The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931

by Adam Tooze

Within a matter of months it agreed a compromise formula on female suffrage that would enfranchise millions of women, but maintain an overall male majority in the electorate. The only issue that was hotly debated in Parliament was the proposal to introduce an element of Proportional Representation. Designed to give a voice to minorities, it was Lloyd George who got this conservative provision dropped. The avoidance of conflict was striking. But it invites a question: What allowed a fundamental process of constitutional change to appear as little more than a procedural adjustment, ‘pre-chewed political baby food’, as one conservative fundamentalist commented?36 Beneath this idealized image of discursive agreement lay something more fundamental: a clear commitment by the leadership of both established parties to secure the legitimacy of the political process by ensuring that the reforms appeared neither as a bribe nor as a concession extracted by coercive threats.