OUR LONDON LETTER

Evening Star, Issue 15538, 7 July 1914, Page 4

OUR LONDON LETTER

[By W. L. Gcoeqe.] May 29. The Budget introduced by Mr LloydQeorge a little earlier in the month is potential rather than actual in interest, tor the new taxes which the Chancellor is imposing will yield a good deal more next year than they will this, and it follows that he cannot at once outline the use he intends to make of the available money. The new taxes were necessitated by a deficit of over £5,000,000, which has been increased to nearly £10,000,000 by the grants which Mr Lloyd-Qeorge intends to make to our local authorities. The main object of these grants it might be said, to procure the happiness of the «antry- *h e grant for education alone is £2,750,0)0, and money will be found for child-feeding, athletics, open-air schools, special 50h00.6 for the deformed, cripples, and the feebleminded. There will be. money also for maternity centres, technical and seconaai) schools ; also pensions for secondary school teachers. In addition, three-quarters ot a million will be fii™n to the treatment ol tuberculosis, ancf for laboratories for the study of the disease. The Insurant Act is also to be helped out. Aooub £1 200,000 will be given to tiro societies which are m difficulties for which they are nob responsible, such as those which contain a number of married women, who suffer, as is obvious, from special diseases. these liabilities, in addition to small sum from Che sinking fund, Mr Lloyd George is tapping the Income lax anu the death duties. There is no cnauge on earned incomes of less than M bub incomes between £I,OOO and £l,o!W now pay 10jd in the £; between £l,ooo and £2,000 they wil pay ls m the between £2,000 and £2,500 they will pav Is 2d in the £; between £2,500 and £3,000 they will pay Is Win the £- ine super tax (6d- in the £) will "o™ connmenco ut £3,000 a year instead of ±/5,00U. earned incomes will in future pay Is 4d in the £, but a relief of 15s for under 16 will be granted to incomes lees than £SOO a year. The death duties will be slightly steeped up ; that is to say, that 1 per cent, will be added on to t.ie pr sent rates where the estate exceeds £50,000 until a maximum ot 20 per cent. tax is taken on an estate of a million s e - line. There are a great number ot m.uoi alleviations with which I cannot deal heie This is an interesting Budget, for it finite certain that the buroens oi local authorities had of late years become so heavy that they were not doing then wo. k well When it comes to a campaign, such as that against tuberculosis, or secondaiy education, which does not always honefiu the locality, it is quite clear that we were in conflict with national and nob with hoa. problems. That is why the intervention ot the State, estimated to amount on an arerage to 9d in the £ on the rates, has become absolutely necessary. 1 cm not suppose that the process will stop there, and expect that next year, when the new money has conie in. at will be possible do a great deal more for the education and health o£ our great cities IS or should any exception be taken to the sources of the new revenue. A great cry has been raised against bite increased rates of Income tax, but then a cry would have been raised against anything that Mr Llovd or Se or any other Chancellor did. Wo all l ia,te taxes. So the cry that we are living on national capital need not be taken too seriously. With a growing trade and a growing national income we can afford it; ami, after all, money must come iroai some purse. I deeply regret, however, that once •more the opportunity of graduating the income Tax properly has been mussed. \te are still in the old and absurd position ot making a- considerable difference between t he man tfith £999 a year and tne man w-it.i £IOOO a year. Under this scheme tne man with £999 a year pays an Income 7 ax o! £37 9s 3d, fhe man with £I,OOO a year pavs £43 15s, which means that for an iucreaeed income of about £1 be pays an ini creased tax of over £6._ This is -comic (opera finance. Why it is, impossible tnai■ a 1 certain income should pay 5 per cent-., tne [next, 5.05 per cent-., the next 5.1 per cent., and so on ; why the rate should have to leap in Bths, 1 sluil never understand. It is characteristic English finance; the kina that sometimes muddles tarough, ana always muddles.

Tlxo Home Rule Bill has been given a third road ini' in the House of Commons, accompanied oy the sound o£ Jury, througa which the British public continues peacefully to sleep. Sir Edward Carson continues to prepare civil war, and the Eng* lish people continue to, manifest a here© interest in Mr Shaws new play, the Temple flower show, and the new exhibition at Barbs Court. Mr Asquith has promised an amending Act which will be introduced in the House of Lords shortly, and will embody the proposal he made to exclude for six years the Protestant counties of Ulster. Whether it will be accepted cannot be prophesied. I hear from ,T ood sources that the Ulster LiueraJs v, ul gladly accept it, but that an Ulster Convention would probably refuse it. it seems, therefore, as if Sir Edward were in the, familiar position of leader namely, of having to follow his followers where they lead him. If the amending Bil does, noft go through the Home Rule Bill wa 11 gat ll the Royal assent before the end of the session. It is said that the civil war will be"in as soon as the King has Signed the Wt We shall see. This civil war looks to me too well advertised. Somehow I suspect its bona tides, but then, as 1 have said before, this is Irish business, and I merely put the facts on record for your information without venturing mi rerj definite views.

