The general Budget debate was taken on the resolution continuing the tea duty (May 6, 7, 11). Mr. Austen Chamberlain (U.) opened the attack, pointing out the disappointing yield of the new land taxes and the immense cost of their collection both to the State and to individual taxpayers, and also the enormous increase, present and prospective, of national expenditure, on which the Treasury, he said, had ceased to act as a check. In years of less prosperity and any serious complication this would involve great injury to the State--loss of credit, and of elasticity of finance. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had raided the new Sinking Fund, and held that an undue burden of taxation was being thrown on the rich. Let Liberals consider how the line could be drawn between the proposed taxation and that advocated by the hon. member for Blackburn [Mr. Snowden, a Socialist]. "Unearned" income might well be the result of labour and self-denial, and on incomes between 700_l._ and 1,000_l._ a tax of 1_s._ 4_d._ in the pound in peace time was a tremendous burden. The increase of the death duties interfered with provision for them by insurance, and the abolition of the settlement estate duty involved a breach of contract. An unjust burden must not be placed on the few because they were few. The real interest of the Budget, however, was in the other Bills it would entail on rating, valuation, insurance, education, and housing. The new Valuation Department would be very costly and far less satisfactory than the local assessment committees, and the effect of the Budget on the local authorities was quite uncertain. Its proposals marked the abandonment of the Liberal tradition of the extension of local responsibility and of retrenchment, and left no resources for war taxation. The Financial Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Montagu) replied that the new taxes mainly went to decrease existing burdens. The debt per head was lighter than it had been since the Napoleonic wars; in 1887 it was 20.11_l._ per head, in 1899 15.52_l._, and in 1914 15.37_l._ Relatively to the estimated wealth of the country it had diminished since 1906. Wealth had many political weapons besides the numbers of the wealthy, and the actual rate of income-tax paid was usually far below the nominal rate. National wealth grew much more rapidly than taxation. The valuation had greatly increased the yield from the death duties; and it was only fair that the Imperial taxpayer should have a substantial control over the expenditure of the money he found.