BITTER PARTY FEELING

Evening Star, Issue 15076, 7 January 1913, Page 6

BITTER PARTY FEELING

UNPRECEDENTED TACTICS

WHO ARE THE MONOPOLISTS?

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright,

LONDON, January 6. (Received January 7, at 11 a.m.)

A committee of Unionists members of the House of Commons is openly making inquiries into the extent and source of the wealth of leading Liberals. [This action is probably in the nature of retaliation, instigated by the operations of the Secret Commission of Land Inquiry recently appointed by the Asquith Government, and nicknamed by the Unionists the “Jackals” Committee! Commenting on Mr Masterman’s promise of a Bill dealing with “ land monopoly,” a London writer said last month :—“Cocoa is much more in the nature of a ‘ monopoly ’ in England than is land. Land, of course, is largely held by large owners; but, unlike cocoa or mustard, it is not almost entirely in the hands of large owners and great capitalists; There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of small people—quite small people, only just above the farm worker class—who hold land directly or indirectly, and every attempt should be made to detach these people from the Government party who are planning their taxation and vexation. . . . We have no wish to pry into the pantry of the Home Secretary, but the public should note that Whigs as well as Tories have their half of ‘ the good butlers that make life worth living.’ The man with ‘ great possessions,’ had he lived to-day instead of 2,000 years ago, would probably have been a Whig, a Radical, or a Socialist in the Coalition party.”