THE BUDGET AND THE PEERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14700, 7 December 1909, Page 2

THE BUDGET AND THE PEERS

Bv THE Rev. \V. Sude. The Peers linvc ilirown out the Budget, and by fining so have challenged tho English Uovvrninent- to mortal combat. They had tlio choice of alternative. One was lo pass the Budget and submit to taxation, which 1110 v hate; the other to reject I lie Budget and risk the result of a conflict with the olected representatives of the people. Not since ilie great Reform Bill of 1832 has a crisis of such moment arisen in British politics. The questions at issno are fundamental. On the Conservative .side, which is that of the Peers, the accei'ted policy is t a rill reform, under which harm-lessly-sounding name is contemplated the subversion of I hose Freetrade principles that have incoutestably led to England's commercial supremacy. On the other, and Liberal side, the claim is ilie right lo tax the land and make it bear a fair share of Ilie financial burden of the nalion. Expressed in another way, the tpiestion resolves itself into that of adding something more to ilie already too heavy load of thy masses, or of asking the privileged classes lo forgo a very small proportion of their luxuries. Who will win? (Tan there he any doubt? If not at once, yet l>efore very long, tlio llotiso of l.oids will lintl il is riding to doom, for unless we misread the signs of the limes the end of tilled privilege is in sight. The chief characteristic of ilie rejected Budget is t.li.it it lays the added burden of taxation on the broadest, and strongest shoulders. It taxes luxuries, bin noi necessaries. The motor car, whisky, and tobacco are to contribute something more f.o the necessities of the exchequer: a graduated income lax with a super-lax oil large incomes, and, most notable of all, a lax, though only small, on land.

The Budget is tlio Liberal Government's method of raising the deficit of £15,000,000 in the national balance sheet. Incidentnllv, we note the enormous sum which English national expenditure flas reached. In tli'o seventies, as I remember, the annual bill stood at £90,000,000; it has now exceeded £160,000.000. This truly alarming jump is mainly due to the increa.se of expenditure on naval and military aocouut. Thirty-live years ago a man-of-war was considered dear at. three-quarters of a million; the latest Dreadnoughts cost £2,000,000. These extra millions arc the price England pays for keeping ready to meet the attack which German naval activity makes people think is not very distant. The question before the Government is, By what means shall tho £15,000,000 be raised? "Tax the masses," say the tariff reformers, including the 350 Peers who rejected the Budget. " Tax the eliisstti," sa-ys Mr Lloyd-George, with tho House of Commons behind him.

The crux of the Budget is tlie tax oil land. The House of Lords would cheerfully pay more for their motor cars, their whisky, and their cigars. The graduated income (ax, particularly the super-tux, might pinch a. little, but by dismissing a gardener or two they might bear it. But rudely to shatter the lime-honoured English tradition and tax the land! They would prefer to endanger the Constitution rather than submit. As the land taxation clauses have led to Iho present crisis, wc may pause a moment or two to ask more about this land question. How did (lie Peers get their lands? This opens up a. big question, which lack of space forbids to treat fully. But a few facts muy bo given. At the Norman conquest of' England there took place a very la rip redistribution of the land. William of Normandy was attended by 20,000 followers, who had joined his standard on the promise of a share of the plunder if his expedition succccded. Twenty thousand thieves, Emerson calls them. After Scnlao William had to keep bis pledges, and that meant the dispossession of the Saxon owners of England. The Gorman knights were insatiable in their land hunger. Many of them were mere adventurers to whom the conquest gave the opportunity of becoming barons of England, with domains that stretched over whole counties. With tbo changes incident to t,he troubles of that, age the • Norman barons continued to possess the land till tbo Wars of the Rosc-s. In that, sanguinary struggle all had to iako sides in t.ho fierce battles which took place. Many of the barons lost their lives, and their families became extinct. When, on tlio final triumph of the White Rcee of York under Ilenry Bolingbroke. the baroiu were summoned lo meet as the peers of England, 400 failed to answer lo the summons. The Wars of tlis Roses had proved fatal to so large a number. As a. result of this, vast estates again changed owners. The bulk of them were estreated to tlio Crown, so that the King became the largest land-owner of the realm, and he in turn rewarded bis own followers with presents of the p-statev: of his dead opponents. The rebellion against Charles Stuart brought, about a further redistribution of land. The triumph of the Parliament was followed by the attainder of those who had fought, for and gone into exile with the Stnarls. The Restoration under the unprincipled ami profligate Charles II restored the victims of the Parliament, and banished its supporters, and in both cases estates chaiigcd A few years later James JI was driven into exile, and William of Orange was erowncd King of England. In ths *years that followed freiment. Jacobite risings took place; and as each one involved souk of the great noble, families, the heads of which were either executed or driven into exile, lii.uiy great estates passed by forfeiture to the Cronvi. William of Orange became in this way the ownor of "a great, part, of England. William bad a few Dutch friends, to whom he was strongly attached. Of these the chief were William Bcnlinck, who founded the family of Portland; and Van Keppel, who became E:u'l of Albemarle. William was, anxious to place these Dutchmen on a level in wealth and dignity with the oldest and wealthiest nobility of England, and he lavished estate after estate upon them, carved out of the Crown lands. In doing this he was, of course, merely following his royal predecessors. As Macaulay says: "Every family that, had bean great in Wnslaiid, from theDc Veres down to the Hyde?, had been enriched, by royal gifts." These gifls. of course, were all in land. Land was olentiful, while inonoiv was usually scarco. This enrichment of private families out. of Crown lauds was continued by tlio successors of William, Anne gave Blenheim to tlio Marlhoroughs, and the Georges helped their friends in the same wav.

