TEMPTING OFFER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 5

TEMPTING OFFER.

TO MR. LLOYD GEORGE. A TRANSATLANTIC CAMPAIGN. AGAINST THE HOUSE OF LO.'RDS. By Teletraph.— Press Association.— Copyright.. (Received December 3, 9 a. an.) LONDON, 23rd December. Messrs. Cohen and Harris, na-usic-hall proprietors, of New York, crffer Mr. Lloyd George £1000 sterling weekly to promote a transatlantic campaign against the Lords, speaking twice ditily on the lines of his Limehouse speech. In his speech at Limehouse, delivered last year while the Budge*, was under discussion, Mr. Lloyd George justified the policy of placing an additional burden upon the landlords in jceturn for the value added to their land Iby1 by the industry of the community at 'ijirge. In the course of his speech, he» stated :—"ln: — "In future landlords will have to contribute to the taxes of the county on the basis of real value. If land when required for public improvements, or otherwise in the interests or the peoo'le is as valuable as its owners so generally claim that it is, such land should be assessed proportionately. It should have the same value on the assessment book as it is said to possess in the market. As regards the leasehold system, cases may be cited which repwjbent not business but blackmail. Ground-rent is only a part of it. Fines, fees, forfeiture of improvements are 'to be included. '"The ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, ifc is a stewardship. If the landlords cease to discharge the functions — provision as. to the security of the country, care for the poor— those functions which are piirt of the traditional duties attached to the ownership of land, and which have given to it its title, the time will come far reconsideration of the conditions under which land is held in this country. No country, however rich, can permanently afford to have quartered upon its revenue a class which declines to do the. duty which it was called upon to perform in the tommuaity, and, therefore, it would be one of the prime duties of statesmanship to investigate the conditions."