THE BUDGET CAMPAIGN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 207, 6 October 1909, Page 2

THE BUDGET CAMPAIGN

LORD ROSEBERY'S ATTITUDE. DECLINES TO MAKE ANY MORE BUDGET SPEECHES. ByCable.-Prosi Aasoclatlon.-OopyrigM Received fi. 10.10 p.m. London, October 5. Lord Rosebery has declined the invil iHon of a large and inlluential tody of Business men to address- a meeting at Birmingham. He states that under present circumstances he does not propose to make any more speeches on the Budget. "I lave," he said, "given the country my responsible judgment. Speeches of amplification ami xep'.y would simply involve my return to political controversy. As for the mere llutuleuec of pergonal abuse with whien in the main my speech has been met, that will soon blow itself larmleuly away."

A STRENUOUS DEBATE. IRISH PARTY VOTE AGAINST Tll2 GOVERNMENT. Received 5, 10.10 p.m. London, October 5. A. strenuous debate took place in the House of Commons on the schedule dealing with the new licensing duties. The Nationalists hotly complained that distillers and small brewers in Ireland would be ruined. Mr. T. Healy reproached the Government for not placing a countervailing duty on imported German whisky. Mr. Asquith replied that there were small brewers in England. It was irn possible to discriminate between England and Ireland.

The Nationalists voted against the Government throughout. The Government e majority once fell to 35. A REVISED STATEMENT OP i REVENUE. Received 5, 10.10 p.m. London, October 5. In view of the many changes in tilt Finance Bill, Mr. Lloyd-George (Chancellor of the Exchequer) has promised to submit a revised statement of ievenue which the Government hope t> collect under the Budget. THROWING OUT THE BUDGET. WHAT IT WOULD MEAN-A STRIKING Warning. CHAOS AND A NEW CONSTITUTION. London, August 20. A striking article on "The Budget and the Peers" is contributed by Mr. Frederic Harrison, the well-known publicist, in the September number of the Positivist Review. 1.1 ;!|MH Whatever the hotbloods may say, whatever the rank and file may clamor for, the experienced leaders of Conservatism, financiers, and organisers well know what terrific risks they incur b/ defying the Commons, says Mr. Harrison, fln the first place, even if an immediate general election were held in October, the disorganisation of our whole t financial, administrative, and industrial s-ystcms would be equivalent to the effects of civil war. Incalculable confusion would result; for taxes as yet unauthor--0 ised by Parliament have already been j paid on countless millions. The funds, . and with the funds all investments, | would fall 20 per cent. We should find ourselves so much the poorer. Even t'lo ',' poor, and those who have no realised properly, would find work stagnant, industry paralysed. It would not be possible to throw the responsibility of toe disaster on the Commons and the Ministers, for the plain truth would lie that the Lords had brought it about in order to force taxation of the people's food.

Tin- chaos involved by this deadlock would lie universal. Every man who possessed one nundrod pounds of his owo would lind it worth no more than eighty; und there would lie no immedinte use even for the eighty. 'But the social and political chaos would be even more serious than the economic chaii. The old unwritten Constitution having heen destroyed, we should have to construct a new written Parliament*)? Constitution. can say what that would* lie ? No House of Peers would figure in it, possibly not even an hereditary throne, suggests the writer. And when a new Chancellor of the Exchequer had to frame another popular Budget, the "unearned increment" ; clauses, the super tax, the death duties, and the like would not he the moderate pcrccntajc proposed by Asqiiitb ami Llnyd-Genrc", but mure nlcin to that suggested Tiv Carnegie, Snowden. and- Keir Hardie. No; the Conservative lenders will not take that plunge. Tint social reformers should pray that they might. The_ English land-tenure system (adds Mr. Harrison), especially in towns, but also on every acre of English soil, is an obsolete conglomeration of rights an.l usages ingeniously contrived to give every advantage to the legal owner of the soil, to all creditors, to rent-M. ceivers. as against occupiers, cultivators, debtor*, and workers. Tt is an aneient system, the tyranny of which is con(ealed by law and custom from the conscience of those who enjoy it. and from the knowledge of those who suffer undef it.