Mr. Beck, the Liberal Member for Wisbech, in a short
but courageous speech declared his strenuous opposition to the principle and incidence of this tax :—
" The small section of the Ministerial side who were opposing the Government in this tax were told that if they did not shout with Keir Hardie the leader, and Lloyd George as his prophet, they would meet their political death. He wanted to point out to his Front Bench, with all its authority and brilliance, that they Were doing the work of one small and extreme section of the Liberal Party. The same forces of disruption which rent the party opposite in 1906 would rend the present Ministerial party if they were not careful. The country had been raked through in order to find examples of injustice by the landlords of this country, and a few examples had been discovered, not one of which hid proved perfectly water-tight. He challenged any one to show what other class in any country could have had their transactions examined by acute intellects without producing more cases of injustice."
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