FINANCE BILL.

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH

As I have myself made in the country some observations on the subject which was debated in this House last night, I ask the indulgence of the House before I address myself to the more general reply, to make some short reply to the strictures which have been passed upon my right hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."]—by political opponents. Some six months ago an apprehension was raised in the country with regard to the political use that might be made of the old age pensions question; and I remember that the Chancellor of the Exchequer caused great satisfaction in all quarters of the House by stating, in answer to a complaint, that he hoped that the existence or continuance of old age pensions would not be made a subject of party capital. About eight months ago reports 2008 from every part of the country reached my hon. Friends who represent agricultural constituencies that by subtle and subterranean methods pensioners were being alarmed with the prospect of losing their pensions if the Tories returned to office. It is quite true to say that no responsible person said so. But every county Member on our side of the House heard of the campaign, and began to take steps to deal with it. The representation was perfectly explicit as reported: that if we came in we should probably repeal the Old Age Pensions Act. I do not know that after the Debate of last night that anyone will dispute this conclusion: that the suggestion that if we were returned to power these people would lose their pensions was a grossly unfair one. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who made it?"] An hon. Gentleman asks me who made it? I am about to answer that question. I said at the outset that it was only made by irresponsible persons. But at the East Denbighshire by-election, in March of this year, it was made, so far as I am aware, for the first time, by a responsible person, and by a Member of this House. The hon. Member for East Denbighshire, in his election address, used these words:— Further, I desire to call the attention of old age pensioners to the fact that every vote given to the Tory endangers their pension. In the last three months there is hardly a country seat in which this argument has not been used, with the result that the party managers on our side—I speak with perfect plainness—began to regard it as a grave and grossly dishonest menace to our party prospects at the next election. Many Conservative candidates, as is known, have been driven to employ canvassers to wait at post offices and to disabuse pensioners. I know, because I have seen reports from Somerset, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, and Scotland, setting forth what is the knowledge of persons representing the interests of the Unionist candidates as to what is actually going on, and has been going on, in all the constituencies in all those parts of the country.

Early in October an hon. Friend of mine who sits on this side of the House discovered that these reports were everywhere rife in Shropshire, and particularly the constituency which he represented, and he wrote a letter to my right hon. Friend and asked his views on this slander and invited a contradiction of it, and my right hon. Friend, in a letter which I think 2009 has probably been read by most men in this House, replied that the statement was an election lie and that the obligation would be regarded as equally sacred by the Tory party to pay old age pensions. How did the Liberal Press receive this official statement, amounting, as I submit to the House, to this, that whatever stringency of taxation might be involved, the payment of old age pensions is planted by the Unionist party on the same unassailable bedrock as the interest upon the National Debt? How did the Liberal Press treat this answer? Did they talk about the intricacy of Tariff Reform? Did they complain of the excessiveness of my right hon. Friend's invective? They went on, with one voice, to deny that such representations had been made. They admitted, some impliedly and others expressly, that if such statements were made, my right hon. Friend's language was not one whit too strong. Just let me remind the House of what they said. The "Daily News" made this statement:— The correspondence we published between Mr. Balfour and Sir. Stanier seems well inspired— They did not believe it was a genuine complaint. It would be interesting to know its origin and the name of the person who raised the question so opportunely. Mr. Balfour's indignation is well assumed. Of course the Tories will not dare to abolish old age pensions, the Government that did not would not live a day. The "Daily Chronicle" of the same day described my right hon. Friend's letter as stage thunder, and added this:— No Government could violate old age pensions if they would. It is a National obligation and there is no truth in the statement that if the Unionists were returned to office they would discontinue the payment of old age pensions. We have no information about such statements. If anybody has made them he has said what is untrue and deserves Mr. Balfour's censure.' The censure being that it was an election lie, and that no one but a degraded person could have uttered it. I will quote finally the "Westminster Gazette," which said:— Mr. Stanier, a Conservative Shropshire Member, has appealed to Mr. Balfour in these circumstances. And then the circumstances are set out. We are in entire agreement with Mr. Balfour in his strong censure of any such statement, but we must add we see little evidence of anything that could he called or compared to a campaign of mendacity. We certainly hope that there will be no untruths uttered about old age pensions, and we hope that the facts will be truthfully stated by both sides. The position then at this time was this, that we knew that irresponsible persons everywhere and the Member for Denbighshire in explicit language in his bye-election told the pensioners that they were not safe; that the whole Liberal Press 2010 agreed that these were scandals and false-hoods, and that the pensioners were safe. That was the position at this time. There is the general admission that it is cruel to deceive the old age pensioners. In these circumstances, the Lord Advocate undertook his provincial tour. I do not say that he made many speeches. He always made the same speech and in generally the same way, and I quote in order that we may see how far the indignation of a moment ago is well founded. I quote, because I desire to make a further observation about it, the speech which was quoted in the House last night by my right hon. Friend from the "Newbury Gazette." Let the House not forget for a moment the common ground we have attained in this controversy—that it is a slander to say that old age pensions were going to be taken away, that no Government dare take them away, and that no Government could take them away. That is common ground. What did the Lord Advocate say? Their Unionists friends promised old age pensions. They never meant to fulfil their promises. If the right hon. Gentleman stopped there it might be said to be legitimate comment; I am not quoting it for that passage—I am quoting it for the passage which follows, and I shall be glad to know how many Members opposite will cheer what follows:— The aged poor are nervous and apprehensive lest they lose their pensions if there is a change of Government. I think their fears are justified. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read on."] If hon. Gentlemen will allow me, I am going to read on. I am going to read the only passage which the Lord Advocate thought proper to add himself as a supplement last night.

§ Mr. H. MYER

Be honest! Read on.

§ Mr. SPEAKER

I must ask the hon. Member for the North Lambeth Division to control himself.

§ Mr. SPEAKER

No answer is required.

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH

The right hon. Gentleman said, in the passage I have just read, and which I am not astonished has somewhat incensed hon. Gentlemen opposite:— The aged poor are nervous and apprehensive. I ask this question, if it be true that they were nervous and apprehensive, who made them nervous and apprehensive? What would that statement, made with the high authority of the Lord Advocate, 2011 mean to a pensioner in the audience? Would he understand what the Prime Minister told the House last night that he could sleep safely in his bed? He would go away, and every fair-minded man in this House knows he would go away, saying, "If I vote Liberal my pension is safe; if I vote Conservative the Lord Advocate says I may lose it." That, Mr. Speaker, is what he would say, that is what he was meant to say. I am asked, in fairness, to continue the quotation, and I will continue what the Lord Advocate himself interposed when my right hon. Friend was speaking last night. He said:— I added that the old age pension expenditure was called by Lord Lansdowne 'reckless expenditure,' and therefore was expenditure of which no Administration of which he was a Member would ever allow. Is that supposed to be reassurance? Would the statement that the Government of Lord Lansdowne would never allow it encourage the pensioner to think that he could "sleep quietly in his bed"? The right hon. Gentleman then went to Tring, but he did not vary the statement. I will give the House a quotation from the "Daily News" of October 20th, 1909:— They could understand how it was that the poor folks were in a state of alarm lest a change of Government might cause them to lose their pensions. He thought that alarm was well founded …. an honourable obligation from a man who did not know where to find the money was not of much use. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Then hon. Gentlemen opposite do not agree with the Prime Minister that the Pensioner can sleep in his bed. I note the language in which that sentiment is conveyed. Mark the first two lines:— They could understand how it was that the poor folks were in a state of alarm. We can all understand that. It was because that alarm has been insidiously and disingenuously instilled into their minds for party purposes.

§ Mr. MYER

Read Mr. Balfour's telegram.

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH

The right hon. Gentleman next goes to Walsall, where he makes a speech on 20th October. I will read to the House a quotation from a report which appeared in the "Walsall Observer" on 22nd October:— He was told he was guilty of some great wrong because he said the other night what he was going to repeat that night, that the nervous apprehension which the old folks laboured under as to losing their pensions if there was a change in the Government was well founded. He had only said the other night what he was going to repeat that night. 2012 That can only mean and was meant to mean, "You will lose your pensions if the Conservatives come in." That has been the whole provincial case of the right hon. Gentleman. I will now take his speech at Acton as reported in the "Daily News" on 21st October:— The Leader of the Tory party in the House of Lords had said that old age pensions were profoundly demoralising. Could Lord Lansdowne, as an honourable man, pass a Bill to create a scheme which would be demoralising? He was justified in saying the old folk ran a serious danger. I cannot help observing that the Lord Advocate nods his head. I take it that his view is that the old folk run a serious danger. Controversialists opposite seem to fall into two classes—those who propose to conduct the campaign which lies in front of us all by saying that the old folk do still run a serious danger, and those who propose to say with the Prime Minister that they can "sleep in their beds." It not the same campaign. I would ask is there one hon. Gentleman and right hon. Gentleman who sits on the Front Bench, and who listened last night to the words which the Prime Minister uttered with the greatest weight and emphasis and fairness that old age pensioners are safe—is there one of his colleagues on that bench who will say he could go to the pensioners to-morrow with the terrible message that they are in a serious danger? The Lord Advocate is condemned by the silence of his colleagues far more strongly than by any words of mine. The last extract I will read to the House is one from a speech made at Holy well on 22nd October, and I should have thought that those who joined in the triumphant vindication of the Lord Advocate last night would have heard with the greatest pleasure the reading of the very authentic passages which must place it beyond the slightest controversy. What did he say at Holywell. He said:— Many aged persons, knowing their modest pensions depend upon these taxes being raised, are apprehensive they will lose their money if the Budget is thrown out and the Government beaten. I have said I share their apprehension. [Cheers.] There are still apparently one or two who share them, but not many. My doubts and fears are strengthened, I must own, when I consider the past records of these gentlemen.

