Coming to finance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer taxed Mr.
Henry Fowler with the misstatement that be had devoted all his Budgets to relieving property, without giving any relief to indirect taxation, and this though he had taken 4d. off the Tobacco-duty, and had added nearly a million sterling to the Succession-duty. Nor was it in the least true that the relief given to those who pay Income-tax is a relief mainly to property, unless the struggling people who find it hard to make both ends meet on 2500 a year, can fairly be said to be wealthy people living on their property. Besides, Mr. Goschen merely reduced the Income-tax from 8d. to 6d., the extra 2d. being admittedly an emergency tax to which Mr. Childers had recourse in order to meet the expense of a special naval programme. Mr. Goschen drew a very amusing picture of the demagogue's method of measuring the weight of a new tax by the most extreme ease to which it could apply, and then in almost the same breath measuring the iniquity of a reduction of taxation by the relief it might give to some specially opulent person who needed no relief. Mr. Goschen spoke in very emphatic terms of the legislative activity of the Cabinet at the present moment. We only hope that they are not going to make the mistake of putting too many irons into the fire. It is easy to meet the charge that successful legislation is " beggarly " in amount. It is not so easy to meet the charge that an ambitious pro- gramme has been ingloriously riddled by the fire of the Opposition.
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