THE BUDGET.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13104, 1 May 1908, Page 7

THE BUDGET.

Mr Asquith delivers the Budget cm Thursday next.

The time limit is the orux of the Licensing Bill. Tho Government's proposal to make it 14. years is the most criticised point of the Bill, and oppanente of the Hill have dredged the dictionary to find epithets strong enough to express their indignation, The "Daily Telegraph" seenis to have been the most successful, for in oaie leader occurred tbe following phrases, among others, applkxl to The liill:— '"Utter iniquity/ ''sheer brigandage," "fomatical legislation," "socialistic con*fisration," "a gigantic act of public theft," "a raiding expedition of partisan blackmailers, ' "positive brigandage," "a nightmare," "a profligate imposture," "a scheme of despotic plunder/ , "tho sum of hypocrisy with the maximum of wrong." Having said all these things, the writer added: ,r VVe feel the utter inadequacy of words to ooiwey a due sense of the magnitude of this issue." A sense of humour is not the "Daily Telegraph's" strong point.

A epeenh by the Marquis of Humtly may bo taken |ac typical of many of the criticisms of the Bill. The Marquis said he hoped the Bill would be strangled in the Lower House. "Brigands do return their victims after cutting off a toe or an eax when a ransom is forthcoming," he added, "but this Government of brigands propose to bleed their victune elowly, and then kill them at the end of fourteen yeare. The Bill is paro highway robbery." The Unionists at Peckhanij where the Government was defeated, got out a placard bearing the inscription "Thou shaji not steal."—"There is no tdane limit to this."