Centenary of “The People’s Budget”
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
An occasional commentary on the economic depression # 3
5 January 2009, New Year Insights
There’s amazing synchronicity in the centenary year of the “People’s Budget”, delivered in the UK under the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, that never so much since as now has the world needed fiscal policy capturing a greater part of our annual land values if we are to correct out-of-control economies.
Although the principles behind David Lloyd George’s 1909 “People’s Budget” were better understood and overwhelmingly supported by the British people than they are now, they were strongly resisted by House of Lords aristocrats, despite the fact that it had been accepted practice since the 17th century that the Lords would not reject house of commons budgetary measures. Nevertheless they vetoed the chancellor’s land ‘tax’ budget ….the government be damned! The land tax proposal was withdrawn, but preparations to devise a land tax valuation base continued. Meanwhile, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George were quick to use the people’s wrath against the upper house’s action to stop the power of the House of Lords from being again misused.
Militarism was already in the air a century ago when Germany began to overtake Britain industrially and pose a threat to her markets. The aristocracy of both countries saw war as appropriate and almost inevitable, perhaps also offering a useful way to finally resolve politically vacillating imperial boundaries. Lloyd George didn’t accept this fatalistic logic. He tried to countervail militaristic bravado by proposing a cut in expenditure on Britain’s new Dreadnought battleships, reducing their planned number from six to four. However, the Tory opposition, with illicit support from First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher, mounted a formidable campaign (“We want eight and we won’t wait!”) which saw Lloyd George defeated on the matter within his own cabinet. War was thereby ensured.
(more…)
