I have no apprehensions about the Budget which is now before the Committee.  As Mr. Gladstone said, in introducing the Reform Bill of 1884, what is wanted to carry this measure is concentration and concentration only, and what will lose this measure is division and division only.  And I venture to think that it will not only be a demonstration of the soundness of the economic fiscal policy we have long followed, but it will also be a demonstration of the fiscal and financial strength of Great Britain which will not be without its use and value upon the diplomatic and perhaps even upon the naval situation in Europe.

The right honourable Member for East Worcestershire[17] said this Budget was the work of several sessions, if not indeed of several Parliaments.  The statement is exaggerated.  The proposals outlined do not in any degree transcend the limits of the practical.  A social policy may be very large, but at the same time it may be very simple.  All these projects of economic development, of labour exchanges, of insurance for invalidity, and unemployment, which depend on money grants, may require very careful and elaborate administrative adjustment; but so far as Parliament is concerned they do not impose difficulties or make demands upon the time of the House in any way comparable to those which are excited by the passage of an Education or a Licensing Bill, and I see no reason whatever why we should not anticipate that in the course of this session and next session we should be able to establish a wide and general system of national insurance, which, more than any other device within the reach of this generation of the workers of our country, will help to hold off from them some of the most fatal and most cruel perils which smash their households and ruin the lives of families and of workmen.

On many grounds we may commend this Budget to the House.  It makes provision for the present.  It makes greater provision for the future.  Indirect taxation reaches the minimum.  Food taxation reaches the minimum since the South African war.  Certainly the working classes have no reason to complain.  Nothing in the Budget touches the physical efficiency and energy of labour.  Nothing in it touches the economy of the cottage home.  Middle-class people with between L300 and L2,000 a year are not affected in any considerable degree, except by the estate duties, and in that not to a large extent, while in some cases they are distinctly benefited in the general way of taxation.  The very rich are not singled out for peculiar, special, or invidious forms of imposition.

The chief burden of the increase of taxation is placed upon the main body of the wealthy classes in this country, a class which in number and in wealth is much greater than in any other equal community, if not, indeed, in any other modern State in the whole world; and that is a class which, in opportunities of pleasure, in all the amenities of life, and in freedom from penalties, obligations, and dangers, is more fortunate than any other equally numerous class of citizens in any age or in any country.  That class has more to gain than any other class of his Majesty’s subjects from dwelling amid a healthy and contented people, and in a safely guarded land.