The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE BUDGET.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12385, 4 December 1909, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE BUDGET.

The House of Lords will have occasion to rejoice if by some happy circumstance it is saved from the consequences of its . own rashness. From' the moment it became apparent that the Peers were conspiring to kill the Budget, the Government has presented an unflinching front. Member after member of the jAsquith ministry has paid his respect-to tin House of Lords, and in each.of these speeches- it was made clear that the Government will stick to its guns. The Earl of Crewe, Secretary of State for the Colonies discussing the Budget at a great meeting in Glasgow referred to its possible rejection by the House of Lords. That action, he said, would be revolutionary, but people only embarked on revolutions when they were insane or when conditions of life became intolerable. Mr. Lewis Harcourt^ another member of the Government, in the courso of a speech at Derby, referred j to the House of Lords as " an archaelo- j gical curiosity." The Budget, he said, I proposed to raisj the necessary funds byi "an equality of sacrifice." Of the land j taxes he said: '"You have probable been amused, though you cannot have been ( edified, by the somewhat incoherent ■ squeals of these who fear that they may,' hava to pay towards the expenditure' which they approve. These vociferous protestors present a. motley and incon- ' gruous array. You find the dukes weep-' ing over the market gardeners (laughter), tho ground landlords heartbroken over tho builders, the millionaire tromb-] ling for his clerks, and the country gen-' tlemen economizing on their charities.' Wo know the type of man who chalks up 'No revolution' and then runs away to , take cover behind his bankbook. He is j a 'territorial' who adds neither to the safety nor the dignity of his country." Tho Lords can scarcely be said to have found the conditions of life intolerable,' Napier and intermediate offices, 11.330

and consequently the fulfilment of their tin-eat may perhaps be attributed to a lapse of political sanity. Lord Rosebery, who went out of his way to attack tho Budget, is evidently afraid that j the Lords have gone just a step too far. His comments on the action of the Lords in endorsing the subterfuge resorted to by Lord Lansdowne, indicate his fear that the Revolution which he used with such rhetorical effect in his speech may come in real earnest, and will culminate in a far more vital struggle than any of the purely political issues on which the Lords have been fought on the hustings. It may even go further, and raise the question whether anything is gained to the country by tho maintenance of a privileged class, with a, special rank in the social sphere, which only makes use of its privileges for its personal aggrandisement. Vital as the Budget is, the Liberal party will not forget the other measures that cost tho Commons so much time and thought only to be contemptuously flung out by tho representatives of property —for example, the Education Bills for the settlement of the religious controversy; the Licensing Bill, and the Scottish Small Landholders and Land Values Bill, both of which the Lords distinguished themselves by killing more than once. And the People, on their part, are not likely to forget to whom their thanks are due. Tli9 Old Age Pension's Act, which has removed the worst terrors of life for the poor; the Trades Board Bill, for the reform of sweated industries; tho Housing Bill; the Labour Exchanges Bill, for the relief of the unemployed; the Reduction of the Hours of Labour in Mines Bill, the Workmen's Compensation Act, the Trade Union Disputes Act, and the Children's Act are items in the Liberal programme the salutary effect of which will be felt by the People. In the course of defending the Budget, Mr. Birrell said that since lie entered Parliament the amount to be raised annually had risen from £89,000,000 to £160,----000,000. The old taxes did not bring in enough, and it was necessary to increase the burden o*i tlia taxpayer to the extent of £13/000,000. Half of this was proposed to be raised from .spirits, beer, tea, and death duties, and the other halt b3 r a tax on. land; and it is this " iniquitous" proposal which has moved the Lordd to resort to the expedient of suspending the Budget on pretence that its provision?, should receive the endorsement of the people before being passed into law. It is this proposal to place a fair share of the burden of taxation on the shoulders of those best able to bear it which has inspired the Peers to denounce the Budget as Socialistic." But Mr. Asquith \Vas able to show in one of his recent speeches not only that Mr. Gladstone favoured the taxation of land values, but that Adam Smith described ground rents and the ordinary rent of ' land as "a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon it," and that even. Lord Rosebery, who has denounced the Budget as revolutionary, was an advocate in 1894 of the taxation of land values.' And Adam Smith and Mr. Gladstone were not Socialists, and Lord Rosebery is hot to-day regarded as a member of that class. We should bo the first to protest against anything in the shape of ak inequitable levy on any one section of the community. The man'cri tlielfind is entitled'to protection, and the lord of the manorhas his rights. And Mr. Lloyd George and his colleagues have not sought to violate this principle. They have, instead, made an honest effort to put taxes where they belong. They put a heavy tax on the income that a man inherits for which he doesn't work. They put a lighter tax on the income that a man earns with his brains, knowing that ho renders a service to tho country when he works. They lighten the income tax of a man who has children, in proportion to the num- | her of his children. They extend due consideration to-the capitalist who risks his money in the promotion of industry. And they come down hard on the big landlord? who are drawing eight millions a year by way of royalties. Here is a little extract from Mr. Lloyd George's famous Limehouse speech:— j "I went down a coal field the other day and they pointed out to me many collieries there, and they said: 'You see that colliery there. The first man went and spent a million sinking a shaft and finding adits and levels, but ha never got payable coal. A second man came along and spent one hundred thousand pounds. He failed. A third man came along, and he got coal.' Well, what was the landlord doing? The first man failed; the landlord got his royalties, his deadrent —a very good name for it. The second man failed, and the landlord got his royalties. These capitalists j put tlieir money in. When cash failed, what did the landlord put in ? He simply put in the bills. The capitalist risks, at any rate, the whole of his money, the engineer puts in his brains, the miner risks his life." ; Thero is nothing offensively Socialistic about this. But it did not suit the gentlemen with the royalties. Hence the rejection of the Budget. What will now happen was indicated weeks ago by Mr. Churchill, when^ speaking as the mouthpiece of the Government, he declared "that no amendment, excision, modifica- : tion or mutilation of the Finance Bill by tho Lords will be agreed to by the ■ Government; that the Government will ( stand no mincing of the Bill, and if the i Lords do mince it, either they will have i to eat tlieir mince (i.e., consent to the * annulment .of their amendments) or Parliament will bo dissolved and the dcci- . sion of the country taken on an issue , which will involve every cause for which 1 Liberalism has ever fought." The Lans- •' downe expedient simply expedites the ' inevitable. ,; ■■