The Peers and the Budget.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 5 January 1910, Page 8

The Peers and the Budget.

LONDON, November 26. Contrary to all expectations the vote on Lord Lansdowne’s motion against the Budget will not be taken in the House of Lords till next week. The Peers as was expected, have rolled up in great force at Westminster this week, and the usually sparingly occupied benches in the “Gilded Chamber” have been filled to overflowing with Lords well-known, Lords one hears of once in a year and Lords of whose existence only close students of Bebrett have hitherto been aware. Tiie Budget debate certainly brought together a fine contingent of what Mr. Lloyd George called "the Backwoodsmen” of the Peerage. They came from all the ends of the earth to do battle for their little Empire against the forces of progress. In the end of course they propose to annihilate the enemy by means of the 12-ineh gun of the vote, but meanwhile they are doing their b«et to scare the foe with the "pompoms” and Maxim guns of "logic.” A score of Peers have already said their say on the Budget and we are told that over fifty more have declared their intention of speaking thereon. Perhaps the most remarkable of the speeches made in the Lords during the past week was that of laird Rosebery—the Hamlet of British politics. No man has condemned the Budget in

more vehement and forcible terms than the whilom leader of the Liberal Party, and on Wednesday he out Roseberied even the Rosebery of the famous Glasgow speech. According to his lordship the Budget is everything that is bad—• “the end of all things.” According to his lordship the Budget “threatens to sap the resources of national wealth”; it has “the unpleasant aspect of being both crude and vindictive.” “Never has such a mass of raw 1 material been dumped down at any one time in any one Bill.” “It has done incalculable mischief.” Since its introduction this country is no longer “the Strongbox and the safe of Europe,” where every man who desired security placed his savings. European capitalists and investors have withdrawn their millions. Millions more of our home wealth are fleeing the country. “Ships going westward are carrying bonds and stock certificates as ballast.” There is no confidence anywhere. “Every avenue of commercial enterprise is locked up.” Over the whole country there is spreading a great all pervading fog or miasma —the disease of want of confidence and want of credit. (Such is the gospel according to Lord Rosebery. Yet what does his lordship do? Ally himself with Lord Lansdowne and party in the attempt to kill the fearful monster created by Mr. Lloyd George? No! He is not going to vote for or against the motion for the reason that he thinks the very existence of a second chamber is at stake. Rather than place that in jeopardy he would pass the Budget convinced that its operation would work a process of disenchantment. “The Budget in operation,” said Lord Rosebery, ‘'would give you a victory which would surprise you. An anti-Soeialistie Government would then be called into being, which would put the nation financial on a sound basis, and, by reforming the constitution of the House of Lords, make it less vulnerable.” Such in brief was the counsel tendered by Lord Rosebery to the House of Lords on this critical occasion. In briefer language still his lordship’s advice to the Lends was “It’s a National Ruin Budget, but I’m not going to vote against it, and you will be fools if you do.” TO EUCHRE THE LORDS. As everybody appears to be in agreement in predicting that the rejection of the Budget by the Lords will produce all sorts of financial evils, people aitnow asking whether the Government cannot avoid most of them by passing a resolution declaring that all taxes authorised by the Budget resolutions of the present session shall continue to be collected under the authority of such resolutions until the close of the current financial year in March, 1910. It is admitted that the Budget resolutions have the force of law until the end of the session. But experts are doubtful if they continue to have the force of law’ after the end of the session. Then why, it is asked, should their doubts be solved by a House of Commons resolution declaring that they shall continue in force? The House of Commons can pass whatever resolutions it pleases. If objection is raised on the grounds that there is no precedent for this course, or that it is revolutionary—well, the situation is unprecedented, and if the Lords choose to play at revolution, the Commons have surely a right to retort by a counter revolution. And such a course v-ould. it is urged, effectually checkmate the House of Lords and would obviate the financial chaos experts prediet will reign if the Lords are allowed to have their way, and the people are allowed to remain in doubt as to the validity of the taxes demanded from them for Imperial purposes. LAND PANIC MYTH. It is somewhat unfortunate for the thick and thin opponents of the Budget that the land taxes to which particular exception is taken, do not appear to be scaring people from buying land in any part of the country. The opponents of the Budget have been telling the people that the general effect of Mr. Lloyd George’s measure would be to depreciate the value of land as security, but recent sales of large estates in various parts of England have failed miserably to give countenance to that contention. It has been made clear indeed that the value of land is rising, and that there is any amount of money ready for investment in land in almost every part of the country. A good illustration of this fact was supplied by Lord Carrington in a speech

in the Lords upon the Budget last Wednesday. The Duke of Bedford, in 1897, published a book in which he gave particulars of an estate of 23,000 acres of reclaimed land at Thorney, in Cambridgeshire. That land showed a deficit of £440 a year, and was charged with income tax at the rate of £l5O a year. At this time the country was under a Conservative Government. Now, at the end of four years of Liberal Government, the Duke put this unprofitable estate On the market. Earl Carrington made a bid for it at once—on behalf of the Crown. “I was,” said Lord Carrington, “ extremely courteously treated, but my ofter was received with the contempt that it deserved.” This estate at Thorney, he now learned, had been sold for threequarters of a million of money, which, at 4 per cent, meant £30,000 a" year; so that this estate, which, under a Conservative Government, w T as unsaleable, and produced a deficit of £4OO a year had, under a Liberal Government, in spite of the Budget proposals, been sold, and brought in an income of £30,000 a year.