IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9675, 18 October 1909, Page 1

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

*- . THE BATTLE OF THE BUDGET. Writing on September 3 to a Wellington friend, in reference to the British Budget, a London wholesale merchant says : — . "You .see what a tremendous business it is to get a righteous and fair Budget through the House of Commons. This is what 6cared even ardent reformers, of the past from facing the powers "who have' long befooled the nation so as to keep off reforming hands from -meddling with the sacred ark of 'proputty.' This long struggle, however, is having a very educatory effect upon the people. It is dawning upon the people at length that tliey can pay — have paid — too dear for the privileges of having dukes and earls and lords in possession of the land, and exacting ten, twenty, one hundred, one thousand-fold its value Avhen it is required for national or Tfriraicipal necessities, while all the time contracting themselves out of their fair proportion of the cost of the maintenance of the poor and the improvement of our cities, towns and villages. "'lt is astonishing how exceedingly somnolent a creature . John Bull has been in the past. He is only now waking up to a sense of his foolishness. When awake, however, he is' unlikely to be *->ut to sleep again until he has adjusted tilings a little more in harmony with right and reason and fairness. You in your clear atmosohere have long wondered, at this blindness; and have taken wise and timely precautions lest your people should be in- ' fected with the same" 'sleeping sickness.' The Budget is now safe through the House of ( Comimons. If they dare «the Lords may chuck it out as they have done with temperance, educationand valuation reforms. Will they dare? On that depends some stirring history of the nest few months. The nation will stand no more foolery of the kind threatened, and the saner Lords are well aware of this. The question then is, will the Tank and file of the Lords be .amenable to reason? .Before this reaches you, you will know more than any of us here at this moment. . * 4 Trne it is that Lord Rosebery is to speak in Glasgow on the invitation of tariff reformers. You will know the ,aist of his ■■ doctrine also before this reaches you. But it will not matter much what Lord Rosebery says. His influence as a leader has gone beyond recall. As an after-dinner speaker he has still a sort of metier; but no one will go to him for light and leading • who are themselves of much importance in practical politics. In .this twentieth century A.D. it is as true as it was in 2000 'B.C.', 'Unstable as water thou shalt not excel.' So the Lords need expect no deliverance, froni any such champion. Meantime our. gallant David (Lloyd-George) holds the- field!"