The Reign of King Edward

The history of this reign—not long in years—is yet crowded with events, rich in national and Imperial developments, conspicuous in the importance of its discussions and international controversies. The first brief months, which have been already reviewed, saw the completion of the memorable Empire tour of the new Prince of Wales and the settling down of Australia to a life of national unity and progress; the conclusion of the South African War and the beginning of an extraordinary process of unification which was in a few years to evolve the Union of South Africa; the almost spectacular incidents of the Coronation and the important proceedings of the Colonial Conference of 1902. In July of this latter year the Marquess of Salisbury retired and was succeeded in the Premiership by his nephew, Arthur J. Balfour. To the King this meant the removal of a strong arm and powerful intellect and respected personality from his side and increased the importance of his own experience and prestige as a statesman.

Something has already been said of the qualities with which King Edward entered upon his task and with which it was conducted to the moment when in passing to his rest he said: "It is all over, but I think I have done my duty." The unique feature of his career in a personal sense was his amazing popularity, the real affection with which every class in the great community of the British Isles regarded him. In the days of his unofficial labours as Prince of Wales, Lord Beaconsfield greatly esteemed him and Mr. Gladstone was "devotedly attached" to him. At the latter's funeral the Prince went up to Mrs. Gladstone and in a spirit of spontaneous courtesy bent over her hand and kissed it with an air of sympathy so great as to be beyond the expression of words. It was little acts such as this that won unstinted liking for the man as well as loyalty to the King. It was this magnetism of the kindly heart, this instinctive courtesy of character, coupled with a remarkable dignity of bearing at the right moment and in the right place, and a rare memory for faces and incidents and peoples and places, that made King Edward so truly the Sovereign of his people. In this connection a religious orator of the Radical type in London—Rev. R. J. Campbell—told an audience in Toronto, Canada, on July 22, 1903, that "Queen Victoria is gone but her son remains and I would not exchange King Edward, with all the criticism that has been directed against him, for any Sovereign ruler on the face of the earth or any President of any Republic on either side of the water."

Following the visit to Paris of this year, which paved the way for better relations in the future between Britain and France, the King made a successful tour of a part of Ireland—July 21st to August 1st—and impressed himself upon the mercurial temperament of the sons of Erin. In September came the memorable retirement of Mr. Chamberlain from the Balfour Government; his declaration of devotion to the new-old ideal of limited protective tariffs for the United Kingdom plus preferential duties in favour of the external Empire; the split in the Conservative party and the presentation of a great issue to the people which, however, was clouded over by other policies in either party and had not, up to the time of the King's death, won a clear presentation to the people as a whole. Mr. Chamberlain's letter to Mr. Balfour dated September 8th expressed regret that the all-important question of fiscal reform had been made a party issue by its opponents; recognised the present political force of the cry against taxing food and the impossibility of immediately carrying his Preferential policy; suggested that the Government should limit their immediate advocacy to the assertion of greater fiscal freedom in foreign negotiations with a power of tariff retaliation, when necessary, as a weapon; and declared his own intention to stand aside, with absolute loyalty to the Government in their general policy but in an independent position, and with the intention of "devoting myself to the work of explaining and popularizing those principles of Imperial union which my experience has convinced me are essential to our future welfare and prosperity." In his reply the Premier paid high tribute to Mr. Chamberlain's services to the Empire, sympathized personally with his Imperial ideals and agreed with him that the time was not ripe for the Government or the country to go to the extreme length of his Preferential policy.

Mr. Chamberlain's action and policy gave a thrill of pleasant hopefulness to Imperialists everywhere; it stirred up innumerable comments in the British, Colonial and Foreign press; it made Germany pause in a system of fiscal retaliation and tariff war into which she had intended to enter with Canada—and with Australia and South Africa if they presumed to grant a tariff preference to Britain. Meanwhile, the King had suffered the loss, a personal as well as national one, of Lord Salisbury's retirement from office and his death not long afterwards; the Balfour-Chamberlain Government had struggled along until the Tariff Reform movement, as above described, broke in upon and dissipated the party's unanimity of opinion and uniformity of action; a long series of Liberal victories at bye-elections reduced the Conservative majority from 134 as it was in 1900 to 69 in November, 1905; Mr. Balfour, in his Newcastle speech of November 14th, defined his fiscal policy as (1) Retaliation with a view to compelling the removal of some of the restrictions in Foreign markets and (2) the calling of a Conference of Empire leaders to arrange, if possible, a closer commercial union of the Empire. As to himself he had never been and was not now "a protectionist." In December he resigned and the King called on Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Leader in the Commons, to form a Government.

