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Show WHAT THE "BUDGET" MEANS. Tho Tribune has commented heretofore hereto-fore upon the differences botween tho Mouse of Commons and the House of Lords with respect to the budget. The Mouse of Lords rebels at tho budget as passed by the Commons, and for the first time in three hundred years refuses re-fuses its assent to provisions for providing pro-viding revenue for the kingdom. The Mouse of Lords undertook to claim that the new election of Parliament would be in the naturo of a referendum on the budget. As has been shown heretofore, here-tofore, however, it js nothing of this kind, because a multitude of other questions, ques-tions, as the tariff. labor issues, woman suffrage, etc., come in to complicate the situation and deprivo the election of being a referendum in the sense that tho Lords claim. The Smoot paper in this city claims that tho Lords have a good case. We disagree entirely on this proposition. They have no fair case at all. It is tho Commons that has the case. Illustrating this point we quote a portion of an article contributed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd-Gcorgc. in the Independent of New York City as follows: I have been inriulrlng into what is happening hap-pening In Kngland recently. Landlords have no nationality; their characteristics characteris-tics arc cosmopolitan. A cape was given mo the other day from Yorkshire, of all the places In the world, nnd as It Illustrates Illus-trates practically every tax which I propose; pro-pose; In my budget, I will tell this story. As 1 have It on the authority of the managing director well, he Is responsible respon-sible It Is the story of a district in Yorkshire York-shire which four or five years ago was purely agricultural really agricultural, receiving re-ceiving half Its rates as agricultural hind from the general taxes. There was not within four miles of it an Induatrv, not a factory, not a coal mine. And' some very enterprising mining Investors came nlong; and said. "We think there's coal here. 1 And thoy went to the landlord and f-ald. "Will you allow us to dig for coal here?" He replied "For a consideration, of course. I will only charge you sixpence a ton on all the coal that comes up." They said. "What about the .surface?" "Ah. certainly: I will sell you any surface sur-face land you want for the purpose, for a consideration." "Well, what do you want?" they said. "You are receiving now 15s. fid. ah acre. What will you want from us?" "Well," ho said, "four pounds an acre " Thon they said to him, "Wc must bring workmen here, and as there are no cottages cot-tages we shall have to build thrm. and we propose building a model village." And they built one of the most beautiful model villages In the kingdom. When they asked, "Will you allow us to build a fow cottages?" he said. "Certainly, "Cer-tainly, but 1 shall want a small return JD6 or 10 an acre quite moderate." This landlord lis really a most ipod-erate ipod-erate landlord. The land wan nt 15k. Cd. nnd he charges 10. Well, that Is onlv eighteen times the value of the land. "I can give cases whore. landlords have charged thirty, forty, even a hundred limes the value of tho land. This man has been most moderate only eighteen times Its value. Then he said to thorn, "There Is the fish pond, rather near your model village. vil-lage. I don't think It will be worth much afterwards, whatever It's worth now. Ko I think you had hotter take It;" The mining speruIatorH replied. "All right. It will be. rather good sport to fish cither for trout or tadpoles." The landlord: "I am getting 1 for It now; I will let vou have It for eighteen guineas a year, cheap." They started. They spent half a million mil-lion without knowing what would happen. hap-pen. It was a real speculation, a real risk. They took It on. spent half a million, mil-lion, discovered 'the coal, and the landowner land-owner Is getting royalties now at the rate of nearly 20.000 per annum. He is getting. In addition to the 1 per annum for even' acre of land out of the surface Tisedi by tho colliery hu is getting ) to 10 por annum per acre for all the cottages there. He charges per annum for tipping rubbish, and 10 per annum for each workmen's cottage. cot-tage. And he Is making a. good thing out of It a very good thing out of it. Recently they were prospering and getting get-ting moro and more coal and In a very short time they will be paying -10,000 ppr annum for this land for the royalties alone. The landlord has never spent a penny upon It. Recently they wrote him and said. "We want more ground to build cottagi?ii on." He said. "Certainly, for 150 per acre" the land now for agricultural