Labour and Budget.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 11997, 4 September 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

Labour and Budget.

MR WILL CROOKS' EXPERIENCES The cable messages almost daily eontain scraps from the British Budget. The following Li a- Labour members , views of it as given in a London paper, just to hand:— "l'on niav take it from me," said Mr Will Crooks, M.P., to a. "Daily Chxonicle" • representative, "that tho working man has taken tip this question of tho-Budget very seriously indeed. His father said to him, '1 know the effects, my lad, of all this.poverty.' But," 'Mr Crooks went on, "tho lad knows the cause of it, and he sees in this Budge a "way of escape." The conversation took placo in Mr Crook's front parlour at Gough-strcct, Poplar.- .All round about were the houses of people who would be must beneficially affected hy Mr LloydGeorge's financial proposals. How have they taken it? Mr Crooks. answered confidently, not merely for his own familiar folk In Poplar and Woolwich, but for tho. working classes of the country, or, at least, for those parte of it where he lias recently been addressing meetings. "Honestly," he said—and" one did not need this assurance of honesty from Will Crooks—"l have- never touched any subject since I have been in public life that has so completely cangfat hold, of the multitudes as has this proposal to deal with the land. I have addressed meetings ranging in number from 2000 to GOOD at Batley in Yorkshire, at Briton Farry in Wales, at Wolverhampton, here in Poplar, at Woolwich, Bellevue,. Manchester, Mansfield, Nottingham, and Newton in' Lancashire, to mention only some, and at, all these places the audiences cheered to the echo the statement of '„ the Government's proposals." "Is there any fear that indifference to the importance of/political questions has led the working classes to think lightly of the Budget: or.that want of knowledge of the land'problem has induced them to believe that they will not benefit by the Government's pro- i posals?" BREAD OR BEER. 'The- ordinary politician," - replied ■ Mr Crooks, "who denies that these , 'people can think 'would be a little bit surprised to bear the interjections at I i some of the meetings' I~ have addressed - At several of the meetings I have addressed I have said:— * " It is true your tobacco and whisky - are to cost-you more,' but before I v.* got any further the cry came back:— " "Why, 'guv'nor, we need not pay that nnlew we like, but if the tax bad <■ been on bread we should have been ' obliged to pay, whether we liked it or not.' - > t ' "That interruption,'! commented * Mr, Crocks. v " shows sound; political in- , stinct. The women, too. jure in v no - ',w»jr behind their men folk in a, r"ndv /understanding of the situation. Both "'men. and women appreciate at it& true '- , rvalue all this Tariff Reform hnmbug ,» as the remedy for the evils of uncm- ., k ployraent and poverty. At one meeting: I attended I spoke of the difficnltv 1 . poor, people had to make both ends 1 meet, and a woman in the audience in.terrnpted, **Both ends meet! We'd be 'i \ jolly- glad to have one end meat and '.- the. other end bread. We conld not * * get bread under Tariff Reform,' * "A remark of that sort shows." _ said Mr Crooks, " that the people are .'" comparing the two policies—this .Free * * Trade Budget with Tariff Reform—and ;«'-» that they are whoie-Jieartedly for the *, Budget. Theyjiave bad old ago pennans, and I- have heard them say, re'2 /erring to Protectionist yarns, 'lf we rf - are in be impoverished to find money 4-; lor old age pension.?, ,wc'd better lie i&, -without 'em.' " - *« l *Ci*^ r y"P non ' ar "**& e workers. * - r> "They see." said Mr Crooks, "tliat wrapped up in the Budget is a real at- * 'tempt to .deal in a systematic'fashion " with. labour and its .needs. They apthat, and 'they 'know, also, Sri-thai without this,, Budget they are not -r-.likefy i to, get'the pauper disqualifica--~J Jtion. for oh) age \pensions abolished, are they- likely v to get the age at r _-., which- payment begins reduced.", *~C £ ,-"Have working "men. been- afs. in their 'attitude towards the '*. Budget by the rise which the brewers ' ind publicans have forced on the price -' f of beer?" . ■

