AN EPOCH-MAKING BUDGE

Evening Star, Issue 14187, 12 October 1909, Page 8

AN EPOCH-MAKING BUDGE

AND A FAMOUS SPEECH. MR LI/OYD-GEOROE AT HIS BKST. "We give the full text of Mr Lloyd - George's speech at the Edinburgh Castle, Limehouee, London, on July 30. under the auspices of the Budget League. The Pay-master-General (Mr Buxton) was in the chair, and there was a great audience, numbering over 4,000 people. Mr Lloyd -George, who on rising had an enthusiastic reception, said: A few months ago a meeting was held not far from this ball, in the heart of the City of London, demanding that the Government should launch into enormous expenditure on the Jiavy. That meeting ended upi with a resolution promising that thoec who passed that resolution would give financial support to the Government in their undertaking. There have been two or three meetings held IP. the City of London since, attended by the same class of people, but not ending up •with a resolution promising to pay. On ;the contrary, we are spending the monev, but they won't pay. What ha 6 happened since to alter their tone? Simplv that we have sent in the bill. We started our four Dreadnoughts. They cost eight millions of money. We promised them four more; they cost another eight millions. Somebody has got to pay. and then these gentlemen say : " Perfectly true ; somebody has fot to pay, but we would rather that someody were somebody else." We started building ; we wanted money to pay for the btiilrling, so we sent the hat round. We sent it round amongst workmen, and the miners of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the weavers of High Peak, and the Scotchmen , of Dumfries, who, like all their countrvi men, know the value, of money. Thev .ill j dropped in their copers. We' went round : Bclgravia, and there has been such a howl ever since that it has completely deafened us.

—Old Age Pensions.— Tsnt they 6ay: "It is not so much the l>readnoughto we object to; it is pensions." Jt they objected to pensions, why did thev promise them? TtKjy wun elections on the strength of their promises. It is tiue thev never carried them out. Deception is a." ways a pretty contemptible vice, . but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all. But they say: " When we prumiowl pensions we meant i>ensions at the expense of the people tor whom they were provided. Wo simplv meant to bring in a Bill to compel workmen to contribute to their own pensions." If that is what they meant, why did thov not say so? The Budget, as vour chairman has already so well reminded vou. is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are feitile, taxes that will bring forth fruit the security of the country, which is paramount in the minds of all. The provision for the aged and deserving jmor—it was time it were done. It is Tather a shame for a rich country like ours—probably tho richest in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen—that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in jKsnury and possibly starvation. It is Tather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a now path for him—an easier one. a plea santer one. through fields of waving com. We are raising money to pay for the now mad—aye, and to widen it. so that 200.000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. There are many in the oonntrv blessed by Providence with great wealth,'and if there are ainongßt them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the Jcs.s fortunate of their fellow-countrvinen, they are very shabby rich men. We propose to do more by means of the Budget. We are raising money to provide against the evils ami the sufferings that follow from unemployment. We are raising money for the purpose of assisting our great friendly societies to provide for the sick and the widowe and orphans. We are providing money to enable us to develop the resources of our own land. Ido not beiievo any fair-minded man would challenge tho justice and the fairness of the objects which we have in view in raising thi.monev.

