CABINET RESPONSIBILITY FOR _Mal BUDGET. ['re THE EDITOR OP TRU
" SPECTAT01121 SIR,—Is not there a certain want of proportion in much of the criticism of the Budget and the results it is likely to produce? We hear a great deal about Socialism and melting- pots and the end of all things; but what does it all amount to ? A provision to meet a deficit of some sixteen millions, chiefly made up by an increase of existing burdens; and, in addition, a small tax on site-values and 25 per cent. on the unearned increment of land. And we are told that this is a financial revolution, that confidence in home investments is gone, that everybody is buying foreign bonds, and that England's credit is on the wane.
One naturally turns to the foes et origo mall of all this, and we are told on all hands that the Deus es inachina is a solicitor from Criccieth, who through brain-power has risen to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to whom, apparently, a Cabinet of Liberal statesmen has granted full power to shatter the country's credit and to bring about Socialism or Collectivism, or whatever you may like to call it. I am no admirer of the methods or the manners of Mr. Lloyd George, but I do deprecate all this dislocation of England's finances being laid at the door of one man. He is only the mouth- piece of the Cabinet, and are we to believe that Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey and Lord Loreburn, who are admitted to be enlightened, patriotic statesmen, are lending them- selves to a financial policy which is fraught with all the terrible consequences this Budget is going to bring about? You talk of members of the Government clinging to the legs of " a triumphant Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill "; why not as well speak of them being dragged at the irictorions chariot-wheels of Lord Morley and Lord Crewe ? The responsibility of the Budget rests equally on all, and there is not an atom of evidence that they do not all absolutely accept it. This condemnation of Mr. Lloyd George is to my mind being very much overdone. He is regarded by many as a financial Mephistopheles who is leading the country to perdition ; but it must be remembered that he is only pursuing a policy which has received the sanction and approval of a Cabinet of English gentlemen who have the nation's interests at heart as much as their opponents. May I add that your Naboth's vineyard simile is scarcely a fair one P Ahab acted the part of a footpad by first murdering his victim and then seizing his possessions. Under the Budget the owner of land may be obliged to sell, but afterwards he will still live to enjoy the proceeds, and in many cases be a richer man than he was before.
I am a Unionist Free-trader who detests Home-rule and abhors Socialism, and would gladly see a Unionist Govern- ment again in power, provided it adhered to the fiscal policy that has helped to place England at the head of all nations and keep her there; but if it comes to be a question between the Budget, the provisions of which are in no way final and unalterable, on the one hand, and the return of one's party, pledged to a policy of Protection and all its disastrous con- sequences, on the other, I must confess that the choice of the proper course to pursue becomes a painful and a difficult one.—I am, Sir, &.c.,A J.P.
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