TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8342, 14 June 1905, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[From Our Correspostdext.] LONDON, April 14. THE BUDGET AND THE TAXPAYER. My interest iv the British Budget is, unhappily, a personal one. Th© income tax collector will not permit m© to livo in th© obscurity I fain would enjoy, but thrusts his unwelcome attentions upon, in© one© a year, and peremptorily demands his -pound of flesh — the soulless Shylock that b© is! This year he was oven mor© peremptory and insistent than usual, and exacted his toll without allowing us the customary period of grace. Imagine, then, my feelings on learning from the Budget speech that th© income tax would remain at a -hilling, and you will have a good idea of th© general attitude towards Mr Austen Chamberlain's seoond balance-sheet. It is* impossible to deny that th© new Budget has caused widespread disappointment amongst those upon whom the burden of the income tax weighs most heavily. The Chancellor of the Exchequer , has distinctly ©vaded his promise of the previous year, that the income tax payers should have th© first claim to consideration in the ©vent of a surplus. He has this year a surplus of nearly three millions, and instead of reducing "th© income tax by a penny h© has allocated £1,000,000 to paying off national debt —a drop in the ocean, indeed !— and £1,550,000 to reducing the tea duty by twopence, reserving the balance of £422,000 for emergencies. It is a commonplace sort of Budget, unrelieved by a spark of originality, but that could be forgiven if its framer had shown any real appreciation of the. crying needs of th© situation. The income tax, in th© fourth year after the /war, stands at a figure hithorto unpro'cedented in time of peace, and constitutes a heavy drain upon ihe spending powers of th© class who iv wartime are the main bearers of the burden. Moreover, no Chancellor has yet had the courage to introduce a graduated income tax, although it is obvious that the burden is much heavier to the middle-class man of limited income than it is to th© plutocrat with a rentroll running into many thousands a year. Another unjust feature of the tax is the failure to make any distinction between tho income earned by personal exertion and brains, and that derived from property. Surely the former deserves to be more lightly taxed than th© latter. As for the reduction of the tea duty by twopence, that will certainly benefit the planters, but i,t means very little relief to the consumer. If it was intended to lighten the burden of tho poorer classes, it is practically useless. Tea is not the staple drink of th© poor man in this country. It is pretty safe to asserv that for' every pint of tea the British working man consumes, he geta through a gallon of beer, and if tea is dear in price, he simply squares matters by drinking less tea and more beer. The cheap tea, morever, which finds its way to the homes of the pcor is mostly composed of dust and sweepings, and a reduction on the duty is hardly lik©ly to affect the low price of this; th© middleman will benefit, but not th© consumer. The new Budget, in fact, if it has not tightened the screw, has don© very little towards loosening it, and meanwhile the municipal rates are going steadily up. " More than ever," as the "Globe" remarks, " have we cause to lament the narrow basis on which the fabric of material taxation is reared." "A MESSAGE FROM HEAVEN." The Welsh revivalist, Eyan Roberts, is at present indulging in a largo amount of what normal-minded persons must regard as nothing short of mer© •" sickening theatricalism." Recently he^ remained dumb as an oyster for a couple of we^ks on end, waiting, as he said, for the Spirit to move him, before he would speak a word to a soul or carry out the engagements ho had mad© to address meetings. Now he is conducting a revival in Liverpool which has simply become an orgie in hysteria. The, other day ho appeared before . a packed audience at the Mount Zion chapel to deliver what he alleged to be a message direct fjom Heaven?. H© did not deliver the message, but contented himself with an exhibition of shuddering, groaning and sobbing, which out-lasted the patience of an audience that was certainly in th© mood to stand a great deal from the *' Heaven-sent missioner." His excuse for this exhibition of hysteria was that there was some ©vil influence at work against him among the congrega^ tion. Th© ©vil influence refused, however, to declare itself or to be exorcised by Evan's weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and finally the congregation "left him to it." On the morrow th© chapel was once more packed to suffocation to hear the message. Once again the " evil influences " were paramount. Roberts,, when ascending .to th© pulpit, was taken with what the reporters describe as " a violent fit of (shuddering"; then he collapsed in a 'chair, and, after indulging awhile in a 'most effective piece of posing as the " picture of abject despair," jumped to his feet, and raved extravagantly against the " ©vil influences " at work against him. They were, he declared, "more ©vil than he had ever experienced " Roberts' theatricalism proved contagious, and for a few minutes the hall

