The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914Anonymous
History
The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914
Anonymous
History, Modern; History, Modern -- Periodicals; World War, 1914-1918
were at the basis of his political action--a desire to improve the
condition of the people, and an intense, perhaps almost aggressive,
national pride. He almost alone had changed the whole spirit of the
reciprocal relationship of different parts of the Empire, and had thus
laid strong the foundation on which others might build. Mr. Balfour
added his tribute, as one of the very few left who had served with Mr.
Chamberlain in Cabinets. The future historian, he thought, would think
of him mainly as an Imperial statesman. As Colonial Secretary he had
done the greatest work that had ever fallen to a statesman in Great
Britain. He had recognised that the Dominions must be treated with
absolute equality, and that there must be a bracing feeling of common
patriotism. He was a great idealist, a great friend, a great orator and
a great man.
This commemoration of a great Parliamentarian had secured a day's
intermission in party strife, but it broke out afresh on July 7, when
the Prime Minister moved that the remaining stages of the Finance
Bill should be limited to seven days. He pointed out that ten and a
half days had been spent already on various stages of the Budget,
and, under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1913, the Finance
Bill must become law on August 4, while standing orders required the
Estimates to be disposed of by August 5. Of the sixteen Parliamentary
days (omitting Fridays as not full days) available before August 5, six
and a half were needed to Supply, and seven given to the Finance Bill
would leave two and a half for contingencies. He reviewed the progress
made, promising a day and a half for the new clauses, and said that if
there were ever a Tariff Reform Budget, there would certainly have to
be an allocation of time for it. He would prefer that such allocations
should be the duty of an independent tribunal, and hinted that the
committee then sitting on procedure might make them so. Mr. Bonar Law
(U.) moved an amendment repudiating and condemning, as a dangerous
innovation, proposals for the curtailment of discussion on measures
tending to impose heavy burdens of new taxation. He pointed out that
the main business of the House was finance, and that a guillotine had
never before been imposed for the Finance Bill. The Government might
suspend the 11 o'clock rule, and use ordinary and kangaroo closure.
The Government had taken every precaution to ensure that they would be
short of time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had despised the real
work of his office, and had used the Exchequer to help electioneering.
Several Liberals defended the proposal as necessary, though Mr.
Leif Jones (L., _Notts, Rushcliffe_) and, later, Mr. D. Mason (L.,
_Coventry_) spoke against it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared
that the experience of the Budget debates in 1909 showed that closure
was necessary. Other and more important Budgets, _e.g._, those of
1842 and 1860, had produced similar attacks on the Chancellor of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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