IMPERIAL POLITICS

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 31

IMPERIAL POLITICS

THE BUDGET PASSED. SECOND READING DEBATE. . LONDON, April 26. Mr O'Brien's amendment to reject the : Budget was negatived by 328 votes to 242. The announcement of the numbers was received with Opposition cheers. The Budget was then read a second ' time by the same majority. Mr Austen Chamberlain characterised the Government's finances as confiscatory and menacing. He also emphasised the lowness of the price of consols, which stood at £BO 15s yesterday. He mentioned that this was unprecedented. On the recent issue of Exche »r bonds the lists were closed early because the applications were few and were being Avithdrawn. Had the lists remained open the required money would not have been obtained. In arguing that the Government's taxation was vindictive, Mr Chamberlain mentioned that a well-con-ducted brewery had been taxed to an additional extent of £40,000 under Mr Lloyd-George's Budget, or £12,000 more than it distributed to the ordinary shareholders. I Mr O'Brien cited the report of the Com- \ missioner on Financial Relations to prove that Ireland was seriously overtaxed. He said that Mr Redmond's surrender was an act of apostasy for which he got nothing in return. Mr Clancy said the Nationalists would j vote for the Budget on grounds apart from its merits or demerits. Mr Lloyd-George said that as the land and other taxes were increased in their yield so Ireland's taxation would fall. Mr Balfour denounced the Budget as dealing arbitrarily and unequally with persons of equal wealth. The smallness of the Government's majority when, by 204 votes to 182, the House of Commons carried a motion to suspend the 11 o'clock rule in favour of the Development Act Amendment Bill was the signal for loud Opposition cheers. Mr H. L Samuel (President of the Board of Trade) announced that the license duties usually levied an October will be spread over several months. The Scottish Liberal commoners are forming a national group, to promote the improvement of the Scottish administration, and to advance Scottish reforms. DARING THE LORDS. LONDON, April 27. The Budget is through the Committee stage. Discussion chieflv related to the clause making it clear that no increment duty is payable on purely agricultural land. Mr Lloyd-George, incidentally replying to attacks, declared that the countrv had decided in favour of the Budget. If the Opposition thotosht otherwise, let the Lords reject it if they dared. The Budget was read a third time in the House of Commons by 324 votes to 231, and in the House of Lords a first time. THE BUDGET PASSED. LONDON, April 28. Mr Asquifh, in concluding the Budeet debate, covered the whole field of controversy. Referring to the composition of the Government majority, he declined to discriminate between the votes of members of the House of Commons according to the parts of the United Kingdom whence they came. The House of Lords passed the Budget through nil its stages. Lord Crewe explained the alterations in the Budget. He stated that no bargain of any kind would be made respecting that or any future Budget. Lord Lansdowne declared that the Peers were bound by their pledge to acquiesce in its passage. They were justified in last

