The third reading of the Finance Bill was taken in
the House of Commons on Wednesday. In the course of the debate a vehement attack upon the Government was delivered by Mr. Snowden. After protesting against the growth of Naval expenditure, he made a general criticism of the present methods of taxation, and especially of "the pernicious system of indirect taxation, which violated every sound principle, since it did not tax the citizen according to his ability to pay." He proceeded to a diatribe against "the great social curse of an idle rich class," and concluded with a declaration that the delay of the Finance Bill proved that the House of Commons had ceased to be a deliberative assembly. In the course of his reply at the end of the debate Mr. Lloyd George remarked that there was little prospect of reducing expenditure. A Chancellor of the Exchequer, he went on, might make an effort to fight for economy, but only the House of Commons could achieve it; and he had not sat in a Parliament yet where the pressure of the House of Commons had not been in the direction of expenditure.
Previous page
