On Tuesday the House of Commons was occupied with financial
business, which included the authorisation of further Treasury borrowings and of a suspension of the Sinking Fund. The attack upon the Government was opened by Sir F. Banbury, who declared that the course suggested "showed the confusion into which four and a half years of Liberal government had brought the finances of the country." The debate was continued by Mr. Asquith, Mr. Austen Chamber- lain, and Mr. Lloyd George, who contended that the chaos was due to the unprecedented action of the other House in throwing out the Finance Bill. Of the other speakers, we may mention especially Lord Hugh Cecil, who when the House adjourned at a quarter to eight protested very effec- tively against the Government's pretence that there was no time before Easter even for regularising the collection of the Income-tax. Here the Government are guilty of a very great blunder. The country will never admit " temper" as a valid excuse in its rulers.
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