§ Mr. MYER

Read the Shropshire telegram.

§ Mr. SMITH

I do not understand the relevance of that interruption.

§ Mr. MYER

The right hon. Gentleman's telegram. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, Myer," and "Name."]

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH

I will continue the quotation:— Can the peers be expected as honourable men, to give their concurrence to a measure designed to provide the funds needful to carry into effect a scheme fraught with such deplorable consequences? What did that mean? Did it not mean that the Lord Advocate lent his high position to spread—not to spread but to create—that baseless fear that the Lords would repeal the Old Age Pensions Act? I could multiply these quotations indefinitely. The Lord Advocate spoke, as I have said, frequently, and custom never staled the infinite uniformity of his argument. Instead of passing judgment myself upon these "frigid and calculated allegations" [An HON. MEMBER: "Lies."] I will give hon. Gentlemen opposite the comments made upon them by the Liberal Press. Perhaps I may be excused for pointing out first that the Lord Advocate is finding imitators doubtless amongst those who cheered him last night, and who joined in that vindication, because many of them intend to use the same weapons themselves. The hon. Member for Stirling Burghs (Mr. Ponsonby)—I quote from the "Somerset County Gazette"—said a few nights ago:— Passing on to the statement of Mr. Ure that the Tories would stop old age pensions, he was perfectly right. There was nothing like the truth that wounds. That is the other section of the party—the section that thinks the old age pensioners cannot sleep in their beds. The Liberal candidate for the Wellington Division of Somerset, speaking of Mr. Ure's statement, said:— As to Mr. Ure's statement that the Tories would stop pensions, every word he said could be honestly proved. Now we have it that the candidates for this Division, and for every other agricultural constituency in England, are using this argument on every platform. Why, of the total of £165,000,000 of our national revenue, is £8,000,000 selected for treatment on eight occasions, and £157,000,000 left severely alone? The answer is as short as it is discreditable. It is because there is "business" in one and there is no "business" in the other. What does the respectable Liberal Press say about these tactics? The "Westminster Gazette, of October 22nd, said:— The Liberal party has an excellent case on old age pensions, and we much regret to sec it compromised by the line which Mr. Ure is taking in every speech he makes. It is a pity the Lord Advocate should use language which justifies Mr. Balfour's complaint. I remind the House again, and with infinite regret, what that complaint was: 2014 that it was a statement which was untrue and was being used by degraded persons. That is the opinion of one of the principal Liberal organs of the Press on the campaign of the Lord Advocate. The "Daily Chronicle," on October 22nd, also dealt with this matter, and said:— To tell old age pensioners that the Tories will stop their pensions is to say what in our opinion is not the least likely to be the case. It is cruel to the old people so to argue as to make them fear that their tenure of the pensions is uncertain. I may perhaps be allowed to ask for information. We may be on the eve of a battle, and I think the party of which I am a member is entitled to ask: Under which banner are the hon. Gentlemen opposite going to fight? Are they going to-fight under the banner of "Secure sleep for the Old Age Pensioner" or under the banner "You will lose your pensions if the Tories come back"? If I were one of those who believed that some germ of social right underlay the principles of this Budget; if I were a passionate supporter of the principles upon which it purports to be based, I would say more vehemently than I do from these benches non tali auxilio eget. [Cries of "Translate."] I will gladly translate. It means "The Budget, if it be an honest Budget, needs no such weapons as those which the Lord Advocate has urged." There is no one who is sitting on this side of the House who will not gladly, and for all time, if we are allowed to, leave this squalid and discreditable subject—a subject which the "Westminster Gazette" has censured in stronger language than I have just used. If we ever recur to it, it will be because it has been made necessary by the repetition of a statement which is not true.

There were other arguments not concerned with this subject used by the Lord Advocate last night which struck me with a little sense of unreality. He defended the land proposals of the Budget with this observation. He said Adam Smith had justified this peculiar taxation of land. Here, again, the Lord Advocate, when he speaks in the country, does not talk of a halfpenny in the pound on undeveloped land; he does not talk about 10 per cent. increment, but he goes to the heart of the matter. What did he say as to the real object of the Budget when he spoke at Linlithgow? The "Linlithgowshire Gazette" of 4th June says:— These modest looking taxes involve a principle capable of far-reaching application. What is this principle? That the land of the country, as distinct from the buildings erected upon it, in truth belongs to the nation. 2015 A very arguable proposition, and one, as everybody knows, which is strongly entertained below the Gangway; but no one, I think, will pretend that that is the defence which has been put forward in this House on behalf of the Budget. I notice also that the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Churchill) has said, speaking in the country, that all the increment on land ought to be taken, and not 10 per cent. He does not bother himself in the least about the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He says all the increment ought to be taken. That being the real objective, as disclosed, I confess I was astounded that the Lord Advocate last night, and speaking in the country previously, should have attempted to show that Lord Rosebery and the Glasgow and Liverpool school of Land Reformers were committed in some sense to the principle of the Land Taxes of this Budget. As I have seen the statement made both here and in the country that all of us who support the municipal taxes were committed to the principle of these taxes, I would ask the indulgence of the House whilst I make a very few observations on that point. The one and only proposal which has received the assent either of Glasgow Conservatives, as far as I am aware—and I have carefully read the literature on the subject—or of Liverpool Conservatives was the proposal that site values should, as a matter of the adjustment of rates, hear a share of the rates of our local authorities—in other words, to adjust the incidence of rating burdens. The proposal which was sanctioned by this House on one occasion was that the municipalities, in the words of the hon. Member for Halifax, himself a Member of the Government (Mr. J. H. Whitley), should be given power where the annual value of any kind of rateable property is totally out of proportion to its capital to take a small percentage of the capital as representing its real annual value. That, and that alone, has been the Liverpool proposal. The hon. Member for Halifax added that the site value would be based on the value at which the owner could turn the property into cash next week. The terms of the resolution of the Liverpool Corporation in 1904, on which he has insisted, were these: First, that land and its buildings should be separately assessed; secondly, that land should be assessed by the ordinary assessment committee which is to-day responsible for the assessment of land, not that there should be valuation, a magniloquent Domesday 2016 Book, for the whole country, but that each municipal community should have the power of preparing a valuation, using the machinery and officials existing at the present time. Then Lord Balfour's minority Report came, and the Urban Site Rating Bill was affirmed by this House, and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has dealt with some emphasis with that Bill, I may perhaps be allowed to remind the House of the speech which was made in introducing it to the attention of the House by the hon. Member for the Elland Division (Mr. C. P. Trevelyan), who now sits on the Front Bench opposite. He said:— Our proposal is that the present ratepayer shall pay the rate. Lord Balfour of Burleigh thinks that half of the future rate should be paid by the owner. I agree with him, although— I commend this passage to modern land reformers:— Although there are some Members in this House and many people in the country, whose sole idea with regard to the taxation of such values is to get at the great landlords. This is no doubt a laudable aim, especially as in the words of Squire Western 'most of these great estates be in the hands of Lords, and I hate the very name of them.' But I would remind my hon. Friends who hold that view that this great proprietor cry has been very much exaggerated and that, as a matter of fact, the greater part of these ground rents and chief rents are held by small investors and are in the same category as Consols, or corporation or railway stock. I would suggest it is a very serious thing to put a new tax upon this kind of property which is being dealt with in the money market as a fixed investment. Let me add this, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is so enamoured of the minority Report of Lord Balfour. Let me ask who the signatories of the minority Report are? Beside Lord Balfour of Burleigh there was Sir George Murray, the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, who is described in the ancient constitutional language as being the keeper of the Chancellor's conscience. The summary of conclusions, which I commend to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was as follows:— 1. That misconception and exaggeration are especially prevalent on this subject. 2. That if proper regard be had to equitable considerations, the amount, capable of being raised by a special site value rate will not be large; and that the proceeds of it should go in relief of local not imperial taxation. 3. The reform might go some way towards ending the agitation for unjust and confiscatory measures. I would recommend to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the final conclusion of the Gentleman who is the custodian of his conscience:— The reform would remove the widely spread misconception which seems, to prevail even among responsible Statesmen, for, while it would be an admission that there were defects in the urban rating system, it would show that there is no large undeveloped source of taxation available for local purposes, still less for national purposes. 2017 This having been the Report of the Commission which has been repeatedly cited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I say in this House, speaking for those, or many of those who in Liverpool have identified themselves with this municipal land reform in the past, we do not care whether the yield of these Land Taxes is to be considerable or small, whether it is to be, as the Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Colonel Seely) has stated, many millions in a few years, or merely the copper of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer speaks, the money belongs to the municipalities, and does not belong to the National Exchequer, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no business to lay his hand upon it. As far as Liverpool is concerned, we found ourselves upon the Report made by Sir George Murray when he said the proceeds of these taxes, whether they were great or small, belonged to Liverpool and not to the Imperial Exchequer. It is the most feeble afterthought that can be imagined for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when his difficulties are pointed out to him, to turn round and say, "I will give back half of the proceeds to the municipalities," and, be it observed, as I understand it, the half is going back with no relation to the amount contributed by each municipality, but they are distributing it to all the municipalities of the country. How short a time it is since the Prime Minister in his Budget speech denounced this system of grants-in-aid! He said it was retrograde finance, and he was going to sweep away, root and branch, the whole system by which assigned revenue, the proceeds of Imperial taxes, are intercepted by the Exchequer, and handed over to the local authorities. Two years ago we were told the whole principle was going to be swept away, and now we are told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to defend an anomaly that the system is going to be stereotyped in our finance for all times. I make this final observation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been pleased, in his speech at Limehouse, to speak of the Duke of Westminster and other dukes, and he spoke of the practice and system of blackmailing. What is the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as far as the system of blackmailing is concerned? He says:— The Duke of Westminster profits by a system which is blackmail. We are not going to stop him; we are going to allow him to continue to blackmail, but we are going to take a share of it. All we want is to stand in the blackmail. 2018 That is the position of the Government. It is not uninstructive that the speech sold in the country by millions is the speech of Limehouse, and is not the speech which the Prime Minister delivered at Birmingham. Why is it that the Limehouse speech is sold by millions? The answer was given by the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway the Member for North-East Manchester (Mr. J. R. Clynes). He said all the items of the speech were copied from the speeches of obscure street corner talkers who have been spreading the views of the Labour party for years. The right hon. Gentleman in the speech with which he first commended these proposals to the House declared that he was inaugurating an implacable war upon poverty. The proposals he has brought forward do involve a declaration of war, but the advance is not, and never has been, against poverty, but against the poor.

