THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9545, 17 July 1909, Page 4

THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Mr Lloyd-George ha 3 educed the most contradictory opinion from the public writers on the subject of his much-discussed Budget. The typical Liberal aclaims it as the crowning triumph of a heaven-sent economist. The typical Unionist condemns it as the desperate outrage of a political brigand. Lord Welby in an article in the "Contempurary Review." deplores the lavish expenditure upon which the country has embarked, but claims that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has acted with justice and wisdom in taxing the luxuries but not the necessaries of the workers, and at the same time by imposing a heavy super-tax on large incomes, by largely increasing the already heavy estate duties and legacy duties, and by adding to the taxation on lard. Lord Welby sighs

for further retrenchment in the public expenditure, but holds that as the money must be found, it should be found by the whole nation. He, charges the conservatives with wanting to save the wealthy and tax the poor. In the "Nineteenth Century and After," Mr Harold Cox, M.P., trounces the Chancellor of the Exchequer soundly, and at the same time gives it hot to Liberals and Conservatives alike for the extrava- , gance which has made the nationa j bill so heavy. The Conservatives are insistent in their demand for more money for armaments. The Liberals ] hanker for further expenditure on social reforms, and (says the contributor caustically) "forgetting their old Liberalism in order to dally with a new socialism, appear to welcome taxation as a means of transferring the wealth of the rich to the pockets of the poor." In the present financial year the British taxpayers are asked to provide £162,102,000, or £10,000,000 more than last year. Mr Cox shows that the Liberal Administration has cut down the expenditure on naval and military armair.ent by £5,624,000 as compared with the exenditure during the last year of office of their Conservative predecessors. Yet the Liberals request the taxpayers to provide £13,314,000 more alto--1 gether than the total asked for by the I Conservatives.