A general election followed in which the Liberals swept the great towns of the country—excluding London and Birmingham—and came back with the largest majority in modern English history; the total of the Labour, Home Rule, Liberal and Radical majority being 376 over the supporters of Tariff Reform. The result, however, evoked on February 14, 1906, a declaration from Mr. Balfour in favour of "a moderate general tariff on manufactured goods and the imposition of a small duty on Foreign corn," and this united the Conservative or Unionist party with the exception of about sixteen Free-trade members who still followed the Duke of Devonshire. The rise of the Labour Party began at this election; the serious illness of Mr. Chamberlain followed and hampered Conservative work and progress; the retirement of the Premier took place early in 1908 and, on April of that year, the King called on Mr. Asquith to form the Ministry which carried its election in 1910 by so small a Liberal majority. The reconstruction of 1908 was notable for the rise or promotion of the fighting, aggressive, youthful elements in the new Liberalism—men like David Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill and Reginald McKenna. There followed the establishment of Old-Age Pensions at an initial expenditure of $40,000,000 a year; the prolonged and ultimately successful struggle to increase the taxation upon landed interests, property, and invested income by means of the much-discussed Budget of 1909; the natural resentment of the Lords, the Conservatives, and many who were neither—as illustrated in the subsequent wiping out of the Liberal majority in England itself; the constitutional issue which the Liberals so cleverly forced to the front with the House of Lords as their chief antagonists and which relegated Tariff Reform temporarily to the background; the prolonged period in which King Edward took minute and anxious and personal interest in the question.

There can be no doubt as to this interest or as to the natural and valid reasons for it. A House of Lords, either abolished or existing without power in the constitution, would leave no check upon the Commons except the King and this might be bad for both the Commons and the Sovereign. Over and over again in English history the people have reversed the action or vote of the Commons but if this was ever to be done in future it could only be through the interjection of the King's veto, and the bringing of the Crown into the hurly-burly of party struggle. This would be the very thing which all parties had hitherto endeavoured to prevent and for at least seventy years had been successful in preventing. Then came the general elections of 1909-10, with their continual query as to what the King would do if the Liberals did win. Would he accept the Government's policy and the proposed Commons legislation as to the Lords and thus take an active part in the destruction of one portion of the constitution which he was pledged to guard—through and by means of the creation of hundreds of peers to swamp the Conservative vote in that House? Or would he take the situation boldly in hand and insist on another election with this question of practical abolition of the Lords as the distinct issue before the people? It was little wonder that His Majesty's physicians should declare after his death that the political situation had been one of its causes! It must be remembered that in all countries the Upper House and the aristocracy are natural and inevitable, if not necessary, adjuncts to and supporters of a Throne. Where, as in Britain, that House and that aristocracy have upon the whole much to be proud of in personal achievement, much to be credited with in social legislation and still more to be approved of in the individual public work of its Salisburys, Roseberys, Devonshires, and a multitude of other historic personalities with, also, a close and vital interest in the country through large landed responsibilities, the situation can readily be appreciated. Not that the Monarchy was an issue in itself; but there can be no doubt, despite such speeches as the following quotation from Mr. Winston Churchill's address at Southport on December 8, 1909, that King Edward felt the danger of weakening his immediate, natural and fitting environment of (with certain exceptions) an energetic and patriotic aristocracy surrounding a popular Throne:

"There is no difficulty in vindicating the principle of a hereditary monarchy. The experience of every country and of all the ages show the profound wisdom which places the supreme leadership of the state beyond the reach of private ambition and above the shocks and changes of party strife. And, further, let it not be forgotten that we live under a limited and constitutional monarch. The Sovereign reigns but does not govern; that is a maxim we were all taught out of our school-books. The British monarchy has no interests divergent from those of the British people. It enshrines only those ideas and causes upon which the whole British people are united. It is based upon the abiding and prevailing interests of the nation and thus, through all the swift changes of the last hundred years, through all the wide developments of a democratic state, the English monarchy has become the most secure, as it is the most ancient and the most glorious monarchy in the whole of Christendom."