Free Past Caring by Robert Goddard Page A

defence. I myself was subject to some energetic interrogation by Christabel—a qualified barrister—but my experience in the House of Commons enabled me to refute her guileful arguments. My contention that the laudable theory of female suffrage was being done more harm than good by her antics cast me in a good light both in court and in the press, though I was wigged afterwards in a note from the Prime Minister for letting slip my private views.
    Lloyd George invited me home for a drink after our court appearances and I expressed my fear to him that on female suffrage, as on some other issues, we were allowing more radical elements—
    such as the Labour Party—to steal our thunder. He agreed, point-
     

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    ing out that, whilst the House of Lords’ Tory majority continued to veto Liberal legislation , it could hardly be otherwise. But he said he hoped to do something about that and, as events showed, he was as good as his word.
    Lloyd George’s fulfilment of his pledge was the Budget of 1909.
    Well I remember the many Cabinet meetings during March and April which pored over that gargantuan , revolutionary document.
    What he had contrived to do was to meet all the various claims upon the Exchequer—from an expansion of the navy to counter Germany, to the requirements of the new old age pension—by an extensive raid upon the resources of landed wealth, by income tax, super tax, death duties and, most dreaded of all, land value duties. And behind it all, as we argued the details back and forth, was an awareness that the Lords would never bear such a blow at their class. And since their rejection of a Budget was unprecedented, this was bound to bring to a crisis their repeated veto of other legislation. How it would be resolved nobody knew or cared to guess, certainly not the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, in the absence of any alternative and with Asquith’s awe of Lloyd George ensuring that none would be found, we pressed forward. On 27 May 1909, the Finance Bill was issued in its final form and so was set in motion a trial of strength between the two Houses of Parliament.
    Yet I remember that warm spring evening of May 27 for quite other reasons. I returned to my house in Mallard Street tired and thoughtful, wanting nothing so much as some peaceful solitude in which to turn over these portentous political events in my mind. I had resisted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s wish to place a constable at my door and so there was only Prideaux—my father’s old valet who had come up to London with his wife to attend to my wants since my father’s death—to greet me at home. He took himself off to the kitchen to instruct Mrs. P to prepare supper for me, she being well-used to my irregular hours. I poured myself a scotch and sat down to peruse that morning’s Times . This was my first opportunity of the day for some rest and relaxation. I embarked upon it a single-minded young politician with thoughts fixed upon weighty matters of constitutional import, oblivious to the imminent explosion into my world of a personal but far more potent force.
     
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    I set down the newspaper and crossed to the window, tiring for a moment of editorial speculation. As I toyed with my drink and gazed out onto the street, softly lit by evening sun , I observed a slim, elegant young lady dressed in grey pass by the window and turn in at my door, then heard the sound of a letter landing on the doormat.
    My curiosity aroused, I hurried out into the hall and picked up the letter. It was, in fact, only a note on plain paper, folded in half.
    Unfolding it, I was taken aback to see that it read: “Whilst women are denied the vote, politicians shall have no peace.”
    At this point, there was the sound of breaking glass from the drawing room, splintering the quietude of evening. Glancing back into the room, I saw a half housebrick lying on the carpet where I had just been standing, shards of