BRITISH POLITICS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9099, 27 May 1908, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS.

THE fcUDGET DEBATE. Received May 26, 11.45 p.m. LONDON, May 26. Discussing the Budget in the House of Commons, Mr Austen Chamberlain taunted the Government with unsound finance in establishing pensions without knowing where the additional ten millions required in 1909 for pensions, battleships and education were to come from. The abandonment of the contributory j scheme in regard pensions was a direct discouragement to thrift, and the restriction affecting married couples was harsh and unjustifiable. Mr Philip Snowden, Labour M. P. for Blackburn, advocated the redistribution of wealth. Money for pensions and other social reform could be obtained by means of a graduated tax on incomes above £5,000 a year, and also by increased death duties. Hon. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that when the time came to find the six million required for pensions it would be found that the resources of civilisation wtre not exhausted, '(.'lie Government hoped to travel further in the direction of reduction in armaments. With regard to Mr Snowden's suggestion for bleeding the rich menwhile it might be valuable for some future Chancellor of the Exchequer —still it would not be too much to ask a portion of the community that hardly knew how to dispose of its vast 'wealth to contribute more towards improving the lot of the poor. It vva3 deplorable th*' fo much was spent on providing machinery to destroy human life. All this was due to the mad competition, for which Britain was as responsible as any other country.