11. Acquisition of Land

(1) Where the Treasury have approved a proposal by the Road Board to construct a new road under this Part of this Act the Board may acquire land for the purpose, and may, in addition, acquire land on either side of the proposed road within two hundred and twenty yards from the middle of the proposed road.

(2) The Road Board may acquire, erect, and furnish such offices and other buildings as they may require, and may acquire land for the purpose.

(3) Where a highway authority are authorised to construct a new road under this Part of this Act, or an advance is made to such an authority in respect of the improvement of an existing road, the authority may acquire land for the purpose of such construction or improvement.

(4) For the purpose of the purchase of land by agreement under this Part of this Act by the Road Board or a highway authority the Lands Clauses Acts shall be incorporated with this Part of this Act, except the provisions of those Acts with respect to the purchase and taking of land otherwise than by agreement, and section one hundred and seventy-eight of the Public Health Act, 1875, shall apply as if the Road Board and the highway authority were referred to therein.

(5) Where the Road Board or any highway authority are unable to acquire by agreement on reasonable terms any land which they consider necessary, they may apply to the Development Commissioners for an order empowering them to acquire the land compulsorily in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule to this Act, and the Commissioners shall have power to make such an order: Provided that the provisions of Part I of this Act, prohibiting the compulsory acquisition of the classes of land mentioned in subsection (3)1 of section five of this Act shall apply to the acquisition by the Road Board of land on either side of a road proposed to be constructed by the Board.

1 Subsection (2) is meant. The mistake was corrected by 10 Edw. 7, ch. 7.

(6) The Road Board shall have full power, with the approval of the Treasury, to sell, lease, and manage any land acquired by them under this Part of this Act and not required for the new road, and any receipts derived from any such land, so far as they are applied for the purposes of the construction of new roads, shall not be treated as part of the expenditure of the Road Board on new roads for the purpose of the provisions of this Act limiting the amount of expenditure of the Road Board on new roads.

12. Expenses and Receipts of Road Board

(1) All expenses of the Road Board under this Part of this Act, including the salary of the chairman or vice-chairman and the salaries and the remuneration of officers and servants, to such amount as may be sanctioned by the Treasury, shall be defrayed out of the road improvement grant.

(2) The Treasury shall cause an account to be prepared and transmitted to the Comptroller and Auditor-General for examination, showing the receipts into and issues out of the road improvement grant in the financial year ending the thirty-first day of March preceding, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General shall certify and report upon the same, and such account and report shall be laid before Parliament by the Treasury.

(3) Any sums received by the Road Board under this Part of this Act shall, subject to regulations made by the Treasury, be carried to the account to which the road improvement grant is required to be carried under the Act under which the grant is provided, and shall be treated as part of that grant.

13. Power to borrow

(1) The Road Board may, with the approval of and subject to regulations made by the Treasury, borrow on the security of the road improvement grant for the purpose of meeting any expenditure which appears to the Treasury to be of such a nature that

it ought to be spread over a term of years, so however that the total amount required for the payment of interest on and the repayment of money so borrowed shall not exceed in any year the sum of two hundred thousand pounds.

(2) If and so far as the road improvement grant is insufficient to meet the amount required for the payment of interest on and the repayment of principal in any year, that amount shall be charged on and payable out of the Consolidated Fund or the growing produce thereof, but any sums so paid out of the Consolidated Fund shall be made good out of the road improvement grant.

14. Annual Report to Parliament

The Road Board shall make to the Treasury an annual report of their proceedings, and such report shall be laid annually before Parliament by the Treasury.

[Clauses 15-20, and an accompanying Schedule, deal with administrative details, definitions, and certain exceptions having force in London, Scotland, and Ireland.]

CHAPTER VIII

THE LLOYD GEORGE BUDGET

[To make proper provision for old age pensions and general elementary education and labour exchanges and town planning and rural development, to say nothing of the new machinery set up by the whole series of social measures enacted since 1905, placed an additional strain upon a treasury already burdened with what seemed to most Englishmen an absolutely necessary, albeit a huge, expenditure for naval construction and maintenance. The Liberal Government, frequently accused of anti-imperialistic leanings and of a "Little England" policy, could not see its way clear to lessening military expenditure, and yet had pronounced in favour of a far-reaching system of national insurance1 as soon as the requisite funds should be forthcoming.

But whence would the requisite funds come? The tariff reformers among the Unionists, who had been ably led by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, had supported an increased militarism and an extended colonialism and had advocated social reform, and had promised to pay for these things by means of the large revenues that would be derived from a high protective tariff. The failure of Mr. Chamberlain's followers was due in large part to their inability to convince their fellow-Conservatives that a revolution in fiscal affairs would be desirable. And now the Liberal Government were committed to a policy of social transformation even more definitely than Mr. Chamberlain, while at the same time they were far more unitedly and certainly opposed to a protective tariff than Mr. Chamberlain's Conservative opponents had been. The Liberal Government could 1 Cf. supra, pp. 45 sqq., 199 sqq., and infra, ch. x.

not add to the financial burdens of the state at the price of abandoning their traditional free-trade principles. Yet they would add to those financial burdens.

It was at this point that Mr. Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, came forward with proposals for a radical application of direct taxation - graduated income tax, super-tax, tax on the unearned increment, and tax on undeveloped property - - and for a readjustment of the indirect taxes, such as licensing duties, with a view to equalising the financial burdens among the various classes in the community. The land taxes, intended at once as an attack upon the nobles' monopoly of land and as a means of placing additional funds at the disposal of the government for purposes of social amelioration, would be metaphorically the stone for the killing of two birds at once. It would be the Liberal, Radical, and Labour way out of the dilemma of increasing expenditures and maintaining Great Britain's position as a free-trade country. The enemies of Mr. Lloyd George suggested that it was likewise Socialistic.

On April 29, 1909, Mr. Lloyd George delivered his momentous Budget Speech, which, on account of its clear presentment of the principles underlying the new proposals, its concise statement of the major details, and the obvious connection between its finances and subsequent projects for social legislation, is given below, in part, as Extract 58.

It took the Press and the public some time to comprehend the details of the new Budget, but it was eulogised by Liberals as "democratic" and as a triumph of free-trade finance, while it was at once attacked by Unionist organs as Socialistic, as "an electioncering prospectus," as taxing the rich for the benefit of the poor, and as tending to diminish and drive away capital and therefore to create more unemployment than it was likely to relieve. Several special classes assailed it: the financial interests in London were decidedly adverse; the views of the real estate market were very unfavourable; the landlords were decidedly opposed; the tobacco trade and the motor industry resented their new burdens;