§ Mr. J. A. SIMON

The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken occupied the earlier part of his speech with some observations on a matter which was discussed here last night. I could not help feeling that it is true in this region as in some other region, where prepared matter is put forward that a dish which was intended to be served last night comes a little stale next morning. The real question discussed last night was a question, as it seems to me, in which it is not desirable for what I may call without offence Junior Members of the House, like my hon. and learned Friend and myself, to take part. It is essentially a question which concerns the chief actors. It is not in the least, as my hon. and learned Friend seems to think, a question as to whether or not a particular piece of censor was exaggerated censor, and can be justified or unjustified in the criticisms made upon the Lord Advocate. The question is why a direct imputation has been made with every circumstance of calculated publicity, not upon his judgment, not upon his critical faculties, but upon his good faith. The question is, whether an imputation has been deliberately made upon his personal honour, and the answer which gives satisfaction and carries conviction to the House and to the country can not be one given by the hon. and learned Gentleman, but can only be one given by the Gentleman concerned. I do not wish to speak in any disrespectful way of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I do say, when that is the issue, substituted advocacy is no good. The one and only answer which could have been made to the Lord Advo- 2019 cate is a speech from the Gentleman of whose observations he complained, and it is for the House and the county to judge. I will therefore only ask the House to allow me to supplement in a small degree one quotation which the hon. and learned Gentleman thought it right to make, because I cannot believe if he had had it before him in a complete form, that he would not have wished to complete it. The imputation was made, pointedly and deliberately against the Lord Advocate—that he had deliberately misrepresented the intentions and determination of the Unionist party. One of the speeches in which he is supposed to have made that misrepresentation—the speech at Newbury—contains a sentence which I propose to read. The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite accurate when he says that the Lord Advocate referred to the prospects of Tariff Reform raising the money needed for old age pensions, but what he omitted to read was these words:— It is all very well for him "— there he quotes Mr. Balfour— To acknowledge the obligation, but the obligation of a penniless man will not bring grist to the mill." "I do not doubt"— said the Lord Advocate— The honesty of his intention When the statement is made that with calculation the Lord Advocate had suggested a want of good faith and good intention, would it not have been as well to read this sentence?— I do not doubt the honesty of his intention, but his good intention will not secure the interests for life of the aged poor. He does not know where to get the money. He could not find it if he were in office tomorrow.

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH

How does the hon. and learned Gentleman reconcile that statement with the Prime Minister's assurance that they can sleep in their beds?

§ Mr. SIMON

The hon. and learned Gentleman is an adept at the art necessary to be practised in another place—the art of confusing the issue.

§ Earl WINTERTON

What are you?

§ Mr. SIMON

The question is not whether the view which one speaker forms of the financial efficiency of a system is the same or different from the view which another forms. It is a much simpler question. It is aye or no, when the Lord Advocate stands at the Table and gives a deliberate connected and full account of the line of argument which he addressed to the meet- 2020 ing—does anybody in this House say that if that account if truly given by him it is not an account which calls for withdrawal and regret——[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—which calls for withdrawal and regret—if, indeed, the Lord Advocate is believed when he stands at that Table? I do not propose to pursue this topic. I do not think it is a topic which it is necessary to pursue, in view of the full statement that was made last night, and in view, also, of the fact that we are now discussing the Motion for the third reading of the Finance Bill.

There is one circumstance which does emerge from the personal discussion of last night, and it is this: that when the Lord Advocate said that the Leader of the Opposition does not know where to get the money he was accurate. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, in a well-known passage, declared, in answer to a correspondent, that he would not have looked at Tariff Reform unless he had thought by that means he could provide money for old age pensions. The question of importance that does arise at this stage is, do hon. Gentlemen opposite say that Tariff Reform will provide that money? Their Leader certainly does not do so. He explained to us last night, not, indeed, addressing himself, if I may venture to say so, to the real point on which intervention was called for by the. Lord Advocate's speech, but he explained to us last night, when he assured the country, and everybody accepted his assurance, that, whatever happens, old age pensions will be paid, be at any rate contemplated the possibility of paying them under his Government, not by superior scientific means, but by the Super-tax, by the Income Tax, and by the other taxes in this Budget—excepting the Land Taxes and some portion of the Licence Duties. If the right hon. Gentleman will only make that quite plain through some of the humbler members and canvassers of his party when they go around the country, and if he will apply his high standard of accurate statement to everything which they say on the subject, there will be no more heard of Tariff Reform.

I want to deal with another aspect of this matter which is, I hope, directly germane to the general subject under discussion. It is said, and it is said constantly by those who criticise the financial proposals of the right hon. Gentleman, that he has made proposals which are going to produce unemployment. It is said if you tax rich people in the way in which you 2021 propose to tax them under this Budget you will thereby cause, and cause directly, a state of unemployment which would nut otherwise arise. I want, if I may, to occupy a few minutes in examining that proposition. It seems to me to be a proposition which can only be maintained if one fails to observe the existence of more than one fallacy. The first and greatest fallacy is this. It is quite true if the tax collector takes £50 out of a rich man's pocket that man has not got the £50 to spend. But what is forgotten is that that £50 is transferred from the pocket of the individual into the coffers of the Treasury. Is it wasted or lost? Does anybody say that the purposes for which the money is collected are not productive purposes? Does anybody say that the money to be spent in building "Dreadnoughts" is not money which, at any rate, involves the employment of labour and the payment of wages? I regard, I may say in passing, that, economically speaking, as the least valuable expenditure of all, but still, that expenditure immediately and necessarily represents wages and work. I should have thought that to be beyond all question. As far as old age pensions are concerned, the moment you part with that money, the moment it is distributed to the old age pensioners, the moment the money is broken up into an allowance of 5s. per week, it circulates through the village shop and through every store in the town, giving direct and immediate employment to the butcher, the bootmaker, the baker, and, indeed, every one of our staple trades. I say the first matter that arises on this assumption that the taxation of rich persons is going to produce unemployment, depends upon this, that it seems to be supposed the moment you take from their pocket the money it is lost and wasted. But there is something more. That taxation produces a loss to the taxpayer who pays the tax for the moment. But there is this fundamental distinction between a proposal such as this and the alternative proposals which we hear of. Our proposals, at any rate, take no more from, and involve the paying of no more by, the taxpayer than is received, used, and applied by the Treasury. If there is really to be a question as to what kind of taxation is going to produce the minimum of loss with the minimum of spending power, surely it will not be contended that the alternative proposal which protects and involves higher prices, can compete with the proposal 2022 which makes the contribution of the taxpayer go in a lump sum to our industries.

The second fallacy involved in the contention that taxation under this Budget produces unemployment is this. It seems to be assumed that this £50 or £100 which is going to be taken from the pockets of the rich man under this Budget, if it is only left in his pocket, is certain to produce remunerative and economic employment. I hope I should be the last to suggest that the expenditure of the rich in various directions is not beneficial and useful to employment. Of course it is. But there is this distinction, that the rich man, when he spends his money, spends a portion of it on the things which he needs, the things he wants, eats, and uses, and that portion of his expenditure is immediately productive of work. But he spends another portion of it because he is a rich man—he spends it, in a perfectly honourable and proper manner, upon luxuries, upon pictures, diamonds, and travelling abroad—expenditure which, whatever be its merit, whatever be its application, does not produce any employment in this country at all. Therefore, the rich man has two funds out of which he may pay. It is true he may conceivably starve himself, he may cut down the number of loaves of bread he can afford. He may wear cheaper clothes. He may deprive himself of an extra pair of boots. But if he did that sort of thing he would be deemed to be a lunatic or a miser. He pays his tax out of the other fund, not out of the fund which puts money in circulation and gives employment, but out of the surplus fund which may, or may not, be spent by him, according to circumstances, in articles of luxury. If you say the rich are taxed under this Budget too much, what is the alternative? If you do not call upon the rich man to pay these duties, are you going to put them on the poor man? If you do, you shift them on to the shoulders of persons who have only one fund. The rich man has an alternative. He can pay this taxation either by depriving himself of something that he eats or wears, or he can pay it out of the surplus which ministers to his personal enjoyment. The poor man has no such alternative. He must pay his tax out of income that is devoted to nothing else than producing employment for those amongst whom the money is circulated. Therefore, I submit to the House that this analysis shows that if the question be: 2023 What kind of taxation produces employment, and what kind produces unemployment, it follows necessarily that the taxes put on the shoulders of the rich man may be discharged by that rich man without displacing his merits as an employer of labour at all, whereas it is impossible any such burden should be put on the shoulders of the poor without immediately and directly interfering with the employment that they are able to give. It seems to be assumed by this argument that the only persons who give employment are the rich. It seems to be thought that if you take £100 by means of taxation out of the rich man's pocket, you are thereby inflicting an injury upon employment in this country quite different in its character to what it would be if you took 100 separate sovereigns out of a hundred poor men's pockets. There is no distinction of that sort. The truth is, if anybody wants to know, that the person in this country who maintains the staple trades is not a rich man, but the poor man. It is true that the rich man, when he gets up in the morning, is faced with the alternative of putting on one of several suits of clothes, and he has a row of boots before him, any one pair of which he may put upon his feet. The poor man is faced by no such embarassing alternative, and that shows that it is really the demand of the poor for the necessities and the first luxuries of life, which is the promoting force of our staple trades.

