Clause 14. — (Charge of Income Tax for 1949–50.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Finance Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 June 1949.

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Photo of Mr Richard Crossman Mr Richard Crossman , Coventry East 12:00, 23 June 1949

I was putting it into plain language so that the electorate understand the full meaning of what the Opposition are saying. They say we should cut the social services which help the people who vote for this side of the Committee, but not those who vote for the other side. That is not very strange. We all recommend what hurts the other side; that is politics, and it is nice to see it coming out now.

What upsets me about this symbolic Amendment is that, after all, hon. Gentlemen opposite have already had plenty of time to see this experiment carried out in three other countries in Europe. This experiment of solving the crisis by cutting the expenditure of the Government, and by having what is called "a moderate return" of unemployment, which is an essential part of the same policy, has already been tried in a country visited by the hon. Member for Chippenham. He went and contemplated Rome, and his mind ranged over the great work of Gibbon. On that I would only say that I wish he had read Gibbon instead of merely talking about him. He suggested that Gibbon told us the Roman Empire declined because of large-scale social services. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes, he did, and he quoted the Baths of Caracalla as an example of those social services. I would say that the basic reason why the Roman Empire collapsed was the existence of slavery and the maintenance of privilege—the maintenance of a privileged hierarchical society which was unable to keep up with the economic developments of the time.