A FORWARD PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 94, 18 October 1909, Page 6

A FORWARD PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

The reception given to the British Government's Development Bill by the v House of Lords cornea as an agreeable surprise. The second reading was | carried without any trouble, and app parently without a division, and though ] LoTd Lansdowne and other Unionist Peers hinted at the possibility of amendment^, the general attitude is described in Saturday's cablegram as "unexpectedly cordial." It seems to us that with regard both to this* Bill and to the Irish Land Purchase Bill the Lords are displaying, if not a -broadeT sympathy with the needs and aims of democracy, at any rate a higher degree of generalship than their performances in previous sessions had made it natural to expect. The frankly contemptuous manner in which they treated tho Education Bill, the Licensing Bill, and the Scottish Small Holdings Bill has not been repeated in regard to two measures which they probably find equally distasteful. It would be gratifying to draw from this remarkable change the inference that a similar benefit may also be in store for the Finance Bill, but the I opposite inference is equally well supported by the facts. If the Unionists dc6ire to make any headway at all against the intense popular indignation which the rejection of the Finance Bill Iby the House of Lords is bound to excite, it can only ba by showing that their friends in that House have not been actuated by a blind hostility to every Liberal reform, but have let Liberal measures through which they believed to be for the good of the country, even when their own interests as a cln6s would have dictated the opposite course. The passing of the Development Bill without drastio amendment, and the acceptance of the principle of compulsory purchase in the Irish Land Purchase- Bill, will undoubtedly give colour to such a contention. It is therefore obvious that the conciliatory attitude qf the Lords with regard to these two measures is perfectly compatible with the determination to wage war to the knife against the Government over the Finance Bill. The provisions of the Development Bill were explained in an official memorandum which was circulated immediately after the introduction of the Bill by Mr. Lloyd-George in the House of Commons on the 26th August, but had actually, through some sharp practice, been published in advance by a Liberal journal. The full short title of the measure is Development and Roads Improvement Bill, and its object is declared to be "to promote the economic development of the United Kingdom and the improvement of roads therein." The Bill is divided into two parts, which correspond with the two divisions of the title. The first and most important part deals with the application of public money to the development of the country districts ; the second is concerned with the provision of special roads for motor traffic By Part I. the Treasury is enabled to make free grants and loans for the purpose of aiding and developing forestry, agriculture, and rural industriqs, reclamation and drainage, the construction of light railways, and the general improvement of the moans of ruia) transportation, ptliov, 1

than roads, the construction and improvement of harbours and canals, and generally "for any other purpose calculated to promote the economic development of the United Kingdom." A grant or loan must be made by or through a Government department, and an advisory committee will consider all applications for grants or loans, but the responsibility ot finally dealing with them will rest solely with the Treasury. The Development Fund by which the operations under the Bill are to be financed will be fed from three sources : (1) Sums annually voted by Parliament ; (2) a sum of £2,500,000 charged on the Consolidated Fund and payable in five annual instalments of £500,000 each ; and (3) the profits and interest on and repayment of advances made firom the fund itself. There is one negative feature of these proposals which has been received with practically universal satisfaction : The old Sinking Fund is not to be abolished in the manner indicated in Mr. Lloyd-George's Budget Speech. This fund is created by the surplus in each financial year of actual revenue over actual expenditure, and is applied automatically in reduction of the National Debt. When the proposal to abolish this salutary practice was first announced, we commented on it as a regrettable reversal of a principle of finance which Gladstone and other great Liberal financiers took pride in jealously observing. Even such a faithful and influential supporter of the Government as the Westminster Gazette resented the proposed abandonment of this sound principle, and the Government haß done well not to handicap the valuable provisions of its Development Bill by so embarrassing a burden. As the Bill now stands there is no essential unsoundness in it, and if wisely administered it should give an immense stimulus to the development of some of the most backward portions of the Empire — for such we take much of rural England, Scotland, and Ireland to be. A forward Public Works policy would be an immense boon for many of these districts, but we regret to see that the dangers of political manipulation of the fund have not been excluded by giving the Advisory Committee a wider power than that of imaking recommendations which the Treasury will be free to disregard. The favour with which some of the leading Unionist journals greeted the Bill from the first has made it easier for the Lords to take a reasonable course with regard to it. "Other countries have funds applicable to the purposes contemplated by the first part of the Bill," said The Times, "and there can be no doubt that great advantage has resulted to other peoples. . • . Under proper safeguards the proposal of Mr. Lloyd-George should result in considerable amelioration of the economic conditions of the rural districts of the United Kingdom." It is, indeed, merely a question of safeguards, and as to these it. is possible that the House of Lords may be able to suggest improvements which the Government will not find it beneath its dignity to accept.