THE WAR BUDGET. VARIOUS CRITICISMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 32

THE WAR BUDGET. VARIOUS CRITICISMS.

EUROPEAN TENDENCIES

(Fkom Our Owk Correspondent.)

LONDON, April 11

Britain is steadily learning what w.ir means even to tho-,e who stay at home, but provide the neeclful "sinews." You du'.y received by cable the gist of Sir Michaol Hicks-Beach's Budget. So you are aware that we have to face a total expenditure of £187,000,000— one hundred and eighty-seven million pounds sterling — for the current year, and thai to meet this enormous and unparalleled outlay we are called on to pay an additional twopence — or 14d in all — in the pound income tav ; & halfpenny per pound on sugar and a shilling per ton on exported coal, beside borrowing sixty million sterling This means that Britain has to raise and oxpend in a «ingle year very nearly as much as the whole unprecedented sum claimed l»y Germany and paid by France as indemnity after the Franco-German war. The European press and foreigners generally may well stand aghast at the magnitude of the figureand at the comparative calmness with whioh such figures are quoted. For, in truth, there has been little eriri cism of the copt of tins war. Englishman know that it they fight there will be expeiibes which must be paid. Almost all the criticism yet offered toward the Budget whioh Sir Michael Hicks-Beach unfolded— as it seemed to me — with a cerLain amount of unction, not to say enjoyment, has been directed to its details. Nobody likes the extra twopence on the income tax. Few Hke. although some approve, the duty on vagar. Most people approve the export duty on coal. Of course the colliery owner 3 are not among the mimber, but they have rpla tively few sympathiser* ; while the severity of their exactions- during the past long and dreary winter is fresh in the memory of a victimised coal-using public. Overriding all these objection* to the individual items of new taxation, there prevail- a. strong and widespread feeling that as it is almost impossible that the present ereneration can see any benefit enjoyed l.y England a& the outcome of the South African war. as indeed it is only too likely that this may -involve, directly or indirectly, the placing of yet heavier burdens iipon our shoulder*, while such advantages as may result will be enjoyed only by future generation?, it would be fairer to relegate the burden of cost also to posterity than to saddle this generation with so hea\y a proportion. But Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in his Budget dpclared that he would be no party to relieving the present generation of its share in the cost of a war which itself had made. And Sir Michael made thi3 declaration with ouch specially pointed emphasis that his hearers promptly understood him to suggest that he had had to put "is foot down very firmly even in the Cabinet, and had made it clear that unless his view on this momentous point were entirely adopted he should follow the example set by the late Lord Randolph Churchill, and resign forthwith. The " fine furious temper " of Sir Michael when crossed is so vivfdly appreciated by iiis colleagues thai nobody could doubt for a moment what would be the result of n s taking up a stand in the present Ministry. If Mr Chamberlain had taken up an opposi'e stand thing 3 might have been different. If it were a case of " when Greek meets Greek " in the case of those two stronglymarked personalities, then, indeed, would come the rug of war! But Lord Salisbury, in his Hatfield laboratory, Mr Balfour, at his golf links, and the Duke of Devonshiie, in his snooze, aie Ciallio3 who "care for none of these things," and so the more rigorous spirits get their way. Still, it cannot be f-aid that the new taxation is popular even among thoae who realise that the piper muat be paid after all our martial dancing. There is a deep and largely prevalent feeling that the smaller incomes ought not to have been further squeezed, especially tho=e dependent on work, and therefore on the ehaneas of health and strength. The general idea is that th« additional taxation, if levied al all, should have been limited to the larger incomes and to those arising from property and investment? of a permanent character. The sugar duty, of course, brings up rampant not only thooe, who hold as articles of faith such phrases as "a free breakfast table," but also those who long to see the thin end of the Protection wedge introduced. The former denounce the wrong done to the British working man in '" taxing his breakfast table " — (lip other uses of iiigar tha.i that of sweetening the working man's tea or coffee at that single meal being studiously ignored! -and tl»t* lalter declaim aeainst ihe unpuXriotisin- of not exempting Hiigar produced by British colonie= — " our oun colonies.'' they remark bitterly, adding the inquiry if THib is true Imperialism ! But by far the giealest noise is being made by the colliery owners, who are furious at being called on to disgorge a minute percentage of the huge profits they Lave been squeezing- out of the public for many months Bast, Th.«!£ t-limrea_Ss]4__£Ok.U of desjwate

f reprisals, and <rck to stir up their rani by hinting that the tax, if earned, will mean closing down wime collieiies and working .short time in others., it must be confessed that the Government have rather put a weapon into the bane's of their opponents by seeking to claim credit for a two-edged action on the part of this coal expoit duty Thoy propose it as an aid lo revenue, yet they seek to support it by pleading that it will check the exportation of our r-moke'es-, coal to foreign countries, which have for years been accumulating )t in vast quantities with a view to fuHire na\al eventualities — in fact, for use against v.«. But what ha« staggered the British taxpayer more tlvm anything else in this \inexamplPtl Budget if?" the plain intimation which it contain* that these new taxes may, and almo-t mu-'t be, permanent, owing to the enormous increase in the national expenditure. Virtually tin"* whole anticipated proceed, of the new taxation will be required to meet tho increa.-e on ordinary expenditure quite oul-ide of the special outlay on the win- in South Africa. Yet the agricultural and ecclesiastical "doles" are proposed as blithely as e\er, and fresh expenditure on the army and navy are admittedly inevitable. But there is no movement toward taxing town land values or other properties that could better bear the strain than come of the targets chosen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer lo be fired at. These, however, reI pietent "vested interests, and must be re spected! Herein lies tho weakness of Tory j olicy, and tlras are f-own the seeds of the Radical reaction, which, I .suppose, is bound to come sooner or later, but which may be accelerated by the perception that the Tories, like the Bourbons, " lea' n nothing and forget nothing." __^_