Sir H. Fowler on Monday commenced the debate on finance
by an amendment which, while agreeing to provide for needed armaments, accused the Government of want of due regard for economy. His speech was less effective than had been expected. He easily showed that during the six years of this Govern- ment the national expenditure, apart from the war in South Africa, had risen from 297,500,000 in 1893 to 2130,000,000 in 1900, which suggested extravagance; but then of this amount 27,000,000 was due to the Navy, which the speaker approved; nearly 23,000,000 to education, "upon which we cannot spend too much " ; and 28,500,000 to the Army, which the country had insisted should be reformed. He suggested that there had been in the latter detail needless extravagance, but he did not lay his finger on any item, and say this or that was waste- ful or excessive. He showed that the Debt, which after the Crimean War stood at 2827,000,000, had in 1898 been reduced to 2613,000,000, but was now again raised to £732,000,000; but he admitted that this was due to the war, of which he once more expressed a most courageous approval. Altogether, therefore, this part of the speech amounted only to this, that the Government had probably not been so economical as it might have been, which would be good criticism on particular estimates, but hardly justified a general charge of lavish extravagance. As to the new taxa- tion, he did not object to the charge on sugar, though he repu- diated the argument that the masses, who gave so many lives, and suffered so much-in consequence, ought also to pay in cash ; but deprecated the Coal-duty, as calculated to diminish home industry. His final point was that the Government
was crippling the House of Commons, and making itself autocratic by treating every question as a vote of confidence, which, as every Government requires a vote of confidence in its Budget, was, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer after- wards observed, rather ineffective. Altogether the speech was disappointing.
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