ABSTRACT
The financial secretaryship was the closest ministerial position to actual membership of the Cabinet, and the occupant was entitled to attend meetings of the full Cabinet. Campbell-Bannerman had appointed Reginald McKenna as financial secretary to the Treasury. It was when they sat at the Cabinet table as president of the Board of Education and president of the Board of Trade, respectively, that relations between McKenna and Lloyd George began to deteriorate. When faced with opposition, McKenna threatened to enforce the 1905 Local Authority Default Act—a Unionist measure to enforce the 1902 Act and ensure the funding of Anglican schools in Wales, known locally as the 'Coercion of Wales Act'—against the Merionethshire County Council. On 6 September 1908, McKenna gave 'a definite pledge of a Bill next year embodying the fundamental principles upon which the Liberal party asked for the support of the electorate'.
