On Tuesday the debate chiefly turned on the Corn - duty. Sir
Edward Strachey opened the debate, and attacked the duty from the double standpoint that it was Protective in its character, and also that it would injure the farmer by raising the price of feeding-stuffs. Sir Henry Fowler, who spoke at con. siderable length, made, in our opinion, by far the most serious attack on the Budget that has proceeded from the Opposition leaders. The ablest portion of a very able speech was that in which he dealt with the alternatives to a Corn-duty to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have had recourse. After dismissing the notion that the only alternative, as alleged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was an increased tax on sugar, he went on to suggest, in the first place, tobacco, which he did not believe was at present taxed up to the point of diminishing the yield. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1900 took 6d. off tobacco; but when he put on additional taxa. tion it was only a tax of 4d. per pound. Thus tobacco, con. tended Sir Henry Fowler, is not really paying any war-tax. It pays less than it did in the days of Mr. Gladstone. " There- fore I think I may say that a Tobacco-tax is at all events preferable to a Bread-tax." The next alternative was an in. creased tax on beer. Taken as a whole, the speech was a very effective one, though, like all the Opposition speakers, Sir Henry Fowler could not at the close resist the temptation to exaggerate the burden of the Corn-duty on the food of the people.
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