—The Land Taxes.— But there arc some of them who say : "The taxes themselves are unjust, unfair, ui,equal, oppressive—notably so the land taxes." They are engaged.* nnt merely in the Um:se of Commons, but outside the House of Commons, in assailing the*e taxes with a concentrated and a sustained ferocity which will not allow even a comma to escape with its life. Now, are these taxes really so wicked? Let us examine them, because it is perfectly clear that the one part of the Budget that attracts all this hostility and animosity is that pan which cltals with the taxation of land. Well, now, let us examine it. Ido not want vuti to consider merely abstract principles.* 1 want to invite your attention to a number of concrete cases; fair samples to show you how m those concrete illustrations our Budget proposals work. Now, let us take them. Let us take lirst of all the tax on undeveloped land and on increment. Not far from here, not bo many years ago, between the Lee and the Thames, you' had hundreds of acres of land which wa.s not very useful even for agricultural purposes. In the main it was a sodden marsh. The commerce and the trade of London increased under Freetrade. The tonnage of your shipping went up by hundreds of thousands of tons and by "millions; labor was attracted from all parts of the country to cope with all this trade and biasing's which wae done here. What happened? There was no housing accommodation, this Port of London became overcrowded, and the population overflowed. That was the opportunity of the owners of the. marsh. All that land became valuable building land, and land which used to he rented at £2 or £5 an acre has been selling within the last few vears at £2,000 an acre. £3,000 an acre, £6,000 an acre, £B,OOO an acre. Who created that increment? Who made that golden swamp? W:us it the landlord?—(Cries of "No.') Was it his energy? Was it his brains—a very bad look-ont for the place if it were —his forethought? It wa.s purelv the combined efforts of all the people engaged in the trade and commerce of the Port of 1/onrlon—trader, merchant, shipowner, dock laborer, workman—everybody except t ht---landJonl. Now, you follow that transaction. Land worth" £2 or £3 an acre tuhninf up to thousands. Dnring the tide it was ripening the landlord waspiyino- hi s rates and taxes, not on £2 or £3 an acre. It was agricultural land, and because it was agricultural land a munificent Tory Government—("laughter)—voted a sum' of two millions to pay half the rates of those peer distressed landloids, and you and I hid to pay tuxes in order to enable those landlords to pay half their rates on agricultural kind, while it was going up every year bv hundreds of pounds through your efforts and the efforts of your neighbors. Well, now that is coming to an end. On the wal's of Mr Balfour's meeting last Friday the words "We protest against fraud and folly." So do I. These things Tam going to tell you of have only been possible up to the present through the "fraud" of the few and the " folly" of the many. Now, what is going to happen in iiiv future? Tn future those landlords will have to contribute to the taxation of the country on the basis of the real valueonly one halfpenny in the £. (>nrv a halfpenny! And that is what all the howling 16 about. But there is another little fax called the increment tax. For thn future what will happen? We mean to value all the land in the kingdom. And hero you can draw no distinction agricultural land and other land, for th<simple reason that East and West ffnm was agricultural land a few years ago. And if IfJid goes op rti the future br hundreds ane! tnomands an acre through" the efforts of

Hi'' c<ui,:riuiiiiy. U>.> f-.mrnunitv u-jll -, ( . t yr) per cent, ot that m,-,.,,,, „'. ' Ah!' what a misfortune K hj <!, ■! their was not ;i Cbimeellnr of the who did tiniifty years Vuice: " Better late than never.-) Only iJ,ntv veans a-'O an" we should now be enjoying an abundart revenue trom this .-ouree.

—More Kxarupk's of Increment.—

Now. (have giver, vou West Ham. let, me give you a few mon «.,„,«. Take cases like (,Ars Green and other cases of a similar kird, where the value of land her, gone up u, tliL- eour.se, perhaps, of a couple ot years through a new fiamwav or a new railway bom- opened. Holders Green Ua c-i-. m point. A few reals ago theie T^PIVn 1 ,° f limd th, ' rC U ' lli( ' h was 1(1 at £l6O. Last year I went and opened a tube radwav there. What was the result': Ibis year that very piece of land has been sold for £<UOO-(" .Shame !")_£l6o before the railway was opened—before I went. U,ore-£2JOO now. l am <. nLil |ed to 2 Q per re„t. there are manv case; where landloids take advantage 'of the exigencies of commerce and of "industry—take advantage of (he needs of municipalities, and even ol national needs, and of the monopoly which they have got. in land m a particular m-iidiljorhood in oid- r to demand extortionate [.rices. Take the very well-known case of the Duke of Northumhorland, when a. countv council wanted to buy a small plot of land a-s a site for a school to train the children who in due comse would become the men laboring on his property. The rent was quite au insignificant, tiling; hi.s contribution to th e rates I forget—l think it was on the bisu of oOs an acre. What did iie demand for it tor a. school'/ £9OO an acre.— (Cries ~[ "Shame.") All we say is this: U, l'.uxtou and 1 say if it j b woHh £9OO, let him pay taxes on £9OO. —The Case of Bootle..— Now, there are several of these ca.ses that 1 want to give to you. 'Take the town of Booths--a town cieatcd very much in the same way a.s towns In ttie East of London, purely by the commerce of Liverpool. In 1879 the rates of Uootle were £9,000 a year, the ground rents were £IO,OOO, so that the landlord was receiving more from the industry of the community than all the rales derived bv the municipality for the benefit of tho town. In 189b' the rates had gone up to £94.000 a. year for improving the place, constructing roads, laying out parks, and extending lighting and opening up the place. But tin l ground landlord was reeeivin" in ground rents £IOO,OOO. It is time that he should pay for all this value. A case was given me from Richmond which is ve-rv interesting. The Town Council of Richmond recently built some workmen's cottages under a housing scheme. The land appeared on the rate hook as of the value ot £4. and being agricultural, the landlord only pawl half the rates, and you ami I paid the rest for him. It is situated on the extreme edge of the borough, therefore not very accessible, and the Town touncil naturally thought thev would "et it cheap. But they did not' know their landlord. Th«y had to pav £2.000 au acre tor it. The result is that, instead of having a good housing scheme, with plenty ot gardens and open space, plenty of breathing space, plenty of room for the workmen at the end of their days, fortv cottages had to be crowded on two acre* Now, if tho kind had been valued at i-\< true value, that landlord would have been at any rate contributing his fair share of the public revenue, and it is just conceivable that he might have been driven to sell at a more reasonable price.