resounded with frantic cries and frenzied feminine wails. To this unmolodious chorus the missioner supplied the solo, calling out in an anguished voice, " Oh, God. help me, oh God remember mcl" Then he fell into his chair again, rocked to and fro, tore at his hair, and sobbed like an hysterical woman for ten minutes. The revivalist's " abandon " was copied by quite a number of his audience, and groans, cries and sobs fairly " waked the echoes." At last Roberts raised his head, leaped to his feet, and with the air of a man who has determined to do or die, cried out: "J have a message to deliver from. God!" I have had this message for some time," he went on, "but I have been reluctant to give it out. But now God orders me to do so, and if I do nqt He will turn away frora me or break me in pieces." Then came the message which had cost him so much anguish to deliver, and to any but a Welshman it conveyed nothing. It was that the Welsh Free Church, whose members recently seceded from the Welsh Methodist Church, was not founded on the Rock! Having delivered this portentous message, and reduced the " Free Kirkers " present to a state of abject repentance Evan Roberts was pleased to become his normal self, and to gossip to his congregation on spiritual matters in his usual fashion. Evan Roberts may be doing good, but judging from the effects of his hysterical outbursts upon his congregations, he is more likely to add to tbe number of patients in our asylums than to convert genuine ovil-doers. A SUEZ CANAL STORY. Not many people, I fancy, have known the inner history of Great Britain's share in the control of the Suez Canal. Tho story was told again the other night, at a dinner to Mr Frederick Greenwood, by the man through whose foresight and promptitude the famous "deal" was made. It is to a journalist that Groat Britain owe 3 itshare in the Suez Canal, and that journalist is Mr Greenwood himself; exeditor of the •" Pall Mall Gazette," and one of the greatest pressmen of his time. Speaking at the dinner given in his honour, he told how the news that the Khedive's Canal shares were about to change hands came to him one Sunday at a private- dinner table. What helped to decide him that the English Government should buy those shares was the knowledge tha. Lord Derby, tho Foreign Minister, had been unsuccessfully trying to improve the terms on which British' 1 merchants used the Canal. Eighty-one per cent of the tonnage passing through it at that time was British, and the heavy dues exacted wont into French hands. With tho consent of his informant, Mr Greenwood at once wrote, asking Lord Derby to as© him at the Foreign Office next day. What followed is told in the journalist's own words: — " Next morning, and I believe, in my ignorance, I even appointed the hour, half-past ten (I ought to have known better), when I. got to the Foreign Office he was there before me, and it was an hour when he had probably never been there before in his life. I found him ready to listen to.what I had to say, and when h© had heard it h© said, most kindly and courteously, ' I know you do sometimes get very good information, but you are wrong 'this time.' I said I thojught not. He said, ' I will give you my reason. We had despatches only the day before yesterday from Colonel Staunton, our Consul-General in Egypt, and Colonel Staunton said not a word about it. It is impossible,' said Lord Derby, 'that a transaction like this in a place like Cairo can- go on undetected under th© nose of Colonel Staunton.' I said, however, that I was afraid that was tho situation. Lord Derby then said to my admiring ears : 'You put mo, as you must see, in a very awkward situation. Now, either you aro right or you are wrong. If I do anything at all, I must learn whether you aro right or wrong. There ia only one way of doing it, and that is by directly interrogating the Khedive on the point. Now, we all know, that ho is very hard up, and if you ar© wrong, what we shall do is to put the sale of th© Canal shares into his head, if h© has not got it there before. We shall represent ourselves as having a claim for interfering with this sale, and I do not see that it exists. Wo do not want the shares ; they ar© better