purposes being worth about '0 per acre nnd the landlord getting half his rates paid out of tho general taxation of tho county In respect to the facL that It Is agricultural agricul-tural land. What happens? He said to them. "1 will let you have this land at 150 per acre." hut he added. "Xo public house to be erected without the- consent of the landlord." If consent is given an extra premium is required. I like a man who puts a high value on his principles. Here, at any rate. Is a man who won't part with them without nn extra premium. Where does my Budget come in? It comes In rather late. I admit. It ought to havo come In In one of the earlier chapters. Still It comes soon enough to give the story a happy ending. "When the -10,000 royalty comes. 5 per cent, for the, first time will come to tho Stale. The land outside the. land which Is nominally agricultural land, but which Is now valuable building land, will pay a halfpenny In the pound. When It Is sold we will get 20 per cent, on the Increase, In-crease, More than that. We have had another little provision. Wc have considered his case thoroughly. When these cottages fnll in and his heir comes and -walks In for the whole of this beautiful model village vil-lage this model landlord of a model villagethe vil-lagethe Stute will then, under this Budget, say, "Very well. If you really must takf all the property I think wc had better get a toll of 10 per cent. Off It, at any rate. We shall be able to do something for the people who live In these cottages." Wc have got another little provision. The 5 per cent, only nppllcs to existing collieries. But we have got a special provision for future collieries. We shall then ask not 5 per cent, of the royalty, but 20 per rent. Lt mo call attention to one provision In this lease, because It really casts n strange, almost weird, light upon the landlords' Ideal of rural llfo In this- country. coun-try. There Is a clause in the lease of this model village that no person shall rcplde In any of these cottagt-s If they havo been convlcte'd of an offense against the game laws No person shall reside there If the landlord or his agent has any objection to him. And this Is a free country! coun-try! Here Is a poor miner who Is gulll of what? Of doing something which the landlord spends his life In doing and which I have done myself many a time without a licenseonly In Wales. Whul happens? Not merely Is he to be fined, but he Is to bo deprived, as far ns .thlu gentleman Is concerned, of the opportunity opportu-nity for nil time of earning a decent living for himself and his family. All I can say Is that a provision of the sort In nnv leus Is nn outrage. Well, these are the taej. 1 have given Illustrations of them. I defy any reasonable man anywhere to a.v that there In any Injustice In taxing men under the conditions, when the State needs money. We want money for the defense of the ountry: to provide the pensions of the old people who have been spending their lives In tllllnc the soil at a very poor plttnm-e. In sinking those mines, risking their lives. And when thev arc old we do not want to starxe them or humiliate them; and we say what better use can you make of wealth than to use It for the purpose of picking up-the up-the broken healing the wounded, curing thr sick, bringing a little more light, comfort nnd happiness to the need.' These men ought to feel honored that Providence Provi-dence has given them the chance -to put a little Into the poor-box. and slnco they won't do It themselves we huvo got to do It for them. It seems to us that in a showing like that there can be nothing whatever said for tho landlord or the Lords' side of the case; and that, sort of thing is going on all over the kingdom. As the Chancellor Chan-cellor pointed out, the landlord quoted by him is really moderate compared with other landlords in similar cases. As ho says, this landlord "charges only eighteen times the value of tho land." Hut he asserts that he could givo cases where landlords have charged thirty, forty, even a hundred times the value of the land, and on this fictitious, extortionate ex-tortionate valuation wrenched from en terprising people who spend their money and lake the risks, where the landlords spend nothing and take no risks, the British Minister proposes to levy a good, stiff rate of taxation. Nothing can bo fairer than that. Nothing can be clearer clear-er than that, the Ministry is amply justified in imposing these taxes. As Mr. Lloyd-George intimates, the forcible for-cible criticism that might be directed against the Ministry in this matter is not that they arc imposing these taxes, but that they have deferred the imposing impos-ing uf them too long. |