Take your Bermondsey recipe, and put a 10 per cent. tax upon the leather, and then go and ask the manufacturers of Leicester and Northampton what the effect would be? Your tariff recipes used in the Bermondsey election will be admirable for Free Trade ammunition when an election comes on in Leicester and Northampton. What is the effect going to be? The effect is going to be that you put this 10 per cent. tariff on leather, which, according to the people of Bermondsey, is their finished product, and, according to the manufacturers of Leicester, their raw material, and by so doing you are going to increase the price of that raw material by this amount, or thereabouts, or, at all events, you are going to increase it, you are going to increase the cost of machinary by which they make the boots and the cost of the material out of which they build their factories, and when you have done that you have put in peril the employment of 200,000 people in this country, who are paid to make boots and shoes. Does the 2024 House realise what is the expenditure on the part of the people which is involved by the sale of those boots and shoes in this country? From the Board of Trade returns for last year it appears that approximately those 200,000 hands employed in the Midlands and elsewhere are turning out pairs of boots made in this country and sold to the people of this country to the amount of forty-three million pounds worth per annum. Let me put this to the House. If you insist on not taxing the rich man and taxing the poor man you are doing this. You are transferring the incidence of your tax from the shoulders of the people who already buy all the boots they need on to the shoulders of people who would be glad to buy more boots if they could afford it.

The rich man's purchasing power in the matter of boots and clothes is exhausted, and if some other Budget were introduced and passed the rich people of this country would not express their gratitude by buying more boots. They would not order a single suit of clothes which they want. The rich, and this is my point, have already reached the point of saturation of supply. They have already got all that they want in the way of boots and clothes, whatever the cost may be, and the demand which is made upon them by this Budget is a demand which cannot possibly result in their reducing purchases in the case of articles produced by our staple trades. But what about the poor man? Does anybody contend that the working men of this country if they had more money would not buy more pairs of boots? Does anybody contend that if you increase the price of pairs of boots by 10 or 12 per cent., 2s. 6d. in the £, you are not going to decrease the consumption of boots by the working classes? It follows necessarily that if any attempt is made to shift these taxes from the shoulders where they now are, and make them fall on persons of less income and substance, so far from thereby giving increased employment, you are thereby directly penalising the very sort of income and the expenditure which is prepared to maintain and support all kinds of employment in this country. It is easy enough for Members of another place, who are perhaps less directly in contact with the business affairs of this country than some in this House, to imagine that they are the one and only givers of employment, but it is not true.

It may or it may not be the fact that the man of wealth when he is spending £100 which he would not have if this Budget 2025 is passed would do it in some form which gives employment; but it is highly probable that he would not, because he does not now deprive himself of those things the production of which give employment. He is a, far better and more sensible fellow than he is made out to be, and whatever the effect of these taxes which are proposed may be, he will not go to the length of depriving himself of those necessary and agreeable luxuries which really are the products of the staple trades of this country. It follows, therefore, that whether you take boots, clothes, or building materials, whether you take any of the first necessities of the decent home, or anything of that nature, the idea that by any contribution from the rich man you are producing unemployment is one which is necessarily exploded the moment one considers the way in which these taxes would be spent. I do not desire to occupy an unnecessary amount of time, but I do submit that so far as these proposals are attacked on the ground that they prejudice employment and fail to produce some employment, no charge can be more utterly baseless. No charge can be less warranted by any calm examination of the facts. May I, in conclusion, call attention to a broader aspect of this matter, which I venture to put before it is too late, and which it would be well for those who are chiefly prejudiced against this Budget to consider? It is suggested that these proposals are likely to be followed by some insecurity of ownership and holding of property. It is suggested that the cause of private ownership is rendered less safe by this Budget. Is not the real truth the precise opposite? Is not the real danger—and it is one—the danger which accumulated wealth and great properties of this country run, that the democracy may begin to ask whether they are as conscious of their obligations to the community as they are of the wealth they get from it?

Is there a better way of securing what has been honestly come by, and fairly preserved and transmitted, than an attitude the direct opposite of that now being exhibited by those who oppose these taxes, and which exhibits what really is the gulf which divides the poor from the rich in this country? The President of the Local Government Board, either this year or last year, produced a Blue Book which gave statistics as to the state of the people of this country in various parts of it. I can imagine the use that might be made of that Blue Book, combined with the attitude of those who oppose this Budget, by 2026 those who are in favour of it. If you look in that Blue Book you find that half a million persons live in tenements of one room, three millions live in tenements of two rooms, another three millions in three rooms, and seven millions in four rooms. Does anyone seriously imagine that when these are the facts in this country to-day, that the argument put forward by the very rich individuals of the country against the Budget is an argument which is going to carry weight with sensible men? The sensible man argues that if a man who is rich is not prepared to sacrifice some portion of his superfluities to carry the common burden, from that moment he stands condemned, and his system stands condemned in the eyes of all those people who expect the obligations of wealth to be recognised as well as its privileges. As far as I am concerned, I hope and believe that I would have nothing to do with these proposals if I thought that they deserved some of the epithets which were thrown at them; but epithets, and very violent epithets, have become rather common in very high places, and with very little warrant, of late, and the judgment this country will pronounce, and the judgment which it is pronouncing, upon these proposals will not be decided by epithets. It will be decided by asking the question, since the Leader of the Opposition does not feel so violently opposed to the other taxes in the Budget beyond the Land Taxes and the Licensing Duties, which are the first for him to reject and the last he could bring himself to propose, can it really be that the authorities in our Constitution who speak permanently for land and permanently for licensing are going to control the action of our Legislature in determining whether these taxes should be imposed?

§ Mr. JOHN REDMOND

I cannot but express my hearty admiration for hon. Members on both sides of the House who, after six months of Debate on every conceivable aspect of this question, are able to come down to this full-dress Debate and impart an appearance, at any rate, of freshness and enthusiasm to their speeches. For my part, I regard the time for argument has past, and I feel, so far as I and my colleagues are concerned, that the only thing that I can say of interest to the House is what we are going to do in the Division which is coming on. On this Budget, as on every Budget upon which I have spoken, and I have spoken, I am afraid to say, on a great many Budgets, I look at the question from 2027 the purely Irish point of view, just as, in my opinion, the Chancellors of the Exchequer, in framing their Budgets, have always looked at them from the British point of view, to the exclusion altogether of Irish interests and Irish concerns. I would ask the House to bear with me for a moment while I just remind them of the attitude which the Irish party in this House has taken on this Budget from the very first. The very night of the Budget statement, last April, I declared that in many of its most serious principles this Budget was unjust to Ireland, and in those particulars would be opposed by us. When the Budget Resolutions came under discussion we raised every point which we thought injurious to our country, and we opposed very many of the most serious parts of the Budget, and as we came to the second reading we felt that it would be impossible for us, although there were portions of the Budget that we approved of, to abstain from voting against the second reading because we did not know how far the concessions that we had asked for were likely to be made by the Government when we got into Committee. I said that there were portions of this Bill that we entirely approved of. For 30 years in this House the Irish party has been voting consistently in favour of Land Taxes similar to those which are in this Bill; in fact, we were almost the pioneers of this question in the House of Commons. We were voting in our full strength in favour of the principle of these taxes at a time when the English Members voting in the same Lobby, of any party, might be counted on the fingers of the two hands. Therefore we approach this Budget as people who are thoroughly friendly to the principle of the Land Taxes. It is true that we made two demands on the Government. One was that agricultural land should be excluded from these taxes and the other was that the money raised by these taxes should go to local authorities and not into the Imperial Treasury. We obtained concessions on both those points. Agricultural land was excluded from the operation of these Land Taxes, and, although our demands that the whole of the money should go to local authorities was not conceded, at any rate we obtained the concession that half the money should go to local authorities. Therefore, so far as the Land Taxes are concerned, and they are the chief part of the Budget, if one is 2028 to judge by the length of time spent upon them, the feeling of friendliness that we had towards them at the commencement of these discussions has increased, and I say, for the Irish party, that we are heartily in favour of them as they now stand in the Bill. We oppose as unjust and oppressive to Ireland the liquor licences provided in the Bill—unjust and oppressive by reason of the different conditions which exist in Ireland and in this country, conditions which it has been admitted have not been fully considered by the framers of this Bill, conditions which, when they were brought to the knowledge of the framers of this Bill, forced them by an irresistible process to reconsider the whole matter, and on this point I am glad to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister made, in answer to our representation, a most important concession in principle, and a most important concession in practice. First of all, if this concession had not relieved Ireland of sixpence, I should have considered the mere fact that the Government differentiated Ireland from Great Britain in their application of a financial measure as in principle of very great importance to us and to our cause. But this concession is far more, because, according to the information and figures which have been supplied to me, something like 90 per cent. of the licence-holders in Ireland will obtain relief from the burden which will fall upon a similar class in this country, and, in point of money, the relief will amount, I am informed, to something over £50,000 a year. In a poor country, where the traders are all small, poor men, that is an enormous concession, and although it still leaves a number of the large licence-holders in Ireland unfairly hit, still, in the main, it meets the objection that we took to these Clauses, and it is regarded by us as a very considerable concession.