—An Illustration from Wales.— Now. I do not. want to wearv vou with these caws. Hut I couid give vou ntanv 1 am a member of a Welsh County Council and landlords even in Wales are'not more reasonable. 'the Police Committee the other day wanted a site for a police station. Well, you might have imagined that if a landlord sold land cheaply for anything, it would have been for a police station. The housing of the working classes—that is a different matter; but a police station mean's security for property Aot at: all. 'The total population of Carnarvonshire is not as much—f am not sure il is as great - as (lie population of Limehouse alone. It is a scattered area ; no great, crowded population there. And vet they demanded lor a piece of land which M lS ™" tnl; " llllS 2s iv >'--'•"" U> the rates an acre! All we sav is: "If their land is as valuable as all that, let it have the same value on the assessment book as it seems to possess in the auction room." there are no end of these cases. —A Landlord and Straight Shooting ■I »ero. was a owe from Greenock the other day. 1 he Admiralty wanted a torpedo range/. Here was an opportunity for patriotism these are the men who want an elhcienl navy to protect our shores, and the. Admiralty state thai one element in efficiency i s straight shooting, and sav • VVe want a range for practice for torpedoes on the coast of Scotland." There was a piece of land there. It was rat™! at sometlJoo- like £ll 10s a r £ went to the landlord. They had to pay for 't-m.ll, now, j u ., t you guess, whWt I am tmding it out. It l Kld a lai[l vaJue of £ll 2s. and it was sod to (he nation for £27,225! And these are the S™ men who accuse us of robbery and spoliation! Now. all we sav Is this- "In future you must pay- W iii the £ on the real value of vour land. In addition to that, if the value goes up, not owing to your efforts, if you spend money on'improving it, we will give vou credit for it but if it goes up owing to the industry and energy of the people living in that locality one-fifth of that increment shall m future be taken as a toll by the State " They say: "Why shoukl you tax this increment on landlords and not on other classes of the community?'' They sav:

—The Doctor's Increment.— Ah, fancy their comparing themselves for a moment! What is the landlord's ncrement? Who i* the landlord? The landlord la a gentleman—l have not a woid to say about him in his personal capacity—the iaiKilord is a gentleman who does 'not earn his wealth. Hedoesnoteven take the trouhle to leceive hie wealth. Be has a host of agents and clerks to receive it for film. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride is stately consumption of wealth produced by others. What about the doctors income? How does the doctor earn his income? The doctor ft mfln who visits our homes when thev are darkened with the shadow of death; who by his skill, his trained courage, his genius wrings hope out of the grip of despair, jnns life out of the fangs of the Great Destroyer. AH blessings upon him and his divrne art of healing, that mends braised boaies and anxious hearts.— (Cheers.) To compare the reward which he gets for that labor with the wealth which pours into the pockets of the landlord purely owing to the possession of his monopoly is a piece—if thev will forgive me for saying so—of insolence which no intelligent man would tolerate. Now that is the halfpenny tax on unearned increment.

—The Reversion Tax.—

"Now I come to the reversion tax. What is the reversion tax? You have got a system in this country which is not tolerated in any other country in the world—except I believe. Turkey-the system whereby landlords take advantage of the fact that ihey have got complete control over the land to let it for a term of vears, spend money upon it in building, in developing it. You improve the building and year by year the value passes into the pockets of the landlord, and at the end of sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety years the whole of it passes away to the" pockets of a man who never spent a penny upon it. In Scotland they have a system of 999 years lcuse. The Scotsmen have a verv shrewd idea that at the end of 999 y<a-s there will probably be a better land system in existence, and they are prepared to take their chance of the millennium comhi" round by that time. But in this country wo have sixty years leases. I know dis-tnct6-—riuarry districts—in Wales where a litde bit i,f barren rock, where you could not feed a -oat, where the landlord could not get a shilling an ac.ro for agricultural rent, is let to quarrymen for the purpose of building houses, where 50s or £2 a house is charged for ground rent. The quanvinaii builds his house. He goes to a building society to borrow money. He pays out of his hard-earned weekly wage contributions to the building society for ten, twenty, or thirty years. By the" time ho becomes an old man he has cleared off the mortgage, and more than half the value of the house has passed into the pockets of the landlord. You have got cases in London here. There is the famous Gorringe cafie. in that case advantage was taken ot '.lie fact thai a man has built up a greet business, and they say: " Here yon are. You have built up a great business hne. You cannot Lake it away. You cannot move to other premises, 'because your trade and goodwill are here. Your lease is coming to an end, and we decline to renew :t except, on the most oppressive tonus." 'Die Gorringe case is a very famous case. It was the case of the Duke of Westminster.—("Oh, oh," laughter, and h.sses.) Oh, these dukes—(loud laughter)— how they harass us!

