BRITISH POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 332, 7 March 1910, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS.

THE BUDGET CONFUSION. GOVERNMENT REFUSES SEPARATE TAX BILLS. By Cable.—Frees Association. —Copyrig.it London, March 4. Lord Lansdowne has given notice of motion in the House of Lords to enquire of the Government the cause of the delay in the production of the Budget. London, March 4. Mr. C. E. Mallen, M.P., has beenappointed Financial Secretary to the War Office. In the House of Commons Mr. Evelyn Cecil drew attention to the authorities refusing his income tax cheque, and accused the Government of adopting _ a fatuous policy in order to spite the House of Lords. Mr. Asquith, replying, stated that the House of Lords was entirely responsible for the confusion. He refused to depart from his principles of forty years, and divide the Budget into parts for the purpose of mitigating the damaging results of the House of Lords' action. Mr. Lloyd-George said the demand for a separate Income Tax Bill was a ■species of hypocrisy. TEMPORARY FINANCING. DISCUSSION ON POLITICAL EPITHETS. A QUESTION OF TACTICS. Rceived March 6. 5.5 j>-^-London, March 5. The Treasury Temporary Borrowing Bill was' read a third time. In the House of Commons, the Transvaal War Loan Redemption Bill was read a third time. During the debate Mr Evelyn Cecil, answering Mr Asquith's remark that the great majority of the people regarded as incredible the Lords' right to reject the Budget, recalled LloydGeorge's Temark '"rat-trap." When Stanley Wilson reminded the Commons that Rubblesdale, a Government supporter, had described LloydGeor«e as half pantaloon, half highwayman, the Speaker objected to such offensiveness, but was unable to compel the withdrawal of the words, because the quotations were from t»e other House, ana were frequently used during the election. Mr Wilson explained that he mentioned it because IJoyd-George's methods in the House and the country had produced the present situation. Llovd-George declared that the Government would not accept the iespon Ability for using demand notes for income tax which they were not prepared to enforce. He was prepared to receive any income tax voluntarily. If the Government sent the Lords a Bill for a single tax, the Government woulu surrender the right gained when Mr Gladstone in 1861 circumvented the House of Lords by putting taxes on a Bill which the Lords must accept or reject as a whole. Lord Courtney, speaking at the Nevr Reform Club, said though a majority had been returned with a mandate to curb, restrain and limit the uoras, a lower mandate carried no absolute direction to carry through any Bill embodied in Bannerman's resolution. ( SPEECH BY THE OPPOSITION LEADER. STRONGER HOUSE OF LORDS WANTED. THE PREFERENCE QUESTION. Received March 6, 5 p.m. London, March 3. Banquetted with Sir Frederick BanTrorv in the city, Mt Balfour remarked that the Parliamentary fortnight had demolished the glowing picture painted fcv the enthusiastic brush of radical journalism. The Government's oxn followers charged Ministers with every sort of tergiversation and breach of the clearest pledges. We have seen, he said weekly changes of plans' of surrender. If the original pledge consisted of insisting at the very beginning of the session oi> the Sovereign giving constitutional guarantees, it is so scandalous that any device might be justified to enable the Government to get out of it. The constituencies had justified the Lords' action. He did not want a better, but a stronger, second chamber; not another House of Commons, or one too strong, which might arrogate to itself, as some second cham-1 bers°did, the powers of the immediately representative chamber; but it should ibe powerful enougfi to resist temporary gusts of opinion, and representing perhaps more accurately than the House of Commons the permanent wishes of the nation. The Radicals, he continued, desired not social reform but revolution. So- j cial reforms were complicated and ne-1 «essarily gradual. The Government's policy would involve a revolutionary or j anti-revolutionary struggle. Would the i country sit down under a single cham j ber system? The Socialists, Radicals j and Nationalists were not going to be a power for ever. One revolution would breed another abolition of veto. Mr Redmond, he said, means Home Rule, and Home Rule means Irish import duties and Customs' barriers. Mr Balfour proceeded to say our delay with fiscal reform was forcing Canada to make commercial treaties with foreign countries in ignorance of this country. Will we, he asked, adopt the preference system, which is possible between Canada and ourselves. He would 1 like to see tariff reform, but whether such reform was to be the futaure policy or otherwise, the old system was gone never to return, largely owing to the present Government's pressure of expenditure. THE NATIONALISTS. COSTS OF THE ELECTION. Received March <5, 5 p.m . London, March 5. Mr Redmond, addressing London Irishmen, said the last election was paid for bv American Irishmen. The coming election must be paid for by the Irish at home and Great Britain.