I am sorry to say that on other portions of the Bill we did not obtain similarly large concessions. I made a most urgent appeal to the Government more than once on behalf of the small brewers in Ireland. There are about 28 breweries in Ireland—all small, struggling concerns—and there is one great monopoly, which produces more than three times as much beer as all the rest of the Irish breweries put together, and I urged on the Government that, if these brewers' licences were maintained as they are in the Bill, it would have the effect of closing up most of the small breweries which are to-day not 2029 paying a dividend, and are barely living, but are giving employment and doing useful work, and making the monopoly of Guinness' still more complete and overwhelming. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy did not deny the hardship that I pointed out, but said that, inasumch as the Sugar Tax had been reduced last year, and that as sugar was so large an ingredient in the manufacture of beer, at least half of the original tax imposed upon brewers by the Budget they have already been relieved of. That is quite true of England, but it is not true of Ireland. I believe in the manufacture of black beer or porter there is no sugar used at all, and so far as the other kind of beer is concerned, brewers do not use it in Ireland. The amount of relief which the brewers of Ireland got by the reduction of the Sugar Duty last year only amounted in the aggregate to the ridiculous sum of £45, so there is a distinction therefore in the case of the brewers in England and in Ireland, and I have to express my deep regret that the different circumstances in the two countries did not induce the Government to relieve the small Irish brewers, as similar conditions induced them to relieve the small Irish licence holder. I protest with all the vehemence that I can against this tax as an unfair and oppressive one so far as Ireland is concerned.

Then I come to the Whisky Duty. The Act of Union provides that there shall be exemptions and abatements in favour of Ireland when a system of indiscriminate taxation for the two countries is set up. In this case of the Whisky Duty, not only is there no exemption or abatement in favour of Ireland, but there is a differentiation against Ireland, because the Government have actually picked out for taxation what is essentially an Irish and a Scotch industry, and which is not an English industry at all, and the tax therefore on whisky, which will hit most seriously Scotland and Ireland, will not be felt in the smallest degree by the richer partner in the firm. So far as Ireland is concerned I regard it as an unjust and a cruel tax. Irish industries were destroyed by the act of this Parliament. Two hundred years ago or more, one by one, each Irish industry was strangled by prohibitive duties of 200 per cent., 400 per cent., and sometimes 500 per cent. This is not a question for dispute; it is a question of fact. It is a matter which is admitted even by the Leader of the Opposition, who in a famous speech in Birmingham a few years 2030 ago admitted that the English Parliament by its legislation had destroyed Irish industries, and that therefore England had a certain duty to Ireland in the future. History, in this question of the Whisky Tax, is in this Budget repeating itself, because the effect of this tax will be largely to destroy this Irish industry. It is not a tax put on for the purpose of revenue. It cannot be. It is going to produce no revenue. The sanguine anticipations on this head of the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been blown to the winds by the experience that we have had. There is no money to be got out of this for the Exchequer. The only effect of the tax will be that it will largely destroy the industry. I have heard this Whisky Tax supported on the grounds that there is a diminution in the consumption of whisky, and that that is a good thing from the temperance point of view. From the point of view of temperance I really think there is serious doubt as to whether a diminution in the consumption of whisky is a good thing. If a man, instead of drinking a glass of whisky, drinks two or three quarts of porter, I am not sure that temperance is advanced, and we find that where the consumption of whisky has gone down the consumption of beer has increased in Ire land, and is increasing. Therefore, my belief is that, from the temperance point of view, this will be of no use at all; but even if it was, what right have you to put social temperance legislation into the Budget? I can understand your rejoicing if, when you put a tax on for revenue, it has the incidental effect of promoting temperance, but this is not a tax put on for revenue. It has been proved that the tax will not produce revenue, and it is not a justification for it to say that it leads to a diminution in the consumption of whisky. The whisky manufacturer in Ireland is one of the few remaining industries we have. It is an industry that employs a large amount of labour, and promotes tillage, the growing of barley, and its destruction or injury will be felt by many classes all over Ireland, and therefore we all deeply deplore that the Government have included this whisky tax in their Budget, and we take this last opportunity of entering our protest against it.

If there was nothing else in this Bill to which we objected except this deadly attack, as I believe it is, upon one of the few remaining Irish industries, it would be impossible for us by our votes to support it, but there is a much wider question which we are bound on these occasions to 2031 raise. Ever since the Report of the Royal Commission on the financial relations between the two countries the Irish party has refused to vote in favour of additional taxation for Ireland. The verdict of that Commission still holds the field. That verdict, pronounced by this Commission, with a majority of Englishmen, which took the evidence of all the greatest financial experts of the day, was that Ireland was overtaxed to the extent of £2,750,000 a year, and further that she had been so overtaxed, at least ever since the year 1853, so that there was an accumulation of arrears due to Ireland extending right back for half a century. That was your own tribunal. England set this tribunal up for herself. England selected the members of the tribunal, England made its case before that tribunal, and the verdict was against England. That verdict holds the field. There has been no appeal from it. I remember the present Leader of the Opposition, when he was in power, arguing against the Report of that Commission, and he said there were certain aspects of the question that they did not consider, for example, the extravagant expenditure on Irish Government, as if that could be set off to our claim, as if we wanted an extravagant and corrupt Government in Ireland. When he set up that claim that this question had not been considered by the Commission, he said he would appoint a fresh Commission to complete the work. Why did he not do it? He never did it, and from that day to this there has been no new tribunal appointed, and under these circumstances I say that Great Britain is bound in honour and in justice by the verdict so given. The Liberal party in this House voted again and again with us in support of the Report of the Commission, and the present Prime Minister made more than one speech, and one most emphatic speech, on the question when he said that in his judgment no one could deny the fact that Ireland was overtaxed to the extent of £2,750,000. In those circumstances, how can any reasonable man expect the Irish Nationalist representatives who maintain that claim to vote in favour of a Budget which increases the general taxation of Ireland, even though the greater portion of that taxation is in the shape of land taxes, which we approve of in principle? We are bound to decline to vote for the putting of any further taxation on Ireland, until either the Report of the Commission of 1894–5 is carried out, or until that verdict 2032 is modified by some other tribunal set up to consider the matter.

I confess I feel myself, under the peculiar circumstances of this Budget, in a position of some embarrassment. As I say, we are heartily in favour of the Land Taxes, and I recognise that it is the Land Taxes upon which the Gentlemen of the Opposition have made their fight, and on which the House of Lords is going to make its fight. Of course, they devoted a few days to discussion of other portions of the Budget, but the mere fact that from the date when the Budget was introduced, I think on 29th April, until 1st September, four whole months were occupied entirely with the discussion of these Land Taxes, is enough evidence. The fight on the Resolutions was on the Land Taxes too. I do not say they did not drop a few observations here and there on other portions of the Bill, but nobody can deny the fact that the great fight in this House against the Budget, judged even by the test of time, was on the Land Taxes. It is on the Land Taxes to-day that the campaign is going on in the country, and on the Land Taxes that this Bill is going to be mauled in another place, and, such being the case, and being in favour of these Land Taxes myself in principle and in practice, and having obtained valuable concessions, from the Irish point of view, on these Land Taxes, I find myself at the present moment in a position of considerable embarrassment. I recognise another matter. We object to this Budget because it is unjust to Ireland, and because we do not want any additional taxation placed upon Ireland. Those Gentlemen who have opposed the Budget on the Unionist Benches never gave the faintest hint or suggestion that they were in favour of differentiation in favour of Ireland, or that if they had to frame a Budget to-morrow that they would leave Ireland out of it. On the contrary, they voted against the concessions which Ireland got. They actually walked into the Lobby, and even their Irish associates, like the Member for Trinity College, with sublime unselfishness, would not take any benefit for Ireland that was withheld from England. They all walked into the Lobby against the concession on the Licence Duty which we obtained, and, therefore, we are looking at this matter from an entirely different standpoint. We are looking at it from the point of view of the interests of Ireland, and if I am asked to vote in favour of the campaign of these honourable Gentlemen and of the House of Lords in wrecking this Bill, I am compelled to ask 2033 on what basis. Is it on the basis that if they got into office, would they remit Irish taxation? I know they would do nothing of the kind. I know what would happen if they got in. They would have to provide all this money, and probably more money still. They would reject the Land Taxes, of course. The Land Taxes hurt their interests and the interests of their class. Therefore, they would reject the Land Taxes and put taxation upon the poor in Ireland. They would increase indirect taxation in Ireland, which already, let me remind hon. Members, is 78 per cent. of the whole, although it is only 50 per cent. in round numbers in this country. Their Budget, so far from being better to Ireland, would inevitably be worse for Ireland, and therefore I feel some embarrassment. I did not hear the Gentlemen of the Opposition say much about the Whisky Taxes or their effect upon Ireland. I did not hear one of them say one word from the Irish point of view on the Whisky Taxes.