—The Famous Gorringe Oa.se.— Mr Corriiige had got a lease of tile premises at a few hundred pounds a year ground rent. Me built up a groat business there. He was a very able busine«i man, and when the end or tho lea.se came he went to the Duke of Westminster and he said : "Will you renew my lease? I want to cany on my business here." He 6aid : "Oh. yes. I will; but 1 will do it on condition that the few hundreds a year vou pay for ground rent shall in the futnTe" be £4,000 a. year." hi addition to that, he had to pay a fine—a fine, mind you!—of £50.000. and he had to build up huge premises at enormous expense according to plains submitted to the Duke of V\ estminster.*—(Cries of "Oh, oh.") All 1 can say is this: if it is confiscation and robbery for us to say to that duke that, being in need of money for public purposes, we will take 10 per cent. of all you have got for that purpose, what would you call his taking nine-tenths from Mr Gorringe? Theso arc the eases we have got to deal with. Look at all this- leasehold system. This system—it is the system 1 am attacking, not individuals—is not business, it is blackmail.— (Loud cheers.) I have bo doubt some of you have taken the trouble to peruee some of these leases, and they are really worth reading, and 1 will guarantee that if you (iron la to copies of some of thee© building and mining leasee at Tariff Eeform meetings, and if you can get the workmen at those meetings and the business men to read thorn, they will come away eaddcr but much wiser men. What are thoy? Ground rent is a part of it—fines, fees. You aro to make no alteration without somebody's consent. Who is that somebody? It is tho agent of tho landlord. A fee to him. You must submit the plans to the landlord's architect, and get- his consent. There is a. fee to him. There is a fee to the surveyor, and then, of course, you cannot keep the lawyer out. He always comes in. And a fee'to him. Well, that is the system, and the landlords come to us in the House of Commons, and they say : " If you go on raxing reversions we will grant no more leases." Is not that horrible? No more leases. No more kindly landlords, with all their retinue of good fairies—agents, purveyors, lawyers—ready always "to receive -ground rents, fees, premiums, fines, reversions—no more, never again ! Thev will not do it. We cannot persuade them. They won't have it. The landlord ha* threatened us that if we proceed with the Budget he will kike his sack clean away from the hopper, and the grain which « are all grinding our best to fill his sack will co into our own. 0h 7 I cannot believe it. There is a limit, even to the wrath of outraged landlords. Wo must really appease them; we must offer up some, sacrifice to them. Suppose we offer the House of Lords to the.m ?—(Prolonged cheers.) Well, you seem rather to agree with that. I will make the suggestion to them. -—The Tax on Royalties.— Now. unless I am wearying you—(loud cries of " No, no !")—I have just oneother laud tax, and that is a tax on royalties. The landlords are receiving eight millions .a year by way of royalties. What for ? They never deposited the coal there. It was not they who planted these groat granite rocks in Wales. Who laid the foundation of the mountains? Wob it the landlord ? And yet he. by some divine right, demands as his toll, for merely the right for men to risk their lives in "hewing these rock-6. eight millions a year! Take any coalfield. T went down to a coalfield the other day, and thoy pointed out to mo many collieries there. They said : " You see that colliery there? The first man who went there spent a quarter of a million in sinking shafts, in driving mains and levek. He never got coal, and ho lost Ids quarter of a million. The poeond man who came spent £loo,ooo— he failed. The third man came along a.i>d ho got the and." What was the landlord doing in the meantime ? The first man failed, but the landlord got his