We have hud a recrudescence of suffrage outrages', in the midst of which a, suffrage Bill was introduced in the House _oi Lords. This is, I think, the first tune tho question has been tested in the socalled Upper House, and this has resulted in an adverse majority of 44. _ hjo i new arguments were adduced, but it is interesting to observe that, while the Suffrage Bill has several times had a majority m tho House of Commons, it has failed at once in the House of Lords. As a SR* , number of the suffragists have identified themselves with tho Labor party, this ns likely to make the -connection closer, ihe outrages themselves are not very interesting. There has been a big riot outside Buckingham Palace, resulting in the. arrest of 70 women, who claimed me citi-rx-ns rigid of personally petitioning the Kintr. As a suffragist myself, _I hope it will not be put up against mo that I do not think it quilo the right way, when it is desired to petition the King, to proceed in thousands to his palace. A petition presented by a crowd, presumably a determined and angry crowd, is really a little too like, an olive branch from a blunderbuss. And pictures have been damaged at tho National CaJlery, which is a pity, and at the Royal Academy, which is—-well, different. Ami thero has been a great- struggle in tha East End between the police and the forces oi Alias Sylvia Pankhurst, while other women have attempted tn harangue the King and Queen at His* Majesty’s Theatre. It is all very necessary and very justifiable : the cause can now be kept alivo only by advertisement. This does not mean that it is a bad cause, but it has drifted very much into tho position of Beecham’s pills, which, so far as I know*, are good pills, but must bo steadily advertised. The only trouble is that tho suffrage, by its advertising methods, seems to have got itself into the -position of Mr Bernard Shaw —the public hears a great deal about both of them, but does not seem to like either of them much more for it. Thus at the Conference of tho National Unionist Association Lord Robert Cecil failed to pass his motion in favor of the suffrage. One would have thought that the way in which. Liberal Cabinet Ministers have been persecuted for the last nine years would have endeared the suffragists to tho Conservatives. ■ This, however, has not happened; doubtless because the Unionists realise very well that it will lie their turn next. It is not a hopeless situation, but a very embarrassing one. Apparently the suffragists have now but one resource : Being disliked, they had better make themselves still more disliked; when they have become ft national bugbear it will' be impossible to ignore them.

The Government continue to do badly gt> North-east Xtvbjfshire

Tim been lost on a split vote, and tpswidbi on a straight one, while a wduction ol the Conservative majority at Gmasby it but a poor set-off. One should ao* exas* gcrate these events, but still it aa bo said that on the whole the Government show no%igas yet of regaining foe ground which they lost owing to the iasuranca Act.

A very interesting of our Naval Policy u the share ol AijSCO.OCO which the State ii about to take in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. This doa? ■recalls the purchase of f J>© Suez Canav shares by Lord Derby, for m both cases we are to have a controllL.g interest, and as the use of oil in the Navy is everyday becoming more widespread it is important that we should have national supplies. But one must gravely question the wisdom of deriving that supply from Persia. The country' is almost inaccessible ; a hostile fleet can blockade Ormuz; a hostile Russia can at any moment seize the wells. Wo - have a much better centra in Burma, a British territory; there, are oil fields in Trinidad, and al&o some in Scotland. What the ■State is doing in Persia I really cannot see; and, so far, no explanation of the choice has been given in the House or in the Press. In fact, the only merit of the idea is that it shows that the Government are alive to their responsibilities and are not going to change over from coal to oil without securing thair supplies. Th 4 Now Zealand Government should perhaps consider this question too, as there ore some young oil fields In your Dominion which can now bs acquired cheaply. It would be a pity If they were to fall into the hands of private speculators, who would one day be able to blackmail th< national navies which Australia and New Zealand will doubtless possess. Neit Zealand has made so many socialistic experiments that one such as this, which may prove vital, should assuredly be given serious thought.

A very great step has been made towards suppressing capture at sea—namely, immunising commercial vessels from attack. As you are aware. Great Britain has always opposed the freeing of neutral shipping from aggression, and it has often been suggested that our swollen armaments are connected with the desire to destroy the enemy’s trade. There is reason for this statement, as we axe continually told that a Navy is wanted tq protect our trade. Now, Sir Edwaxq Grey has stated that h© did not think armaments would bo reduced if commercial vessels w-ere given a safe conduct- i H time of war. 'He* is probably right, fo< armaments do not proceed from necessi< ties : they proceed from private ambi. tiou and from private greed, and they conceal their cosmopolitan cynicism within the folds of a thousand flags. Still, he did not oppose the motion, and promised that he would not oppose it at The Hague. That is so much to the good. I do not suppose that the next US gue Conference will' exempt commercial vessels from capture"; but at any rate the idea lias been given a start, and its importance lies mainly in this ; that a more sensible view is being introduced into war, and that we are realising a little bettor, if not clearly, that it is Governments who fight, and traders—people who are too often overlooked when the talk is of big guns.