Ditchers
The Ditchers or Diehards were groupings of British nobility, so called because they were prepared to engage in a "last-ditch" stand against the Liberal government's reforms to the constitution.[1][2]
History
Background
In 1910, Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced the Parliament Bill, which would have removed the House of Lords' right to permanently block Bills coming up from the House of Commons. The Bill repeatedly passed the Commons by a large majority, but remained stalled in the House of Lords, which was largely made up of Conservatives and had no intention of seeing its powers reduced.
In order to force through the passage of the bill, Asquith asked King George V to create enough Liberal peers to give supporters of the draft law a majority in the House of Lords. The King agreed, but stated he would have done only if the Lords rejected the Bill another time. In the aftermath of this new announcement, those who had until then opposed the bill divided in two factions: the hedgers and the ditchers or die-hards.
Hedgers
Those who reluctantly decided to vote for Asquith's proposal were called "hedgers", a term used to define investors who "play it safe" and avoid risk as much as possible. "Hedgers" reasoned that the Lords by that point were unable to prevent the bill's passing and had only two choices: vote for the bill (allowing it to pass) or vote against it (forcing the Government to proceed with its plan to appoint several Liberal peers which would have voted in favour of the bill); the bill was going to be enacted regardless, and voting against it would only delay the inevitable by a few weeks at most. They believed no option was worse for Conservatives than a mass appointment of Liberal peers: had it materialized, Conservative Lords would have lost any semblance political influence, and the upper chamber would have effectively become a rubber stamp for Liberal governments. As such, they believed voting for the bill to pass in order to prevent the threatened appointment of Liberal peers was the least bad option.
Ditchers
Those who decided to take a principled stand against the Bill, feeling unable to vote for something they did not truly support, were called "last ditchers" or "die-hards". This latter category was mostly made up of Tory farmers, landowners, and aristocracy, who were staunchly opposed to all social 'equalitarian' reforms limiting the privileges of the Nobility.
Passage of the bill
The Parliament Bill passed in the House of Lords on 11 August 1911 with 131 votes in favor and 114 against; it was enacted as the Parliament Act 1911 shortly thereafter.
References
- ^ "Letter to Lord Willoughby de Broke". www.parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
- ^ Dennis, Alfred L. P. (August 1912). "The Parliament Act of 1911, II". The American Political Science Review. 6 (3): 386–408. doi:10.2307/1944526. JSTOR 1944526. S2CID 147091660.
- Phillips, Gregory D., The Diehards - Aristocratic Society and Politics in Edwardian England, Harvard University Press and London, England, 1979. ISBN 0-674-20555-3