1861, would have been submitted to both Houses in the form of separate
Bills. The House of Commons, however, has not yet attained the position
of full unqualified sovereignty, for, whilst the relations between the
King and the Commons have been harmonised by making the King's Ministry
dependent upon that House, the decisions of the House of Lords are not
yet subject to the same control. The Lords successfully rejected the
Education, Licensing, and Plural Voting Bills, all of which were passed
by the Commons by large majorities during the Parliament of 1906-1909.
Further, it refused its consent to the Finance Bill of 1909 until the
measure had been submitted to the judgment of the country, and by this
action compelled a dissolution of Parliament.[2]

_The demand for complete sovereignty._

These assertions of authority on the part of the House of Lords called
forth from the Commons a fresh demand for complete sovereignty--a demand
based on the ground that the House of Commons expresses the will of the
people, and that the rejection by the hereditary House of measures
desired by the nation's representatives is directly opposed to the true
principles of representative government. In consequence of the rejection
of the Education and Plural Voting Bills of 1906, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, in June 1907, moved in the House of Commons the
following resolution: "That, in order to give effect to the will of the
people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary
that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by
this House, should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the
limit of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall
prevail." The first clause of this resolution advances the claim already
referred to--that the House of Commons is the representative and
authoritative expression of the national will--and in support of this