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William Waldeg Rave Palmer Selborne

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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William Waldegrave Palmer Selborne

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"WILLIAM WALDEG RAVE PALMER SELBORNE, 2ND Earl Of (1859-), English politician ( see 2 4.599), on his return from the governorship of South Africa resumed his prominent position in the House of Lords. He took an active share in defending the House against Liberal attack, and was one of the leading " Die-hards " who maintained an uncompromising resistance to the Parliament bill. In regard to Irish Home Rule, he constantly pressed for a referendum to the people. As a former First Lord of the Admiralty, he contributed decisively to the condemnation passed by the House on the Declaration of London. When the World War came he was largely occupied with his military duties with the 3rd Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment; but he joined the first Coalition Ministry as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. As minister he appointed a committee of technical experts and practical agriculturists, under the chairmanship of Lord Milner, to report on the means of maintaining and increasing food production in England and Wales; but, fortified by the opinion of a Scottish committee appointed for the same purpose, he and the Government rejected the English committee's recommendation to guarantee farmers a minimum price of 45s. a quarter for the four years following the harvest of 1916. He preferred a plan for organization and cooperation through the county councils and the Board of Agriculture. In June of the following year he resigned his office because he disapproved of the Irish policy accepted by Mr. Asquith's Government as a result of Mr. Lloyd George's negotiations with Irish leaders. He did not join Mr. Lloyd George's Ministry, and after the war he was mainly conspicuous in ecclesiastical matters; he was forward in promoting the movement for self-government in the Church which culminated in the Church Enabling Act of 1919. His elder son, Roundell, Cecil, Visct. Wolmer (b. 1887), entered Parliament in 1910, and proved an active member of the Unionist party. A younger son was killed in the war.