THE LIBERAL POLICY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 578, 5 August 1909, Page 5

THE LIBERAL POLICY.

SOCIALISM, NOT FINANCE. LANDED CLASS. MR. LLOYD-GEORGE AS DESTROYER. (By Telcei-aph.-Pross ABSoclatlon.-CopyrlKbU London, August 3. Many of the Opposition spealrers aro complaining of the : violence of Mr. LloydGeorge's speech at Limehouse, in which ho declared that land is not merely for onjoyniont, but for stewardship, and that unless tho landlords discharged the duties attaching to ownership, the time would soon come to consider the conditions under which land was hold.. Mr. W. H. Long, President of the Budget Protest League, addressing a , gathering of twenty/thousand Unionists at Christehurch> in Hampshire, said the speech proves that Mr. Lloyd-George is attempting to destroy the great - landed. and propertied classes. . The Liberals, Mr. Long declared, can no longer pretend that their policy is'guided by financial considerations. MR. LONG AND'HIS LEAGUE. Mr. Walter. Long, who was Under-Secretary for Ireland in the. last Unionist Government, is president of the Budget Protest League, which claims to be a non-party organisation. It sets forth its objects as under:— 1. To spread information as to the effects which will be caused upon various classes of the community by the very complicated financial proposals now before Parliament. i ' 2. To enable those who aye opposed to these; proposals to give expression to their views. _ 3. To focus and give publicity to the feeling of the country upon a Budget, whioh is unconstitutional, Socialistic, and opposed to the best interests of all classes.

• MR. LLOYD-GEORGE HITS BACK. Replying to tho City meeting's' criticism of his Budget, Mr.. Lloyd-Georgo asks: "What did tho talk af the City meeting come to? Just the same old driver about Socialism and the thin end of the wedge, which is becoming very thin by constant use. You can find it any morning in the columns of the 'Daily_ Moil, both in the halfponny edition and in -. tho threepenny edition. : , "Of course, we had the inevitable Lord Rothschild. I remember that there was another meeting in the City—on April IJ—and Lord Rothschild was there. Ha ".proposed o resolution oallinir for an enormous increase of national expenditure, and promising ths support of the City,in any financial arrangements necessary to carry" out tho object. That 'resolution' was tho basis of my Budget. . "Really, in all ('ipso things we got too much of Lord Rothschild'. We. are not to have temperance reform. Why? Because Lord Rothschild has sent a circular to the Peers! We must have more Dreadnoughts. Because Lord Rothschild savs so. Wo must not pay for them when :we have got them..'. Because. Lord Rothschild does riot want to find his share of the monoy. Wo must not have a .super-tax and increased death duties, because Lord Rothschild says wo must not: nor a tax on reversions, for Lord Rothschild is the chairman of an insurance company; nor on undeveloped land, because Lord Rothschild is tho chairman of a housing council; and we must not have old-age pensions, because Lord Rothschild was a member of a committee which said it could not bo done! ' , "I should like to know whether Lord Rothschild is to be tho Dictator of this country. Are all' the roads of progress to be bloo'ced hv the notice; 'X" thoronfhfnre.—Bv order. Nathaniel RotliFchild'?" (Loud laughter.) . Other countries had made it perfectly clear that they w»re not going to be ruled by great fm.-moier's. Britain would ' join them and deelnro that 'a more important condition, was to lift the pconle of the slums above the level of squalor and wretchedness. •••■:■■.