LAND TAX DEBATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21390, 18 July 1931, Page 11

LAND TAX DEBATE

SIR JOHN SIMON’S SPEECH MR LLOYD GEORGE REPLIES. LONDON, July 8. “This lifelong fiscal teetotaller is becoming a drunkard and feeling his way from side to side toward that home for inebriates, the Conservative Party. I warn him that the Conservatives will use his powers and gifts, and finally cheat him of the prize dangled before him.” The foregoing is one extract from half an hour’s vituperation in which Mr Lloyd George, the Liberal Leader, replied to a speech in the House of- Commons by Sir John Simon, who has renounced his leadership on the question of land taxation.

During the’final stages of the land tax debate Sir John defended his attitude and declared that the doctrine of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Snowden, did not conform to former Liberal doctrines.

Sir John quoted the Earl of Oxford’s speeches, and bent politely forward toward Mr Lloyd George, saying: “Mr Lloyd George will forgive me not quoting him (Mr Lloyd George).” The Liberal Leader flushed with fury, and vigorously scribbled notes. In his reply, he said that Sir John Simon had been criticising and sneering for a fortnight. “I object to this self-righteousness,” Mr Lloyd George went on. “People, formerly, when they changed their opinions, have left this slimy hypocrisy behind them.” Sir John, he concluded, was once the champion of the taxation of land values. Now, he strained at a gnat, namely, a few details prompted by a twopennyhalfpenny conscience, but swallowed the camel of protection.