ty" ~ ( >*AS TEMPERAXCE AGENTS. *'/L„i f Tbe. pleasing.'jthuiE- .about, that," '-.;r^i* , llr;o«>ks r -\ ,t is."thafc if the brewpnt.np"the,price any *, people, will do without beer. " r .". makes jthem jsee that the tax is that? "the foreigner «does not %£ "The agitation : against the Budget by ;sJ3hewealthy I .' vlawes waV next menand -apon this j3fr Crooks had ' ft* some 'pertinent, remarks to make. £,*»: I,"I suppose,", he "said,- " that in my iT;-time'J-have übe«rd_ more stories than _'" ~m©si men; and have Jwd a closer ami *„■% rajofe intimate knowledge of the suf- «. - feting* of the poor in everv phase of 17 life., ££fc I_mn«t confess, that atjnn i -tone-bare;l djeard ff/>m ( the poor swell , bewaflingjs and raoanings as are 'heme f". rateretl hvthe Honselof Commons by the. great landed proprietors. Some-. -one said.to me the other day. 'Bill/i* ,_ 'rtf a **ct flat in the nrayers* rverv dnv - t -lg *h c House' of Commons, there's ■** flfese jrorda,_,' r Heln ns,o Lord.' to lay private-interests, prpjndice', 3 «ftd personal affections'?" > And do £r*jpo believe them when-voti *ay that?" I -'"*7>" Mr Crooks £.»"ffife ) f» -" g *c e ptl ; tE>t'.iho words were J;;' mr-nroirieal commentary noon the r'^Jflsechea- of. certain honourable Mem--s.,*wm? H~tffif~Bridget'goes through ;/»; jmat * whole army of 'aonlicants- for -, owtHreKef we abalTpet! Things which ' v flM»* average .Woolwich, workman has alr" most. forgotten in connection with the _ arguments for not amine » tax'npon it, are being rerterr';atid over and over* again—arguments K' |J** ywoM make a- third standard b«v - the ridicule of his school. Tet one is ~tJijfmS*ped.'jof a, great Duke who has , cow/ of Ins. accounts in orJ der to t show the lasses on his enormous hooks disclose a. total loss jgmpUß a jear. V- *J?" , Ta. stop' this loss he has sold ont - } far threequarters of a million, a sum which will bring him in' a revenue of »i £IO,OOO a year. Query—who is going pay that? Surely not tI;o noble dnke, but the people who arc trying to get their living.on the land. One gets sick of hearing that the land won't pay. A cerain noble lord, who _ has not joined in tliis outcry against the taxation,of land values, has stated - thai "in forty-kmeyears I have lost on- ' . lv eighteen tenants out of 4000. The whole of my propery is in land, and 1 --am quite willing to hear the tax proposed by this Government. The reason is, because I have no moneylenders claiming interest, and have not to pay off heavy mortgages. Ihove no second or third charges to get rid of like people who have loaded the land.with debt instead of planting it with something that would be productive.; "And there you have it,-' said Mr Crooks. ""JBecause the land will not , hinr all these charges the owners yell •.-"IflBfc that they are ruined. Land will ~**sy better than ever it did nnder proper treatment, but it will not bear the hnrden of debts incurred by spendthrifts who have thought more of their own pleasure than of the well-being of the people on the land." Mr Crooks, in conclusion, spoke strongly of the way in which the landowning members of the Opposition are

'obstructing the passage of tho Bnd- ■• They tried."' he said, '* to do n very clever thing tho oilier night. '1 hoy (>ut. this question: '" Suppose i;titrl is valued at i").(KHI. is sold for £(j,.'jOU, and afterwards resold for .to.oOO, and then again sold to a fourth purchaser for £'7,000. Query—Ought increment tax to be paid on .£1,500 or £soo:' That seemed to argue that speculators were {loins to transfer the land from one to tho other for tho express purpose of cheating tho increment'tax. But, after all, these, are very dry and technical questions, and of interest chiefly to experts. Behind all tho discussion there is the solid fact that the people appreciate all that is meant by this Budget. It is not true to say tii.it they are not alivo to serious political issues, only iu tho North. Here : n Poplar and in Woolwich there is tre-. nieudously keen interest in the Budget and all that it involves, that 1 can only repeat what I said at the outset — that the : -working classes recognise in this Budget at least the opening up _of a way of- escape from their difficulties and troubles.