingthree ch
. A short history of England and the British Empire. nd a class. There arose, therefore, aninsistent demand for legislation that would curb the powerof the lords. The feeling that the upper house ought to be 1 Tuell and Hatch, No. 82. 2 Ibid., No. 77. THE PARLIAMENT ACT OF 1911 627 representative of all classes, creeds, parties, and interests wasshared by the Unionists as well as by the Liberals; The Asquithbut as to plans and methods there was hopeless Pr°P° The Asquith ministry decided to begin byreducing the power of theupper chamber and pre-pared a bill comprisingthree chief points. (1) Thehouse of lords was to bedefinitely deprived of allpower over money bills. (2) The lords were to beallowed to delay legislationby rejecting a bill twice;but a bill passed threetimes by the house of com-mons in three differentsessions of the same parlia-ment was to become a law,if the commons insisted, nomatter what action wastaken in the upper house. (3) The maximum life ofa parliament was to be re-duced from seven to H. H. Asquith George V. Before the debate on the Asquith proposals had fairly begun,King Edward died and was succeeded by his son George events connected with the succession and thefeeling that the new king ought not to be plungedimmediately into a controversy over the constitution naturallydelayed action, and the discussion in parliament was notresumed before the following autumn. The house of lords nowpresented a plan for which Lord Lansdowne, the Unionistleader in the upper house, was the sponsor. Lord Lansdowneproposed that when the houses disagreed the question should 628 ENGLAND IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY be settled in a joint session ; and if the matter was one of un-usual importance, it should be referred to the people. TheLiberals could not accept a proposal for a joint session in whichthey would probably beoutvoted in every case,and the prime minister dis-solved parliament. In theelection that followed theparties retur
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