Is it really the contention of the Conservative Party that the State is bound to view all processes of wealth-getting with an equal eye, provided they do not come under the criminal codes?  Is that their contention?  Are we really to be bound to impose the same burden upon the hardly won income of the professional man and the extraordinary profits of the land monopolist?  Are we really to recognise the liquor licence which the State created, which the law says is for one year only—­as if it were as much the brewers’ or the publicans’ property for ever as the coat on his back?  No; it is absurd.  Of the waste and sorrow and ruin which are caused by the liquor traffic, of the injury to national health and national wealth which follows from it, which attends its ill-omened footsteps, I say nothing more in my argument this afternoon.  The State is entitled to reclaim its own, and they shall at least render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.

The money must be found, and we hold that Parliament, in imposing the inevitable taxes, is entitled not only to lay a heavier proportionate burden upon the rich than on the poor, but also to lay a special burden upon certain forms of wealth which are clearly social in their origin, and have not at any point been derived from a useful or productive process on the part of their possessors.  But it may be said, “Your plans include other expenditure besides the Navy and Old-age Pensions.  What about Insurance, Labour Exchanges, and economic development?” Those objects, at least, it may be urged are not inevitable or indispensable.  It is quite true that the taxation which we seek to impose this year, and which is sufficient, and only sufficient for the needs of this year, will yield more abundant revenues in future years, and if at the same time a reduction in the expenditure on armaments becomes possible, we shall have substantial revenues at our disposal.  That is perfectly true, but is that a reason for condemning the Budget?  When we see on every hand great nations which cannot pay their way, which have to borrow merely to carry on from year to year, when we see how sterile and unproductive all the dodges and devices of their protective tariffs have become, when we remember how often we have ourselves been told that under Free Trade no more revenue could be got, is it not a welcome change for our country, and for our Free Trade policy, to find our opponents complaining of the expansive nature of a Free Trade revenue?  I don’t wonder that Tory Protectionists have passed a resolution at Birmingham declaring that the Budget will indefinitely postpone—­that was the phrase—­the scheme of Tariff Reform.