But there is a larger issue at stake in this matter. We are told this Bill is going to be rejected by the House of Lords. If that fight is entered upon, many issues more than Land Taxes or Licence Taxes will be raised. If that question of the House of Lords, and the power of the House of Lords to permanently block legislation in this country, is to be raised, if that power is going to be challenged in the crisis which is before us, I am not going to be on the side of the House of Lords. Under these circumstances, and looking at this from the Irish point of view, bad and all as the Whisky Tax is for Ireland, bad and all as the increased taxes on the stamps and Death Duties are for Ireland, they would sink into insignificance and disappear if in a great constitutional crisis we were able to take sides effectively against the power of the House of Lords which permanently blocks every good measure proposed for Ireland, and which at this moment is engaged, and has been for the last few days, in tearing up what I regard as a treaty of peace for Ireland. The effect of this, if they persevere in that course, will be deliberately to plunge our country, as they have done over and over again, into a whirlpool of disorder, tumult, trouble, and suffering. In these circumstances, I am not, by reason of the fact that I am opposed to the increase of taxation, going to be cajoled into taking a course that would array me on the side of the House of Lords in the coming crisis, and therefore I and my colleagues 2034 will abstain from voting in the Division.

§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George)

I regret that I did not hear the first part of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond), but I understand that he summarised once more his objections to the Budget from the Irish point of view. I quite appreciate the considerations he put before the House of Commons, and I agree that one of the difficulties every Chancellor of the Exchequer is placed in when he wants to raise money is that he must go to those parts of the country where he is most likely to get money from. It is very difficult to submit any scheme to the British Parliament in the present position which, while just to the great majority of taxpayers, may not be unfair and burdensome in its incidence so far as Ireland is concerned. Therefore, it is a very great argument in favour of the attitude which the hon. and learned Member and his Friends have taken in regard to the question of self-government for Ireland. In the meantime that is a difficulty which every Chancellor of the Exchequer is confronted with, and nothing will improve that position except a complete, radical, and fundamental change in the relations of the two countries. We have been engaged on the consideration of these financial proposals for something like six months. I do not believe there has ever been a Budget presented in this country which has been more carefully examined, both before it was introduced and after its introduction. I think I can say with sincerity that I do not believe a Chancellor of the Exchequer and his officials ever took a longer time over the preparation of a Budget before it was introduced, and I am perfectly certain that no Cabinet ever subjected one to such a protracted examination. I say that by way of answering the suggestion that, at any rate, it has not been well-considered. Whether it is a good or a bad Budget, it was thoroughly examined and criticised both before and after its introduction. I think it a matter of congratulation that so contentious a measure as this has been carried through the House of Commons without the application of the guillotine, and without very much closure. Only on eight or nine occasions the line closure was applied. That is a matter for congratulation on the part of every man who is interested in the House of Commons as an assembly for legisla- 2035 tion. Now the guillotine has become an essential part of our machinery for every contentious measure. I always regretted it. I thought it was very undesirable from the point of view of the House of Commons. We decided to make the experiment of carrying this Bill through without anything in the nature of guillotine closure, and I am very glad to think, as a Member of the House of Commons, that, although we are sitting here in the month of November, we have, at any rate, succeeded in doing that.

I said that this Bill had been subjected to very close scrutiny in this House. I am not responsible for that. The right Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), if he will allow me to say so, has criticised the measure fairly, and in no part of the House of Commons is the spirit of fairness with which he has conducted his criticisms been more admired than on this side of the House. In his speech, when moving the rejection of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said it had been considerably cut up. I do not think so. So far from being cut up it has rather grown. It is considerably stouter, and I think on the whole it has been considerably improved by this process of forcible feeding which has been applied to it by the right hon. Gentleman. He applied a classical illustration as to its having been cut up and boiled in a pot. The classical simile I would apply would be rather a different one. I would say that the changes which have been made in the Bill are rather in the nature of sops to Cerberus. I hope in this atmosphere of personal recrimination neither the Leader of the Opposition nor the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) will regard that as a personal reflection upon them. In spite of all the very numerous and substantial sops, I am still told that there is considerable doubt as to whether my poor Bill will get out of Hades. Not merely has the Bill been subjected to severe criticism in the House of Commons, but it has received severe criticism outside, and we have done our best sincerely to meet everybody's criticism, and I think the right hon. Gentleman frankly admitted it. He said he objected to the principles of the Bill, but I think he admitted that we did our very best to meet criticisms so far as we could go consistently with the principles which we had laid down.

There are just one or two observations I would like to make generally on the Bill 2036 before it leaves the House of Commons. Admittedly it is very difficult to say anything new when you have been talking about it for six months, and, therefore, anything that I say will be rather in the nature of summing up than in the nature of the introduction of fresh matter. The first observation that I would like to make is this: No one now challenges the need for raising £16,000,000 of money. On the contrary, it is admitted by all parties. In fact, any one who doubts that the other side are just as anxious as we are to raise the money runs considerable risk of being called names. I am only putting it in order to show that, at any rate, there is complete agreement established between both sides of the House as to the need of raising this sum of £16,000,000. I recollect when the Bill was first introduced there were two charges brought against the Budget as a financial proposition. One was that we underestimated our revenue; the second was that we had overestimated our expenditure. I do not think that any one now, after six months' experience, would repeat either of those two criticisms. Quite the reverse. The revenue, with the exception of the Death Duties, has run the usual course in these cases. Therefore, at the end of six months we are confronted with this fact as an accepted one, as common ground to both parties—that we have got to find £16,000,000 this year. But there is another fact which is equally important when we come to consider the character of the taxes, and that is that the £16,000,000 this year must necessarily swell into something considerably more next year. That also is common ground. What is responsible for that?

There is first of all the steady normal fall in the drink revenue which, at any rate for the moment, has to form part of the necessary calculations for every Minister responsible for the revenue. There has been a steady fall for years. That has got to be taken into account next year. Then there is the automatic increase in the "Dreadnought" account. Apart altogether from any controversy of whether we are going to have, 4 or 8, or 12, the mere fact that we have laid down four this year involves an increase in the expenditure next year. Then there is the natural growth of the old age pensions. There is the question, which both parties admit must be dealt with, of the removal of the pauper disqualification. There is the unemployment and sickness insurance, which I do not think is challenged by any 2037 political party in this House; and there is the increased grant for development. All that involves next year a very considerable increase in revenue, something that runs into millions, as I pointed out. All that is ignored when we come to consider the character of taxes. I want on this, the last opportunity which we shall have of discussing the Bill, that the House should bear that in mind, because it is very relevant to the consideration of some of the criticisms that have been passed on the taxes for their non-productivity this year. The taxes have been arranged with a view to meeting the situation, with a view to providing £16,000,000 this year, and with a view of providing the larger sum which will have to be met next year and the following year. What are the taxes, the remaining yield of which will inure to the Exchequer this year? There is the 2d. increase. That will come in this year. Then there are the licences. The whole of those will probably come in during the course of the current year. The bulk of the Estate Duties—I am referring now to Estate Duties and not to the old Death Duties—will come in this year, though they will grow next year. Tobacco and motors will come in this year. Next year and the following year the Super-tax comes in. This year we shall probably only get about one-fourth or one-fifth of the Super-tax. The Legacy and Succession Duties will produce hardly anything this year. Next year they will produce millions. Stamps this year will probably produce about £400,000 or £500,000; next year they will produce considerably over £1,000,000. Land Taxes this year on a balance will produce, I think, about £75,000; next year they will produce very much more, and that will be a growing sum year after year, until it becomes a very substantial part of the revenue. I divide these taxes into those categories because the Leader of the Opposition last night emphasised the fact more than once that we were only getting £50,000 from the Land Tax this year. I doubt very much whether we will get it.

§ Mr. A. J. BALFOUR

I quite agree with reference to the immediate year.

§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE

I only want to show that these taxes are not to be judged merely by what they are going to produce this year, because if the House will take Legacy and Succession Duty I doubt very much whether they will produce £75,000 this year. They will attain a big yield 2038 next year. The same thing applies to Land Taxes and to some of the other taxes. We have to raise £15,000,000 or £16,000,000 additional this year. It may be over £20,000,000 next year. What contribution have the Opposition made towards finding that sum? What contribution have they shown their readiness to make? They have opposed in their turn every tax which yielded anything. The only recommendation for a tax was that it did not produce anything. But of the taxes that would bring in the money towards meeting this £16,000,000 they would give us none.

§ Mr. JOHN WARD

The Income Tax passed without a division and the tobacco passed without a division.