year's reference to the constituencies, because the Government themselves proclaimed it novel and unprecedented. Lord Lansdowne proceeded to severely comment on the Government's tactics in securing the Irish vote. Lord Loreburn warmly attacked Lord Lansdowne, and alleged that the latter's predominant motive in resisting the Budget in 1909 was an attempt to secure a triumph for the pernicious doctrine of tariff reform. Both Houses have decided to adjourn to-day, after a formal meeting for a Royal Commission, until May 26. Mr Asquith had an audience with King Edward, and submitted details of the political situation. The Royal assent -has been given to the Budget. PARLIAMENT BILL. FAR-REACHING PROVISIONS. LONDON, April 60. The Parliament Bill has been issued. The preamble foreshadows an ultimate second chamber on a popular basis. • Within a month of a measure which is certified by the Speaker to be a money bill being sent to the House of Lords the consent of the latter may be dispensed with on the assent of the King being obtained to it. The Speaker's certificate declaring it a money bill will accompany its presentation to the King. Bills other than finance bills similarly become law if rejected a third time by the House of Lords after passing the House of Commons in three successive sessions, not necessarily in the same Parliament. The maximum duration of Parliament will be five years. TARIFF REFORM. SPEECH BY MR. BALFOUR, LONDON, April 26. Mr Balfour, speaking on Tariff Reform at a luncheon tendered to the working men visitors to Germany and referring to Mr Lloyd-George's statements concerning black bread and offal, said it was discreditable to public life to bespatter the civilisation of a friendly country with the mud of our preposterous controversies. Britain had much to learn from Germany, especially in regard to social reform. Mr Balfour incidentally declared himself a strong Tariff Reformer. Mr Balfour, addressing the Primrose League, in the Albert Hall, denounced the Veto proposals as revolutionary, and an attempt to make the majority in the Houise of Commons, however it could be produced, the absolute master of the Constitution, from the Sovereign downwards. The Government did not bargain with the Irish party,- it simply hinted that if the Budget was passed it would offer up to the Irish party the King and the Constitution. He believed (hat the Government was using the financial machinery of the country for the purpose of making it impossible for the people to be consulted if the present machination to coerce the King failed. Mr Bialfour said that if the great selfgoverning communities did their duty, the Government's constitutional revolution would utterly fail. In responding to a vote of thanks, Mr Balfour said that believers in social and fiscal reform must, besides defending the Constitution, work upon the lines of the Unionist positive and constructive programme. The Daily News, commenting on Mr Balfour's speech, said that in Canada, South Africa, and Australia the ruling parties all repudiated the suggestion that the Unionists nre the English nation and the svmbols of Imperial traditions. Mr Balfour employs reckless and revolutionary language, concealing his teat purpose. He is readv to uproot the responsibility of the King's advisers and the non-rasr>onsibilitv of the Kino-, because he wishes to destroy one of the King's prerogatives. OLD-AGE PENSIONS. LONDON, April 26. Mr Lloyd-George stated that the first amendment in the Old-age Pensions Act would, be the removal of the pauper disqualification.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. I Mr Harcourt (First Commissioner of Works) states that the new War Office will cost £1,229,128. The eight Development Commissioners include the chairman, Lord Richard Cavendish, a paid vice-chairman, Sir Francis Hop wood, and Mr Sydney Webb. Mr Hunter has been re-elected unopposed for Govan, and Mr Mitchell-Thomson (Unionist) was elected unopposed for , North Devon. The Home Countries League, the Gladstone League, and other radical ; organisations are promoting a widespread campaign against the Lords' veto. Speaking at the Compatriots' Club, Lord Milner said that if, as is fervently hoped, the present loose association of self-governing States grows in time into a regular partnership, it can only be by the development of a new organ of government representing the whole Empire, dealing exclusively with matters of common interest. The introduction, however, of oversea representatives into the British Parliament was unsound. He protested against the suggestion that Tariff I Reform should be shelved. The by-election for South Edinburgh, necessitated by the appointment of Mr A. Dewer, K.C. (L.) as a Lord of Session resulted in the return of Mr Lyell (Literal) by a majority of 2327. | At the general election in Jamiarv the voting was:—Dewar (L.), 10.235; Cox' (U.), 7901. | Speaking at the Eighty Club. Lord Crewe said that the Liberals Avould make an irreparable mistake if they were to throw away the present opportunity of altering the composition of the House of Lords. Lord Rcsebery's and Lord Lansdowne's schemes of reform would finally destroy their only existing constitutional safeguard—namely, the power in the last resort of creating Pters. Lord Morley, in the course of his remarks, stated that the Government had determined to give the country a month'* respite from speechmaking. Mr Lloyd-George a,nd Mr T. P. O'Con-i nor are motoring together through Franca and Italy. The Independent Labour party is arranging to hold 2000 meetings weekly during the summer. The speakers will visit every town and village and will' deliver addresses on the right to work, ( the abolition of pauperism, and the puWio ownership of land, railways, and mines. In the course of a speech at Nottrng«. ham Mr Will Thorne, M.P., declared I the Bouse of Lords would not be easily abolished. He believed that the HoW of Lords, the Monarchy, and the Church would go at the same time, they wer< so dovetailed together. j A LETTER IROM MR WILL CROOKS, We publish the following extracts from; a letter received 'by the Hon. J. T. Paul, M.L.C., from our late visitor, Mr Will Crooks, then M.P. for Woolwich, in the j House of Commons : j "Things here are, to say the least about them, very interesting. On the ■ whole Labour did well at the polls. I i think I told you I thought we should lose | a few seats. We did in fact lose six* , but gained three in other places. The I miners coming into • the party has made i our fighting ranks up to 40, as against 33 in the last House. The strangeness of tJie whole situation is that no one is happy about the result of the elections, i and nd party wants another just yet—the

expense, is far too great. My own election cost my people £930 3s Bd—a big tax on Labour, and everybody else for that matter. So all are a bit shy, but are breathing thingf at one another. My defeat by 295 votes on a total of 17,120 does not worry me. I have my hands fairly full, I can assure you. I was never in so much demand, and I am all over the country, so we have no time to regret defeat. Every hour brings some new rumour about another election, but I take it with just a grain of salt. Our men are doing well in the House, and the way J. R. MacDonald smashed up Austen Chamberlain the other night on Tariff Reform is still the talk of London. You need not worry on your side—there will' not be a revolution; but it's good to be alive just now. I went to the unveiling- of the Seddon Memorial in St. Paul's Cathedral, and I do think it would have made you all feel proud if you had been present, whether you liked or othei'wise R. S. A very fine tribute was paid to him as a statesman, and to you all as a fine people. We shall never ourselves be able to repay you for the kindness you bestowed on us at every stage, of out journey. While we are thinking and talking of our journey round the world our mind keens wandering all the time to the many friends we made and left in New Zealand, and. while folks say here, 'lf you had stayed at Home you would never have been defeated.' to Mrs Crooks and myself it seems that if the price of our journey was the loss of my seat then it was worth losing it, for the World is larger, the cause i 6 greater, the horizon of life better for it all. I shall go back to Parliament in good time. To use out London, nay English, cry—we are not downhearted."