lint this <!oes not account, for all the great e-stiites of Knglish Peers. From the earliest times thare had existed largo areas of what wore known as common lands, or lands held and used by communities in common. The custom of commonage is very interesting', but, I cannot deal with it now. Lot it suffice to say ;hat when George I camo to Knglnnd there existed about 12,000,000 acres of common land. In his reign somebody set tho fashion of enclosing this laud. Tho lords of the manor coveted the complete ownership of tlm commons adjoining their estates; it was often not well cultivated, or even cultivated at all; the peasantry wore hopelessly ignorant and poor; for a small amount of money (which Lecky says was often swallowed up by law expenses) they were willing to commute their rights of commonage, and soom hnelosuro Act?, or acts for incornorating common lands with the estates of the lords of tho manor were passed through

Parliament by the hundred. During the reigns of ilio throe Georges, first io third, upwards of 10,000,000 acres of common land had in this way brcome private piojvrty. The sums paid in commutation were usually very small, and did not alwavs reach the people whose rights wer" alienated, inn! it did not occur to anybody that the ancient rights of commonage were reallv inalienable, because no generation had more than a life interest in the common lands, and that any jnsl law could not deprive posterity of it? right in them. But the lain's none the less became the nronortv of the lords of the manor in who?e 'avonr the Acls of Enclosure ivere passed.

I do not, say that all the Knglish Veers got their lands in the above ways. Not. a few are Peers of veny modern creation, who made money in law or m oomnicrce, ami have purchased estates. But Hie old nobility and most of the Ice" old became the owners of vast property in the way I have described.

Now, during the last threo-i|iiarters of a century the immense industrial expansion of England has led to rapid iueieaso of population and of wealth. Loudon, when

George 111 became King, held 500,0C0 people; it now holds 7,000,000. anil is s'iil growing. All over England the eonc-n----tration of industries has croatixl lariro citscs. Manchester has grown out. of the cotto'.l trade; Leeds, and other Yorkshire cilics, out of wool; Sheffield, out of cutlery; liinniughiiin, out of hardware; Liverpool, out of shipping; ami so on. Iteolalo marshes have become lings centres of population ; railroads have spread thonwlvs everywhere; macadam has turned muddy lanes inio splendid roads. 11l a word, lite liliglniid of 10,000,000 people who faced and overcame Napoleon when George 111 was King hn* b?como tho t>nsv. rich, densely-peopled England of 40,000,000 inhabitants. Mow, what has been most benefited by the phenonienS'l growl.li o'f English wealth? The answer is the J.and.

The Cavendishes. who.-e ancestor was unable to liay the fine of £20,000 in t-ho days or William of Orange, pc.ss.v~s their millions now. And this is a typical ease, Many t>f the peers own the land on which big cities and towns are built, and derive iinmon.=o incomr.s from it. A few typical cases will show this. The Dukes of Bedford, Norfolk, Westminster, Portland. a$ well as ethers, are ownei's of London land, and veceivo huge' sums as unearned increment from that source. Much of their property lias been made very valuable by great public works done at. national ccst. Thames Embankment,' which cost millions of j!oimds to construct, has increased the value of the Duke of Norfolk's property fourfold. So, too, the growth of England's, commerce has sent up city and town rents by leaps and hounds. A recent illustration of this has been given in the case, of a. Ml' Gorritigo, who leased a basement site from the Duke of Westminster, On this site ho crected a building and put together a splendid , business. By-and-bye the loasfl expired, and he sought a renewal. The Duko was willing to renew, but the new terms were; The new rent was to bo £4000 instead of a few hundreds as formerly, £50,000 was to be paid down as a sort of lionus, and Mr Gorringe was to put, up at the cost- of many thousands of pounds new buildings, to be approved by the Duke's architect. This was the unearned increment, received bv the clucal landlord. And here is the point under the new Budget; The Government, asks for 10 per cent, of this profit for the benefit of tho nation, and tho answer of the peers is to throw out the Budget. To recapitulate: The land of England, hcot'l.'Mid, and Ireland is held by comparatively few persons (one-twelfth of Scotland is owned b\- seven persons), mosit of whom got it by the favour of kings or for sen-ices supposed to entitle them to. rich reward. Owing lo circumstances not of their making, tho land has 'become very valuable, and yields large income to the owners. So far it has never paid anything in direct taxation. The whole increment has been regarded as private profit, and used accordingly. The time has come when means must bo found to increase tho national revenue. The Government proposes to lay a small burden on tho land which lias been most benefited by the nation's prosperity. On tho other'hand, the owners of this land resist the proposal, and advise tariff reform, which means increasing the cost of living for the masses, 12 millions of whom, a leading statesman of their own side says, are on ■ the verge of starvation. The affrighted peors threaten that, if (he tax on land is made they will ha.ve to keep fewer gamekeepers, grooms, and gardeners, and thev will not mulco donations to cricket and football chiba. All In is is tfirrible, but not so t-erriblc as to add to the burdens of the already overweighted millions. Out for tho moment the, ua - v > a lid thrown out the budget. The strangest, thing about it is that of tho whole ]x>ncli of bishops only four appear to have had courage enough to vote on the people's side. The others held aloof because, forsooth, thev said it, was a purely political struggle. Thev have forgotten their history. This stru<'"de is only one phase of the long fight between privilege and freedom, between the havos and the have-nots, and between the man in velvet and the man in fustian. Tho fight began when tho Norman thought to crush Saxon liberty by the Curfew bell. II" has never really halted, though the pace has been often slow. Kings and nobles hove gone down in it, and much good commoners' blood has been spilt, but tlio people have always won in the end. Ihcy will win now, and the House of Lords may find ere long that in destroying the Budget, they destroyed themselves.