Amendment of Law.

Part of Orders of the Day — Ways and Means. – in the House of Commons at on 27 April 1926.

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Photo of Mr Philip Snowden Mr Philip Snowden , Colne Valley

Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself metaphorically shook hands with one another before entering the ring. To-day we enter upon what may be a long and strenuous fight. I do not propose to deal in detail this afternoon with the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman, and I will leave a full and detailed examination of them until they appear in the form of definite Resolutions. I would rather to-day confine my observations to the general and wider aspect of the statement made to the Committee yesterday afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman will not complain if I apply to his Budget this year the test which he himself laid down in the Budget 12 months ago. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman used those words: I have to think for more years than one, and I could not produce this year a Budget which will leave me stultified, and in the position of having misled the House and misled the taxpayers of the country. I cannot do that, and I have to consider the possibility that I may have to stand here next year faced with the consequences of what I have done.''—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 28,th April, 1925; col. 38, Vol. 183.] The right hon. Gentleman stands there this year to face the consequences of what he did 12 months ago.

In regard to financial matters, what were the pledges given? What was the policy declared by the present Government, and emphatically by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? At the opening of the first Session of this Parliament, the King's Speech said that economy in every sphere was absolutely necessary to encourage a revival of trade and industry. How far has the right hon. Gentleman succeeded, during the 18 months he has been in office, in redeeming that pledge? He excused himself 12 months ago on the ground that he had not been long in office, and we were quite prepared to concede to him all that he was entitled to by that claim; but I may point out to the Committee that he had been much longer in office when he was called upon to present his Budget than the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer had been. When the right hon. Gentleman took office, the Estimates, if prepared, had not been presented to the Treasury. When we took office they had been completed, and there remained only three or four weeks before they had to be presented to the House of Commons. He had been six months in office before he was called upon to put his financial statement before the Committee of the House of Commons. There had been time-1 will not say ample time, but there had been time—to examine those Estimates, to prune them, and to effect economies; and what was the result in the last Budget?

Let the Committee never forget that the test by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be judged on his omit pledges is how far he succeeds in reducing expenditure and reducing taxation: and yet, last year, he presented Estimates of expenditure which showed an estimated expenditure £9,000,000 over the Estimates of the previous year. He described that as a disappointing result, but he promised to improve on it. He has improved on it. He presented a Budget yesterday which shows an increase over last year's expenditure of £21,000,000, and in 18 months' time he has succeeding in increasing the national expenditure by £30,000,000 a year. This is after making certain economies, I admit—raiding the sick and the disabled, the unemployed, the Road Fund, and now the Sinking Fund, the extent of these raids amounting to £20,000,000.

The extent of the right hon. Gentleman's financial embarrassment was very well illustrated by a communique which appeared in the Sunday papers, issued, I know not why, by the French Finance Minister, announcing that ha had received a message of dire distress from the right hon. Gentleman, begging that he would give him something on account that he might present in his Budget to the House of Commons on the following day. The right hon. Gentleman knows my views in regard to the French Debt. Nobody will be better pleased than I shall be if he can succeed in inducing the French Government to meet some part of their financial responsibilities. He made an outrageous settlement with Italy, simply for the purpose of getting £4,000,000 to include in his Budget this year. I see in the newspapers this morning that the French Government are not to pay cash down. The first payment is not to be made for eight months, when half the promised £4,000,000 will be paid, and the rest they hope to pay before the end of next March.

This was the outcome of the right hon. Gentleman's Herculean effort s at economy—not his own efforts entirely, but assisted by that standing committee of the Cabinet the creation of which he announced last year, and assisted by the Colwyn Committee, who have been probing every nook and corner to see if it were possible to save a £5 note. The right hon. Gentleman has denied that he gave a promise or pledge last year to reduce expenditure progressively by;£10,000,000 a year. Let me read his actual words. He said: I believe we ought to aim at a net reduction"—