MR. CHURCHILL TAKES THE PLATFORM OPPONENTS VIGOROUSLY

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 59, 7 September 1909, Page 7

MR. CHURCHILL TAKES THE PLATFORM OPPONENTS VIGOROUSLY

ATTACKED. MR. BALFOUR'S "INSPIRED EQUIVOCATIONS." SMASHING THE LORDS' VETO. LONDON, 6th September. Mr. Winston Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, addressed a Liberal gathering at Leicesier on Saturday. In the course of his remarks, he said the great difficulty that confronted speakers at the Budget League meetings was that they had nobody to reply to. It was true that Mr. Balfour from time to time emitted four or five columns o* inspired equivocations, which the chief newspapers hastened to acclaim as another epuchmaking pronouncement, and the small fry of . the .Tory * party had been spla.'Jiing actively in their proper puddles. He only hoped these performances had given satisfaction to their employers — the brewers and ground landlords. The millionaire newspapers, Mr. Churchill went on to say, were so painfully conscious of the absence of a Tory spokesman capable of answering the speecn made by Mr. Lloyd-George at Limehouse on Ist August — in which he declared that unless the landlords discharged the duties attaching to ownership, it was time to consider the conditions under which land was held — that they were now inclined to take ,up Lord Rosebery. The Government did not ask the rich how much they possessed, but how they got their riches. Taxation according to the origin of wealth was a new idea ; no wondef , then, that it had raised a great stir and caused such heart-searchings. Referring to the House of Lords and their attitude toward the Finance Bill, the President of the Board of Trade said : "If the Lords win they will have asserted their right to control the finances of the country ; if they lose we shall smash their veto to pieces. The fight will bo a fight to the finish, and tho fullest forfeits will be exacted from the defeated foe."