Mr. Lloyd George, who spoke on Wednesday, maintained that the
Opposition were entirely to blame for the temporary postponement of the grants-in-aid. They had pressed the Government for years to relieve the sorely burdened local authorities, and then "rummaged in the dustbins of ancient and musty precedents " to thwart the Government's beneficent proposals. Mr. Austen Chamberlain made a good point by exposing the inconsistency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in defining the purposes of the grants-in-aid. When he was electioneering he said they were wholly for the relief of rates, but in the House that they were in aid of new local services. In spite of angly interruptions from the Miniaterialists, Mr. Chamberlain persisted in charging Mr. Lloyd George with offering the crudest sort of bribery to the constituencies. In reply to appeals from his own side to retain the penny on the Income Tax and drop the Sugar Doty, Mr. Lloyd George stated that no proposal attracted him more, but the Sugar Duty could be dropped only by the sacrifice of, an equivalent sum for housing or the addition of another twopence to the Income Tax.
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