I* It may l>r- of interest to note ihat Messrs Gorriji>e'e proepeotns of July, 1903, shows that, at the earne time, they took four farther shops, at an additional ground rent of £1,200 per annum, and had to undertake to spend £BO,OOO more in rebuilding die premises. The eompanv also had the option given to them by the ground;landlord to take a lease for eicrhtv years, in lieu of the above term of sfxtvthree years, on then- undertaking to" rebuild, bctore the 25th March, 1909, such portioiiß of the premises as had not recently been rebuilt bv the vendor, at a SS,OO0 a JS hj E.SJ 1 - W t0 m ° n tha "

royalty—the landlord got his dead rent, and a very good name for it, The-second man failed, but the landlord got his royalty. Those capitalists pat their money in. and I said : 4> When Qie cash failed, what did the landlord put in?'; He simply put in, the bailiffs. The capitalist risks, at any rate, the whole of his m iney; the engineer puts his brains in; the miner risks his life. Have you been down a coal* mine? —(Cries cf "Yes.") Then you know. I was telling you I went down the other day. We sank down, into a pit half a mile deep. We then walked underneath the mountain, and we did about three-quarters of a mile with rocks and shale above us. The earth seemed to be straining—around us and above us—to crush us in. You could" see the pit-prop 6 bent and twisted and sundered until you saw their fibres split in resisting the pressure. Sometimes they give way, and then there is mutilation and death. Often a spark ignites, the whole pit is deluged in fire, and the breath of life is scorched out of hundreds of breasts by the consuming flame. In the very next colliery to the one I descended, just a few years ago, 300 people lost their lives in tha* way; and yet when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords, and say to them :. " Here, you know these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived tbe perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Won't you give something towards keeping them out of the workhouse T" they scowl at us, and we say : " Only a ha'penny, just a copper." They say: "You thieves V And. they turn their dogs on us, and yon can hear their bark every morning: If this is an indication of the view taken by these groat landlords of their responsibility to the people, who, at the risk of life, create then- wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand.— (Cheers.) —The- Duties of Ownership.—

The other day, at the great Tory meeting held at the Cannon Street Hotel, they had blazoned on the walls : "We protest against the Budget in the name of democracy, liberty, and justice." Where does the Democracy come in in this landed system ? Where is the liberty in our leasehold system ? Where is the seat of justice in all these 'transactions? I claim that trie tax we impose on land is fair, is just, and is moderate. They go on threatening that if we proceed they will cut down their benefactions and discharge labor. What kind of labor ? What k the labor they are going to choose for dismissal ? Are they going to threaten to devastate rural England by feeding and dressing themselves? Are they going to reduce their gamekeepers? Ah, that would be sad ! The agricultural laborer and the farmer might then havo part of the game which they fatten with their labor. But what would happen to you in the season ? No week-end shooting with the Duke of Norfolk or anyone. But that is not the kind of labor they are going to cut down. They are going to cut down productive labor—their builders and their gardeners—and they are going to ruin their property so that it shall not be taxed. All I can say is this : the ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is a stewardship. It has been reckoned as such in the past, and if they cease to discharge their functions, the security and defence of the country, looking after the broken in their villages and in their neighborhoods—then those functions, which are part of the traditional duties attached to the ownership of land, and which have given to it its title—if they cease to discharge those functions, the time will come to reconsider 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 since the beginning. And, therefore, it is one of the prime dutits of statesmanship to investigate those conditions. But Ido not believe it. They have threatened and menaced like that before. They have seen it. is not to their interest to carry out these futile menaces. They are now protesting against paying their fair share of the taxation "of the land, and they are doing so by saying : " You are burdening industry; you are putting burdens upon the people which they cannot b<w." Ah ! they are not thinking of themselves. Noble souls ! It is not the great dukes they are feeling for; it is the market gardener, it is the builder, and it was, until recently, the small holder. In every debate in the House of Commons they said : "We are not worrying for ourselves. We can afford it with our broad acres ; but just think of the little man who has only got a few acres " ; and we were so very impressed with this tearful appeal that at last we said : " We will leave him out." And I almost expected to see Mr Pretyman jump over the table when I said it—fall on my neck and embrace me. Instead of that, he stiffened up, his face wreathed with anger, and he said : "The Budget is more unjust than ever." —No Bnrdens on the People.— We are placing burdens on the broadest shoulders. Why should I put burdens on the people? lam one of the children of the people.—(Loud and prolonged cheering, and a voice: "Bravo. David, stand people and they will stand by you.") I was brought ud amongst them. I know their trials; and God forbid that I should add one grain of trouble to the anxieties which they bear with such patience and fortitude. When the Prime Minister did me the honor of inviting me to take, charge of the National Exchequer—(A Voice: "He knew what he was about, ' and laughter)—*,t a time of great difficulty, I made up my mind in framing the Budget, which was in front of me that at any rate no cnphoawl should be barer, no lot would be harder. By that test. I challenge them to judge the Budget —(Loud and long continued cheers.) A resolution in support of the Budget was carried unanimously.