§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE

The Income Tax was challenged; and the Super-tax was objected to because it taxed the rich. The twopenny Income Tax was objected to because it taxed the middle classes. The Tobacco Tax was objected to because it taxed the working classes. One tax was objected to because it taxed capital, and another tax was objected to because it taxed income. Spirits were objected to because the drinkers had to pay. Tea was voted against because, I suppose, teetotallers would have to contribute to it. One tax was objected to because it fell on Ireland and Scotland. The threepenny duty on beer was objected to, I suppose, because it fell on England. Where was the money to come from? Neither from rich, nor middle class, nor poor. Neither from England, Scotland, Ireland, nor Wales; neither from capital nor income; neither from teetotallers nor drinkers. We were to raise the £16,000,000, but nobody was to contribute a penny towards it. The answer, I think, is, "Well, tax the foreigner." It is rather remarkable that they kept clear of this suggestion until we came to the peroration of the speech on the Third Reading rejecting the Bill. And the only Member of the House who has elaborated his proposal who has had the courage to do so was the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Rowland Hunt). Apart from him, we have only had vague suggestions. He came forward with his Budget openly and courageously. But for six months we have been examining all these proposals that were objected to in their turn, and the only suggestion made has been a vague suggestion that somehow or other, if we could not get it from any citizens in this country, we ought to get it from the foreigner. There never was 2039 a more futile and a more phantom proposal. I will only say one word about it. If we really paid the tariff of Germany and the United States, there would be something to say for it. If the prices were regulated in such a way that articles would be cheap where tariffs were high, and prices higher in countries where the tariffs were less, there would be something to say for it. For instance, if a manufacturer or merchant in this country were to charge a home consumer the full 100 per cent., and charge the Germans 75 per cent., and charge the Americans 50 per cent., of any price, there would be something to be said for it. When it comes to Russia, I do not know what would be said, because there the tariff reaches 100 per cent., and you would have to give them the article for nothing.

As a matter of fact, it is a perfectly absurd suggestion. The foreigner pays his own tariffs, and pays it twice over. He not only pays the increased cost of materials, but very often that increased cost of material keeps his manufactured goods out of neutral markets, and he has got to put on an extra price for those goods at home in order to sell to the foreigner cheaper than otherwise he would have done. It is just like the steel billets and South Wales, which are a very good case in point. Our competitors sometimes sell under cost price while charging their own people double price. This enables the tin-plate workers of South Wales to sell their tin-plate in the United States of America and get over the tariff in the United States. In the United States of America they charge their own people an extra price and Germany charges an extra price, and that enables the British tin-plate manufacturer to get in between them and reap the advantage. As a matter of fact the foreigner himself pays his own tax. Yet that is the only suggestion that has been made. I now ask what is the real criticism against the proposals of the Budget. I have noticed during the last few weeks that as far as the bulk of the taxes is concerned the criticism has weakened very considerably. I think in the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition last night there was rather a significant note when he talked about the Income Tax, the Super-tax, and the Death Duties. There was not a note of protest, but a note of assimilation, if I may venture to say so. He did not protest against them. I am not sure that he divided against them on 2040 the Report stage, and his real criticism has been directed rather to the two taxes of the Budget—the Land Tax and the Licence Duties. If the House will bear with me I would like to say a few words on those two taxes. Are those taxes really unjust?

With regard to the Licence Duties we are simply extending to the higher assessments the scale which is now in operation for the lower assessments by 50 per cent. I do not think it is too much to charge when we consider the value which is conferred by the monopoly given by the State. If we look at the very remarkable figures of the sales which took place in Newport a few days ago of licensed premises, I think we shall realise that there is not very much of a grievance so far as those premises are concerned. Houses of about £30 rateable value sold at £5,000 and £6,000. What is that value? That is not a value which is attributable to goodwill created by the holder. It is purely value created by the monopoly which is confererd by the State. I do not think, when the State is in need of money, that it is too much to ask that a contribution of this kind should be levied upon proeprty the value of which has appreciated so enormously owing to the monopoly that has been created by the State. I come, therefore, to the question of the land, which occupied most of our time. I agree there with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond). The real challenge of the Opposition is upon the land. We occupied the whole of the months practically from April up till September in discussing the land question. The Second Reading turned entirely upon the land, and most of the Debates in Committee were on the land—I mean, the Committee on the Resolution, and certainly most of the time occupied in the Committee Stage of the Bill. Is the land taxation unjust? Take, first of all, the Undeveloped Land Tax. What is that tax? It is purely a tax upon the real value of the land. At the present moment land does not contribute on its real value in urban areas, and all we do is to ascertain the real value of the land, and charge practically a shilling in the pound upon that. It is not an extra tax. It is not an additional tax, because there is a deduction now in respect of agricultural value, which contributes its 1s. or its 1s. 2d. That is deducted when you come to the rating of the land, and the halfpenny tax is upon the value which escapes taxation 2041 altogether at the present moment. I consider that to be a perfectly fair proposition, and I think there are Members of the Opposition themselves who have admitted that in the past. Take those Gentlemen who are Members of the Opposition who supported the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for the Elland Division (Mr. Trevelyan) for the taxation of ground values. How can they say that it is spoliation and confiscation to impose a halfpenny upon land values when they themselves were prepared to vote for a Bill which imposed a much heavier tax upon land values? What did that Bill propose?

It was a much more drastic one than this, which we put in the Budget. It was a proposal to value all the land of the Kingdom. No deduction was made in respect of the value created by enterprise, as we have done in the Budget. No deduction was made in respect of land which has been fully developed, as we have done in the Budget. All land was rated at its full value. What would have been charged upon it? Not a shilling, but the full rate, would have been charged upon it—in some cases 5s., 6s., and 10s. in the £, and yet there voted for that Bill four Gentleman who were members of the Ministry at the time, two of them Whips in the late Ministry, and one of them Whip at the present moment. I have heard that he has since voted steadily against all these taxes, which are much more moderate. Several hon. Members sitting behind him voted for that Bill. How on earth can they find it in their hearts to vote against the much milder propositions submitted by the Government in this Budget? I should like to hear an explanation. The only explanation we have had is from the hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith). The hon. and learned Gentleman tried to explain how it was that he had pledged himself to support the principle of land values. He voted against it in this House. It was part of his election address. And his explanation is that he did not object to the taxation of land values, but that he only objected to the objects to which the tax is to be applied. He wanted them used, not for pensions, but for municipal purposes. As long as the money went to gas and gutters the tax appealed to him, but when it was for pensions and "Dreadnoughts" and things of that kind, he could not find it in his heart to support the Bill. That is one of the most 2042 unsatisfactory and one of the lamest excuses that has ever been given in this House for a man not carrying out his pledges. The hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Mr. Watson Rutherford), one of the protagonists of this sort of tax, supported, and told for the Bill of my hon. Friend, and he made a strong speech for it. He said it was about time that the owners of these great ground values should contribute. He gave some very striking instances then, but in regard to our proposals he has criticised he has opposed; he has used his great knowledge to thwart and embarrass us, and he has never given us the slightest support. The very first time any effort has been made by any Government to put his principle into practical operation he devotes the whole of his knowledge and ability to making it impossible. All we have done is that we have just set up the principles we advocated in Opposition and embodied them in a Bill. So much for the Undeveloped Land Tax. Let us take the other tax which, I am told, smacks of Socialism—the Increment Tax.

It is rather remarkable, if the Increment Tax be considered Socialistic, that the economist who took the most leading part in advocating it was John Stuart Mill, who was certainly not a Socialist. What is the injustice of the Increment Tax? I will just give one or two illustrations, and then invite the House to take into contemplation and express an opinion in what respect it is unfair to charge Increment Tax.

Take the city of Sheffield. In one respect the town of Sheffield, under this Bill, has what is peculiar to a great town, but by no means peculiar to a rural district. A very large part of it is built upon land which was formerly common land, but which has been enclosed. There are 63,000 acres of common land enclosed within 12 miles of the parish church of Sheffield. A good deal of that land is now valued, and the best-known streets of Sheffield are built upon that common land. There is one enclosure award, a copy of which was sent to me the other day, which gives as the reason why the land should be enclosed that it was "incapable of improvement." So it was enclosed. It was advised that the landlords should take it over, and assume the burden upon themselves. I am not going to mention names, but I need hardly say there was a duke in it. What has happened to the land since—this land which was incapable of improvement? It has been improved. There are some very notable streets in Sheffield built upon it. Who made the value? Not those 2043 who took it over. The town of Sheffield grew on the industry and enterprise and energy of its inhabitants and its manufacturers. The population of Sheffield grew, and they wanted houses; they wanted not only houses, but they wanted shops and factories, and for shops, factories, and houses you want land. Then this enclosed land, this unimprovable land, became useful. Part of the prosperity of Sheffield is due to the expenditure out of Imperial funds of money for armaments and armour plates for ships. That has a bearing on its prosperity. All the money which was poured into Sheffield for the purpose of bringing work will have gradually gone into the enclosed land to help to improve its value, so that the Imperial Treasury has contributed something to the increment of that unimprovable land. What I ask is this, when the State is in need of money for armaments and for social needs, is it unfair to ask the owners of this property to contribute a share, and a substantial share, of all the further increment that accrues to them, not from their own efforts, not from their own exertions, not from any investments which they make, but purely from the growth of the community of Sheffield? I say it is a perfectly just and fair tax. I say more than that—I cannot conceive a more just tax, and I cannot conceive a more shabby opposition.

