The N.Z. Times THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1910. THE BUDGET BATTLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7025, 13 January 1910, Page 4

The N.Z. Times

THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1910. THE BUDGET BATTLE

«r/B WHICH 18 INCORPORiTKD THU “WXI.LIMOTOH INDBPZNDKNT.” ESTABLISHED 1646,

Until a few months ago it appeared almost certain that the nest general election in England would be fought upon the issue originally raised by the Protectionist wing of the Tory party. The financial proposals submitted by the Chancellor of , the Exchequer, however, indicated that at least the area of disputation upon methods of taxation would be greatly widened. The Budget created an entirely new field for controversy, and materially altered the popular conception of. tho opposing fiscal theories. Tot had the Budget passed safely through the Second Chamber it cannot be doubted that Tariff Reform would still have survived as a fighting platform, and, perhaps, have been made effective use of. Blighted though it had been by the Balfourian tactics, riddled though it had been in the long argument with tho freetraders Tariff Reform was not without vitality, even after the. Budget had passed the Commons! By an ironic paradox it met death at the hands of its greatest friends —the Peers. In their judgment precipitation of a crisis would leave a single issue before the country—a tariff or tho Budget. In this they were profoundly mistaken, for in the chaos their revolutionary seizure of' authority created Tariff Reform has almost disappeared, and it is the Lords themselves who are up for trial. The, wisest and the best of tho Peers foresaw this. Lord Lorebum, Lord Cromer, Lord St. Aldwyn, Lord Morley, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and a few others of equal eminence, including even Lord Rosebery, warned the House of the consequences of its action. Hie appeal, addressed to men whose minds were congealed into obduracy, was in vain. Rejection of the Budget followed. Tho reply of the Commons was short and decisive, and within forty-eight hours tho line of demarcation upon the fiscal problem no longer divided the two great political parties. The electors were taking a deep and searching interest in tho constitution under which they lived. Tariff reform was relegated to tho background, and from thousands, of platforms in the country tho people j wore being asked whether they should! govern themselves or whether thej elected representatives of the nation wore to be cowed by an hereditary cr.sto. Next week wo shall hear the ■reply. It is hardly conceivable that it will be in the affirmative. If it bo so a fresh chapter will commence in the British history of self-government. ***** We have said the reply of the Com-

mons was decisive. The historic halls of Westminster have many times rung with protest against usurpation of popular liberties, but never were the privileges of the Commons asserted with greater emphasis and more dignity than on this: occasion. Mr Asquith is an accomplished orator, a profound lawyer, and a fervent champion of the Commons. He rose to the height demanded by the great crisis, and in a speech of almost Ciceronian eloquence defended the lost liberties of the people. The summary of this speech transmitted by cable early last month indicated its lofty tone, and the full report of his utterance which readied New Zealand by yesterday’s mail bears out earlier anticipations of its power. It was not the cold voice of a passionless doctrinaire through which the Commons of England made protest against the usurpation of their authority but the resonant tones of a worthy defender. Interrupted though it was by the wild cheering of his followers. Mr Asquith’s measured, laconic oration was without redundant word or digression. Its fust sentence sounded the trumpet for war upon the Lords. The House of Commons, he said, would

be unworthy of its past and of tbo traditions of which it is the custodian and the trustee to allow another day to pass without making it clear that it does not mean to brook the gravest indignity, and I would add the most arrogant usurpation to which for more than two centuries it has been asked to submit to.

There was ho be no parley, no compromise with the Peers, for “we are now living under a system of false balances and loaded dice " which made cooperation impossible. Pym, Seldcn, and Somers had rescued the House of Commons from the domination of the Crown, and it remained for the men of to-day to save it from the coronet — and with noble eloquence ho told the House that its members need not be ashamed to be called the same names and hear the same reproaches as assailed those who rescued liberty from the Stuart Kings. Mr Asquith’s resolution of protest

that the action of the House-of Lords in refusing to pass into law the financial provision made by this House for the service of tho year is a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of tho Commons, " 1 ■

was carried by an overwhelming majority. Ho had submitted it in a speech worthy of his fame and of the moment —one to become classic in Parliamentary debates.

And the men who forced necessity for this remonstrance on the Commons and this grave constitutional struggle for supremacy upon the people, what of them? They are all of them foodtaxers, all of thorn wealthy, many enormously so. With the most hollow oamt they professed to have, asserted domination over tlio Commons in order to “ protect the working classes.” From, what? The tax on the increment of land? Let us see. The total area of the British Isles is 77,000,000 acres. The Peers who voted to destroy the Budget, and, as they thought, to push tariff reform into the forefront of ■ controversy, own 10,000,000 acres—nearly oneseventh of the land surface of the Kingdom. Of this area, twenty Dukes —they all voted to kill the Budget—own 4,000,000 acres. Could it be expected that such a' House of Monopolists as this would give an impartial vote on the taxation of unearned increment? Could it be supposed for a moment,'if it were sustained in its present attitude by the vote of the electors, that it would not exercise its new power to shift from the shoulders of accumulated wealth the whole of taxation on to commerce and labour? Tho Lords rejected the Budget because they bated it, not because they like the people, and when it happens that a body of affluent but angry citizens can impose their dislike to taxation upon tho nation to the extent of interrupting the grant of supplies by the Commons to the Crown, it is clearly time for curbing such insolent claims to omnipotence. Tlie battle now being fought by the Liberals of England is for constitutional freedom—for deliverance from an arrogant, intolerable despotism. There can be no such thing as ultL mate defeat for them. Their victory will be complete only when the hereditary principle is uprooted and thrown to the winds.