Extract 54

REPLY TO CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION TO DEVELOP

MENT BILL

(Mr. David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Commons, September 6, 1909)

MR. LLOYD GEORGE1: This has been a very interesting and a very significant debate. There is one characteristic of the debate which I think has considerable significance, and that is that the attack on the Bill has been confined exclusively to non-agricultural Members. Up to the present we have not had a single Member for an agricultural constituency sitting on the other side of the House attacking the proposals of the Government for the aid of agriculture. The Members who have spoken for agriculture represent town constituencies. The Noble Lord opposite [Lord R. Cecil] has spoken for the agricultural community of Marylebone. The Noble Lord [Viscount Morpeth] has spoken for the market gardeners of Birmingham. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon [Mr. Chaplin] approves of the Bill

MR. CHAPLIN: The objects of the first part of the Bill.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: The right hon. Gentleman said that he approved of the object of the Bill so long as the Bill was not carried. The Bill is a first-rate one, but if the Government mean to carry it, it will have his whole-hearted opposition.

MR. CHAPLIN: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent me. What I really said was that I approved in the main of the objects of the first part of the Bill, but that I disapprove altogether of the machinery by which those objects were to be carried into effect. I added that the Bill was of such importance that I did not think it could be properly examined at this period of the year during a Session like the present, and that 1 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Fifth Series, vol. 10, col. 961 sqq.

if any attempt was made to force it through the House without due and proper examination, I should oppose its passage to the best of my ability.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: The right hon. Gentleman will have every opportunity of examining the Bill and of criticising any details to which he may object.

MR. CHAPLIN: When?

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: The Session is not over by any means. We will afford an opportunity. After the speech of the right hon. Gentleman on the second reading of the Budget I really expected something better from him, but I am grievously disappointed. The Noble Lord the Member for Marylebone [Lord R. Cecil] I expected opposition from. The hon. Baronet the Member for the City [Sir F. Banbury] I also expected opposition from.

SIR F. BANBURY: You will get it.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: They do not agree with anything, not even with each other; therefore, I did not expect any agreement from them. But the right hon. Gentleman [Mr. Chaplin] on the second reading of the Budget devoted nearly the whole of his speech to passionately pleading that he was the man who discovered this idea. He discovered the North Pole; I only got there after him. He explained at great length how he started from, I think, Dublin with the Tariff Reform Commission on a voyage of discovery and had found it; he claimed to be the real discoverer, to whom all the credit of the distinction belonged. He having taken that line, I naturally expected his assistance now that I have tried to develop the idea his idea, his child. I thought that as a fond parent, at any rate, he would have assisted me in protecting his child against the assassins who sit behind him. Instead of that, he threatens the most virulent opposition under certain conditions, and he does not seem at all anxious that the Bill should be carried. On the contrary, I do not think I should be doing him any injustice if I said that on the whole the right hon. Gentleman would be better pleased if the Bill did not go through

the House of Commons during the present Session of Parliament. I really expected better treatment from him at any rate.

The Noble Lord [Lord R. Cecil] started his speech by attacking me for not having made a statement in opening the proceedings on the Bill. He said that it was another insult to the House of Commons. [SIR F. BANBURY: Hear, hear.] I see that his comrade ad hoc quite agrees with him. The Noble Lord is rather in the habit of lecturing Ministers in the House of Commons without adequate experience. His experience is confined to this single Parliament, but no one would imagine it, either from his gifts or from the rather superior tone which he adopts. Does he know what happened in the last Parliament? The Education Bill of 1902 was moved by the lifting of the hat of the Minister. On the Licensing Bill of 1904, a highly controversial measure, no Minister spoke until much later in the evening than the hour at which I have risen to-night. In the present case I had already explained the object of the Bill in my Budget speech,' at much too great length I admit for about twenty minutes. I circulated a full statement on the first reading. I have simply followed the precedent of the Leader of the Opposition, who is certainly a more distinguished authority than the Noble Lord and who would not insult the House of Commons, in simply waiting for two or three hours until I knew the general line of criticism.

The Noble Lord has laid down some very remarkable doctrines. He said that whenever rich motorists were taxed it was the working class who paid. That is a very remarkable doctrine. Why not extend it? Is it not the simplest plan to tax the rich people, if it is the other classes who pay? The cost of collection would be so much reduced. You would simply send a demand note to these few thousand people and say: "Would you mind paying us? Of course, it is not you who will pay; you are simply the agents. You just sign the cheque. The money will all come back to you." It is so much simpler. The rich man with a motor car of 60 horse-power 1 Cf. infra, p. 361.

simply signs the cheque; it is the poor pedestrian on the road, covered with dust, who pays. When the rich millionaire signs the cheque for £40 or £50 it is the little market gardener along the roadside who pays. It is a very simple method of taxation. You just get these few people to sign the cheque that is the best method of making the whole community pay. That is the doctrine laid down by the Noble Lord, and it may be worth considering. I can quite conceive that some day or other he will be a member of a Socialist Ministry defending a Socialist Budget, defending the exclusive taxation of the rich, because it is not they who really pay, but somebody else. That is a very remarkable doctrine to come from him. [AN HON. MEMBER: It did not come from him.] I have just quoted his words.

As usual, the Noble Lord discovered Socialism here. All I can say is that some of the least Socialistic States in the world have indulged in experiments of this character. Denmark is certainly not a Socialistic State; on the contrary, it is probably the most individualistic State in Europe. It is a community of peasant proprietors. Yet in Denmark they have already engaged in these experiments, for I forget how long exactly, but twenty or thirty years, and with very great success.

EARL WINTERTON made a remark which was inaudible in the Press Gallery.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, but they do not grow turnips in Copenhagen.

EARL WINTERTON: The right hon. Gentleman, I think, is rather unfair to me in his answer to my interruption. He said: "Denmark is the most individualistic country in Europe." I say it is one of the most Socialistic.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord is absolutely wrong. It shows really that when the Noble Lord and his colleagues talk about Socialism they have not the most elementary knowledge of what it means. If he would only look at the dictionary before he interrupts, it would be better. Does he really mean to suggest that

peasant proprietorship is Socialism? Four-fifths of the land of Denmark belongs to peasant proprietors. That is the very opposite of Socialism! Some hon. Members talk without the slightest knowledge of the phrases they use phrases which are used wildly in the streets, and, if I may say so, ignorantly. May I just say to the Noble Lord that in Denmark this has been a substitute for Protection. The one community in Denmark that would not have protection for its industry was the farming community. They did ask for this, and it has been a substitute for Protection. They asked for agricultural education, co-operation, the cheapening and the development of the facilities for transport, aid in cattle and horse breeding, and the Government aid in technical education. That is what they asked for. It has been a complete triumph throughout the whole of that country. Not only that, but the communities which demanded and relied upon Protection have not flourished. They have decayed. The farming community who preferred this method of Free Trade prospered year after year, until they have become the most prosperous little farming community in the world. Denmark to-day, a country without any great industries except agriculture which is Free Trade a country without any great mineral resources, and a country which not so very long ago was devastated by war, has become the second country in the world so far as wealth is concerned, owing entirely to its intelligent use of Free Trade assistance for agriculture. And this system - [Interruption.] Now, really, hon. Members might give me an opportunity of just stating my case. They have been criticising very freely, and I do not object, but they must allow me to answer. This is the system which has been the making of Denmark. It has not merely made the country prosperous, but it has increased the people's intelligence and made them a stronger and a more selfreliant race.

Look at the Report of the Scottish Commission which went to Denmark. The one thing they dwelt upon was the intelligence and self-reliance which have been promoted as a result of this system