LLOYQ-GEORGE ON THE BUDOET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2583, 18 August 1909, Page 5

LLOYQ-GEORGE ON THE BUDOET.

Replying to the City meeting’s criticism of his Budget Mr. Lloyd-George asks: “What did the talk of the City meeting conie to.? Just the same old drivel about Socialism, and the thin, end of the wedge, which is becoming very thin by constant use. You can. find it anv morning in the columns of the “Daily Mail,” both in the halfpenny edition and in the threepenny edition. “Of course, we had the inevitable Lord Rothschild. I remember that there was another meeting in the City —on April I!—aud Lord Rothschild was there. He proposed a resolution calling for an enormous increase of national expenditure, aud promising the support, of the City in any financial arrangements necessary to carry out the object. That ‘resolution’ was the basis of my Budget. “Really, in all these things we get too much of Lord Rothschild. We. are not to have temperance reform. Wny? Because Lord Rothschild has sent a circular to the Peers! We must have more Dreadnoughts. Because Lord Rothschild says so. We must not pay for them when we have got them. Because Lord Rotlischild does not want to find his share of the money. We must not have a super-tax aiid increased death duties, because Lord Rothschild says we must not: nor a tax «n reversions, for I/ord Rothschild is the chairman of an insurance company; nor on undeveloped land, because Lord Rotlischild is the chairman of a housing council; and we must not have old! aoe pensions, because Lord Rothschild ■yyas a member of a committee which said it could not he done! “I should like to know whether Lord Rothschild is to be the Dictator of this country. Are all the reads of progress to be blocked by the notice No thoroughfare—By order. Nathaniel Rothschild’?” (Loud Laughter.) Other countries had made. it perfectly clear that they were not goi?S to be ruled by great financiers. Britain would join them, and declare that a more important condition was to nit. tlie people of the slums above the level of squalor and wretchedness.