History of the British peerage much more common. The peerage ceased to be associated with wealth or land ownership. At the beginning of the century, however, such associations remained for some time. In 1909, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposed the introduction of a land tax, which the landowning peers opposed. The House of Lords rejected the budget. After the general election of January 1910, the returned government introduced the Parliament Bill, which sought to curtail the powers of the Lords. When the Lords attempted to block the bill, the prime minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, threatened to have the king create two hundred
British Army during the Second World War introduced, which stipulated that the British Armed Forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years". In 1928, Winston Churchill, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who would later become Prime Minister, successfully urged the British government to make the rule self-perpetuating and hence it was in force unless specifically countermanded. In the 1920s, and much of the 1930s, the General Staff tried to establish a small mechanized professional army, using the Experimental Mechanized Force as a prototype. However, with the lack