where they are. What shall I do? Shall I a-sk th© question?' He put upon m© tlie fullest responsibility; he was testing, perhaps, my confidence in this information. I said, 'Yes.' He went to a table, wrote out a telegram, brought it back, and read it out. ' This is to Staunton/ "Go to th© Khedive immediately and ask him whether it is true that he is negotiating for the sal© of his Suez Canal shares — yes or no— and don't com© away without an answer." Now,' said he, ' shall I send it?' another test as to whether I should say ' Stop and think over it.' I said, ' Yes.' He said, ' I will, then. Now, if you will come to mo to-morrow evening I will tell you what th© answer is.' I went away, perfectly happy, and feeling quite snre it • was all right.' I went back and had his greeting. ' You were quite right;' and then he added, characteristically, ' Master Staunton shall hear of this!'" Mr Groenwood's news had been verified, but there were still difficulties in th© way. If Parliament was consulted

and asked for tho four million required to buy the shares, in Lord Derby's phrase, "the gaff would be blown," and there would be no end of a racket in the House of Commons. But Mr Greenwood stuck to his point, and converted first Lord Derby and thon Disraeli to his view. The Khedive's shares were bought for four and a half million, and to-day they are worth thirty million, and bring in a million a year to tho British Government. It waa an excellent commercial bargain, as well as a master-stroke of policy. Mr Greenwood declined all offers of pergonal reward at the hands of tho Government. He even decline-, the privileso of announcing the transaction in his paper a day before it was published in tho rest of tho papers. Surely independence and conscientiousness could no further ko ! A TITLED "CABBY." Among the passengers by the Ortona, which arrived at Tilbury last Monday, war, Sir George Augustus Jervis Meredyth, Bart., and his lady. The pair, in spite of their rank, wero steerage passengers. It was no mere desire for "experience" that induced them to forego the delights of the first saloon, but the lack of funds. Sir George has come homo to olaim his ancestral estates in County _ ild are. The fortune attached to his title is not a big one, for, all told, tho farms and tenancies do not, it seems, produce a' net revenue of more than £400 a year. The baronet is a little old man, with a thin, clean-shaven face, and a nervous manner. His voyage to England on the steamship Ortona was a honeymoon" trip, for the day before the boat left Melbourne he married his second wife, who is very much younger than himself. His arrival at St Pancras was a pathetic sight. He stood on. the platform surrounded by a rampart of luggage, and dazed by the busy scene around him, and Lady Meredyth seemed even more "at sea" than her elderly husband. Few of the onlookers who saw the little, shabbily-dressed old man, and the sweet-faced woman to whom he clung, sitting all forlorn amid a chaos of luggage, guessed that they were a roal baronet and his lady. To an interviewer, Sir George, whose title~is recognised in the current i__uo of Burkes Peerage, said: — "Not a penny have I ever had that I did not earn 'myself. I have had nothing from tbe estate yet. which accounts for my wife and myself being steerage passengers lam going to Ireland now to < claim and live upon my inheritance. My title to v it is acknowledged, but there will possibly bo some litigation with reference, to a portion of the proceeds of the estate." ('My past? Well, I have played ninny parts in itP Yes"— the old man's eyes twinkled at the recollection — "yes, I did try to blow up a schoolmaster by putting gunpowder in his boots, and then — well, it was the last school in Ireland for me." For three years he worked as a shoemaker, and saved enough money to pay his passage to Hobart Town, where his cousin was a merchant. When he arrived, his cousin had gone to California, and George was penniless. He worked, his passage back to London in the ship that had brought him over as a passenger. He picked up a precarious living in London for a year, arx_ then worked his passage to Australia, and went to the goldfields. Fortune, however, did not smile on him, and he gathered more experience than money. He went again to Hobart, and after • spending twelve years there went to sea. again, and served four years before tho mast. After that ho spent fourteen years in the Hobart force. He saved, enough money as a policeman to buy a cab, which he drove in streets of Hobart for some years. " I have got my living in twenty different ways," concluded tho baronet,

" but it has always been by work. Now I am going to live without working, and I think I deserv© it."