After the passage of the budget there followed six months of conference between the two front benches, to find a basis of reform for the House of Lords upon which all could unite. When it became evident that this was impossible, the government again prorogued Parliament and went to the people for a mandate on the question of "reforming the Lords." The Liberals and their allies were, for a third time, returned to power, and in February, 1911, the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, introduced his "Parliament Bill," taking from the House of Lords the power to amend a money bill so as to change its character. If any other bill passed by the Commons is rejected by the Lords, the Commons can pass it over their veto; and if this is done in three consecutive sessions of the same Parliament--provided two years elapse between the introduction of the bill and its third rejection by the Lords--it becomes a law. The law is intended as a preliminary measure. The preamble states that it is the intention of the government to provide for a second chamber "constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis." The bill was so amended by the Lords as to change its character and returned to the Commons. The Prime Minister then informed the leaders of the opposition that the King, "upon the advice of his ministers," had consented to create enough peers to insure the passage of the bill in its original form. Rather than have their house encumbered by 400 new peers, the Lords gave a reluctant consent to the measure that virtually destroyed the bicameral system in England.
This profound constitutional change, that practically makes England a representative democracy pure and simple, was unaccompanied by any of those popular and spectacular demonstrations one naturally expects to see on such occasions. The debate in both houses rarely touched the pinnacle of excitement, its fervor was partisan rather than patriotic.[36]
In 1832, when the hereditary peers stood in the way of the Reform Bill, which had passed the Commons by only one majority, the populace rose _en masse_, surged through the streets of the capital, and threatened the King and his Iron Duke,--whose statue now adorns every available square in the city,--and made it known that their wishes must be respected. To-day the people, secure in the knowledge of their supremacy, scarcely notice the efforts of the opposition, in its attempts to bolster the falling walls of hereditary prerogative in representative government. So far has England assumed the air of democracy.