Army Annual Act
Law was not directly involved in this campaign as he was focusing on a practical way to defeat the Home Rule Bill. His first attempt was via the Army Annual Act, something that "violated a basic and ancient principle of the constitution". Since the Glorious Revolution, Parliament had passed an Act every year which fixes the number of soldiers in the British Army. If the Act was rejected by Parliament it would cause a constitutional crisis and technically make the British Army an illegal institution. Lord Selborne had written to Law in 1912 to point out that vetoing or significantly amending the Act in the House of Lords would force the government to resign, and such a course of action was also suggested by others during 1913 and 1914. Law believed that forcing Ulstermen away from the union with Britain and under a Dublin-based government they did not recognise was itself constitutionally damaging, and that amending the Army Annual Act to prevent the use of force in Ulster (he never suggested vetoing it) would not violate the constitution any more than the actions the government had already undertaken.
By 12 March he had established that, should the Home Rule Bill be passed under the Parliament Act 1911, the Army Annual Act should be amended in the Lords to stipulate that the Army could not "be used in Ulster to prevent or interfere with any step which may thereafter be taken in Ulster to organise resistance to the enforcement of the Home Rule Act in Ulster nor to suppress any such resistance until and unless the present Parliament has been dissolved and a period of three months shall have lapsed after the meeting of a new Parliament". The Shadow Cabinet agreed that it would be necessary to consult a panel of legal experts, who after deliberation agreed wholeheartedly with Law's suggestion. Although several members expressed dissent, the Cabinet decided "provisionally to agree to amendment of army act. but to leave details and decisions as to the moment of acting to Lansdowne and Law". In the end no amendment to the Army Act was offered, though; many backbenchers and party loyalists became agitated by the scheme and wrote to him that it was unacceptable – Ian Malcolm, a fanatical Ulster supporter, told Law that amending the Army Act would drive him out of the Party.
Read more about this topic: Bonar Law, Leader of The Conservative Party, Irish Home Rule
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