LIBERAL CLEAVAGE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1502, 26 July 1912, Page 5

LIBERAL CLEAVAGE.

WILL MR. LLOYD-GEORGE RESIGN?

A UNIONIST PARALLEL.

.8y Telegraph—Press Aesociatfon-OoDyrluhl '■■' . London, July Zi. "The Times"' oompares the situation of the Liberals to that of tho Unionists in 1903, when Mr. Joseph Chamberlain rosignod in order to conduct his tariff campaign in tho country with Jlr. Balfcur'e sanction. "The question is," says "Tho Times," "whether Mr. Lloyd-Gcorgo Trill resign in order to try to win an election en, his land,policy." , Mr. Lloyd-George, in. a letter to a correspondent, says he hopee that an election will encourage the Government to further the task of freeing tho land from the present system of bondage, monopoly, and privilege.. ' ■ Sir C. E. Henry, M.P. for Wellington Division of Shropshire, and a proprietor of the "Westminister Gazette," regards the land taxation propounded by-a certain group.of Liberals as fantastical,.and imlitely to receive the support of the majcrity. ! ' 7 . . ■ : UNIONIST COUNTERBLAST. 'A LAND POLICY OUTLINED. ■ (Eeo. July 25, 10.45 p.m.) London, July 25. Lord Lansdowne, Unionist leader in the House of Lords, at a'meeting of the Bnral League, outlined the Unionists' future land policy. He aaid the party favonred State-aided land purchase when the conditions and opportunities weTe favourable, and also advocated the establishment of Tural banks, the improvement of .housing, and effective agricultural education.

LORD HALDANE QUESTIONED, SINGLE TAX NOT LIKELY, (Reo. July 25,,. 10.45 p.m.) London, July 25. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, Speaking in the' House, of Lords, made a non-committal reply to Lord Camperdown, as to whether Mr. Lloyd George would undertake a land reform campaign in the autumn. Ho declared that the new Liberal member, Mr. Outhwaite, had no authority to speak for the Government.:- The Government was unlikely to introduce the Single Tax. The Master of Elibank, Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, in an interview, denied that Mr.' Lloyd George had at any time raised the question of resignation,, with a. view to ah independent cam- .■;.■.■'■.■ ■

: . A RURAL PROGRAMME, ' GREAT LANDLORDS TO QUIT. , A programme of land reform , was recently; outlined in the "Nation," the leading Liberal weekly. ■ "It should," it says, ..■• include a living wage for the labourer, ■a decent house for him to live in, land enough to afford him, first, an alternative resource to his labour, and, eventually, fall occupation, a system of transit adapted to the effective marketing of his produce, and a sensible relief of rating. These reforms are practically a call for a new rural ■ society; involving the fc»al. disappearance of the great landlord and the system of large enplosed fanning on which his power is based. His special form : ,of..■econoffly, .isJast./turiiing our countryside into a ranoh and a game preserve'; the most salient spectaclo of iEocxal waste.that, Europe affords. It is •tome for him to go, and time for Liberal, .•statesmanship, to give him fair notice to >qnit... The. .countryside is■■ empty. : The 'land ,cnes out, for labour,' and labour cn«s out for land. ..;..■ "But,'-' adds the "Nation," "the land ■question, though it has often been aeitateoVhasnever been solved, nor has any Bubstantial progress been made with three ■: closely, attendants •. questions-the wage question,- the housing question, and the rating question. . . /■ But the most denmte need of the hour is to raise the lvholo problem of the condition of the «X W k T w in '" a .'dramatic,.and substantial form. •'..'-..

; Four Main Social Evils. ' '. "Four mam social evils afflict his life, ine nrst is,his dependence, economic and .personal; the second hie low wage: the ;.thirdJus landkssness; the fourth the dei PjOTfWe way m which he is housed. And -all these evils are related to each other. |The labourer is- dependent because he ■;iias no ohoice of house-room and no resource save that of labour. His wages are low, because (among other reasons) he Jacks the power or the habit of combination. He is badly housed, because hia' .wages are so inadequate that he cannot afford an economic Tent for a decent dwelling. Therefore, he wants, first, to be roused to a sense of the sufferings and the wants of his'condition, and then xo be assured of powerful aid against those classes who, often quite 'unconsciously ; oppress ,him, ,and the system, which those ■classes represent.. .-■••: .'"lt was a misfortune that this duty of building up a new agricultural society ■.ana not initiated by the inclusion of /agricultural land in the Budget of 1909. , iTaotically, two solutions of the ruTal Housing question are possible. The State can step in with its credit and its resources, as it has stepped in in Ireland, or it can make the rural landlord responsible, for the deficiency of house-room, and call on him to make it CrU'^V ? ! tl i e agricultural ' tourer m the East and West and South ?L I \ ni l,. are ; at ,¥?* ? 5 P« r "eat below what they ought to be, and if any Wknsionis to be made to the machinery of the Wages Board Act it should be land, and land '13 not coming his way, started thirty years aw from a lower ?^ ard ?f life than lus, and is » rf tWi or , te: i co r««* of most ot tne Boil of. Ireland.