6.0 P.M.

Then I am told that they are the owners of this commons land and that the people reap the benefit from the growth and prosperity of Sheffield. That is a point that has been pressed more than once by the Leader of the Opposition, about there being no distinction between the increment which accrues to the landlord and the increment which accrues to other members of the community, and also by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh. That is a fair controversial point, and a point that ought to be met. Let us take that case, and it is far better to argue this not upon abstract principles but by reference to some concrete case. I take the Sheffield case. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite may say, Does not the tradesmen in those streets benefit by the growth and prosperity of Sheffield? Does not he reap some of the social value? Let me point out at any rate three very important distinctions between him and the land-owner. In the first place they do not start equal. If the tradesman had had a Parliament of 2044 grocers that voted to him his capital on the ground that nobody else could make any use of it, there might be something to say, just as the land was voted by a Parliament of landlords. But there is another distinction—the tradesman at any rate contributes by his enterprise, by his industry, and by his assiduity to that prosperity which enriches the community as a whole. The other point is this—the tradesman may have another trader starting next door, and who may take away the whole of his business. The more competition the trader has, the worse it is for him, but the more competition the landlord has, the better it is for him. If the trader has a number of rivals setting up in the same street, he has got to put down his prices. If the landlord has a number of people competing in the same street, he doubles his prices. That is a very essential difference. It is the fact that it is a pure monopoly that makes the real difficulty.

I will give another case. There is a town in South Wales where there are works of either steel or copper. [An HON. MEMBER: "Copper."] It does not very much matter for the purposes of this argument. They wanted a bit of ground for their rubbish; they took a lease of some slob land in the estuary, absolutely slab land covered by the tide, and, therefore, of no use. They paid for permission to tip rubbish into that swamp, and gradually hard, solid ground was formed. And now the landlord is letting that for building leases and getting from 30s. to £2 per house. Here is what I want to point out: In this case the landlord not merely does not develop, but he actually charges a price for allowing another person to develop. He not merely does not make this building land, but he charges the other person for permission to make it building land, and receives probably what runs to £20 or £30 per acre for that which was absolutely worthless, and which was really not land at all, and for land created by the energy and at the cost of others. Is it really unfair when an increment of that kind is created without any enterprise on the part of the landlord to say, "Here you have got to contribute something out of that to the expenditure of the State." I think that is a perfectly fair proposition. Put it as against what would happen if you did not raise the money by this means. The burden would necessarily be increased upon the shoulders of somebody else, probably the owners of those works might have paid their extra penny or twopence, 2045 and now I am not talking about the £70,000, but about the revenue when it matures. It would probably mean an extra twopence on the works, and is it not fair that the landlord should contribute out of his increment rather than that you should put an extra burden on the owners who have spent so much capital, energy, and enterprise, and have taken so much risk in developing the industry of the district. I simply mention those two or three cases. Everybody can multiply them from his own experience.

Let me come to mining royalty; and what happens in the case of mining royalty? There are a good many of those mines which were enclosed, and really it is not without its significance for anyone who reads the history of the Enclosure Acts that this occurred during the period of the Napoleonic wars, when a good many of the people interested in them were away. Take some of these cases. Sixpence per ton charged as royalties, and ground rents of from 30s. to £2 charged in respect of the houses, what does that mean? It means that the miner has got to make, that every miner in the country has got out of his labour every week to contribute 3s. 4d. to mining royalties. He has to find a house for himself, he pays 30s. ground rent, which is about 7d. per week, so that he pays 4s. per week for the right to labour and to live in his district. What I say is that when you are asking for money for the purposes of setting up a fund for pensions for those miners, and a sickness fund, and an unemployment fund, is it too much to ask that out of that 4s. which they contribute out of their wages, something which is not ½d. per week should be given by the landowners? Who says that that is unjust, who says that is robbery? I say that the man who objects to pay is a mean man. It is a small contribution to make when those men run such risks as we know they do. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh."] Why should hon. Members protest against that? Is it not an essential element, especially when you are providing a fund for sickness and invalidity. I do not think that any one who read the accounts of what happened last week has a right to protest, and I do not think any right-minded royalty owner, and I know royalty owners who take this view, and great royalty owners who take this view, and feel that it is a fair thing to ask them to contribute this halfpenny per week.

2046 Those are the reasons for which I think it is a perfectly fair tax, but I am told "it is not merely for fiscal purposes you are imposing the tax; you have got subsidiary purposes." Does it lie in the mouths of Tariff Reformers to object to that? Their view is that their tariff is not for revenue—that it is for protection, that it is for industry. They do not recommend it on the ground of producing revenue; they recommend it on the ground that it will produce employment, and that it improves industry. [Mr. HUNT: "Both."] There is a direct simplicity about the hon. Member which is invaluable. They do it for both purposes, and therefore it does not lie in their mouths to complain if other people do the same. I do not deny for a moment that there are subsidiary purposes which will be served by the Land Taxes. I believe, and I am not alone in that opinion, as I will prove by-and-by, that they will have the effect of developing land—of opening up land. That has been the effect wherever they have been applied Take the testimony of New Zealand. This is what the Town Clerk of Wellington said about similar taxes there. The result of the first year's trial of this system is a very gratifying one. That which was claimed by its exponents has been amply fulfilled. It encourages improvement and stimulates the use of land, and secures the unearned increment to those who have added the values. It is only stating the fact— And I state this for those who say the building is affected— to say that much, if not all of the activity in building operations of the city and surroundings during the past year is due to the influence of this healthy measure. I think we shall be able to say the same thing about this measure. I have got testimony here which I am certain hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will regard as quite unimpeachable. Before the last election speakers on the other side of the House had a valuable guide as to what they were to say. "A Handbook for Conservatives' Campaign Guide." I turned to the taxation of vacant land in this handbook for Unionist speakers, and I recommend it to hon. Gentlemen for the next election, whenever it comes. It is really so valuable that I do not like to leave anything out of it:— It is natural that the friends of the working and middle lower classes should desire for them, and that those classes should desire for themselves more room to live in, more commodious dwellings, and more air and sunshine and light around them, and more relief from the burden of house rent which probably in proportion to their incomes presses more heavily upon them than upon other classes of the community. 2047 That is a very useful preface. No policy could be more fatuous than to meet these aspirations, when moderately pressed, with a blank non possumus or with a cry of 'robbery.' I really think hon. Members have forgotten not only their pledges, but have also forgotten their arguments. A man may be quite justified as a matter of business to refuse in the meantime to let at a feu of £50 per acre land which he expects in a few years to let for a feu of £100. and to be content instead to let it for agricultural purposes at £3 per acre: but whether or not it is economically a sound policy, it is certainly not robbery to require him to make a contribution to the revenues of the community, on whose growth and prosperity he relies for the enhanced value of his property. …. It sounds like a Limehouse speech. Really, I must apologise for this amazing act of plagiarism on my part. to make a contribution to the revenues of the community upon a scale which shall bear some relation to the return he might have obtained, but prefers in the meantime to forego. This is not a paltry halfpenny. It is really substantial. My Bill is only petty larceny compared with this. This is making ground landlords walk the plank. But here is the point—on the question of subsidiary advantages:— The proposal is advocated, however, not only on account of the advantage to the rates, but also because of its tendency to bring building land into the market on reasonable terms. … They have got all the points. and thereby to encourage building, check overcrowding, and lower rents. Where is the damage to the building trade now? It seems not unlikely that the system, if otherwise practicable, might have such a tendency, though perhaps its operation would not be as extensive as it is supposed. That is the only qualification. This is an aspect of the question which should commend itself to the Unionist party. I am now going to make an appeal to the right hon. Member for South Dublin. He is at the head of a great league. I think after this he must burn his literature. All the robbery and spoliation leaflets are really not compatible with this. Let him honestly circulate this. It will help him. That is the case put by the Unionist handbook, by the guide, philosopher, and friend of every man who survived the last Election. They are perfectly right. It will undoubtedly encourage building, because it will discourage those operations which trammel building. The 10 per cent. Reversion Duty, the hon. Member for the West Derby division of Liverpool (Mr. Watson Rutherford) has admitted, will 2048 discourage the short leasehold system, which is the curse of building in this country. More than that. Everybody knows at the present moment it is not merely the difficulty of getting land, which is great enough; it is very often the stupidity, unintelligence, and prejudice of some individual, either land-owner or land agent, which locks up a whole community. I am certain every land-owner will admit in his heart that there is a good deal of that. The whole community has its prosperity shrivelled up by the stupidity of one man. But it is not merely that. A man prospers in a particular spot; his trade outgrows his premises; he has got to extend them; he cannot help it; but he cannot extend his business without extending his lease, without acquiring fresh land. He is entirely in the landlord's hand. I say that this 10 per cent. duty will discourage that. But, what is still more: there is a part of the taxes which has been very little dwelt upon. It is said that there is nothing new in the Bill. The 20 per cent. Increment Duty on death is new. That is my patent. For the first time it has been imposed in either this or any other country; and I have great hopes of it, because the moment these extortionate prices are demanded from individual traders and manufacturers in respect of land, there will always be a fear that if you charge specifically in respect of one building in a row, you may escape selling, you may escape leasing, but you must part with your property one day, and the valuation for the whole row will be adjudicated according to the demand which you yourself have made. I claim for this Budget that by it we have provided revenue, ample and adequate, for objects which make for the security of the State and the well-being of its people. We have done it by means which, by discouraging, and, I believe, eventually destroying the trammels that burden industry and trade at the present time, will do great things for the enrichment not merely of one class but of all classes of the community.

§ Lord ROBERT CECIL

The Chancellor of the Exchequer began his speech with a compliment to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire which I feel the whole House will agree was thoroughly well deserved. I trust he will not think me guilty of tu quoque compliments if I express, at any rate on my own behalf, a great sense of the courtesy, courage, and, may I add, physical endurance which the right hon. Gentleman has