THE PEERS AND THE BUDGET.
[TO Mt EDITOR Or T1111 " SPROTATOL1 Sta,—In the concluding part of your article on "Land Taxation in the Budget" in last week's Spectator you refer to the Constitutional powers of the Peers in respect to taxa- tion. You agree " that the Peers have no right. to impose any burden upOn the taxpayers of this country." You describe as "preposterous" an extension of the principle which would deprive them of the power to relieve the taxpayers from burdens proposed to be laid upon them by the Commons. Between these two positions is one of quite equal interest upon which I should like your opinion. Would it be within the Constitutional rights of the Lords to relieve one section of the community of the burdens proposed to be laid upon
them, by rejecting one part of a Budget, when by so doing an additional burden would be imposed upon other sections P If the incidence of taxation were equitably apportioned between the various classes in the community, it seems to me that a rejection of part of a Finance Bill could have no other effect, and to this extent an affirmative answer must be given to your question, "Does the action of the Peers impose a burden upon
the taxpayersP"—I am, Sir, Sre., E. H. MARSHALL. 7 Oak Villas, Array Road, Hesale.
[Our correspondent's trap is ' ingeniously devised, but he forgets that Mr. Lloyd George has, in effect, admitted that the Land-taxes are not required in order to provide the expenditure voted for the current year. Therefore to throw them out would not raise our correspondent's point.—ED. Spectator.]
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