misdescribed the Budget as a revolution; the fault of our Constitution was its slowness; that was the great difficulty of democracy; it had to delegate its authority; and while some revision was needed of the action of Ministers, that provided by the House of Lords defeated rather than expedited the will of the people. The technical parts of the Budget were misunderstood. The taxation of unearned increment had been supported from both sides even in the last House of Commons. It was a truism among Liberal audiences. It referred only to the future, and so was not confiscation; valuation was a necessary part of the machinery, and would be made on the true selling price of the land. The land tax put no pressure on industry, and no Chancellor had been more alive than Mr. Lloyd-George to the hardships existing with regard to agricultural land. The Budget was good, by whatever general principle it was tried; it took taxes from superfluities, and taxed people in proportion to their ability to pay. It showed, too, that Free Trade finance was not bankrupt, and there were still Free Trade alternatives. He cautioned his hearers against being misled by hard cases, some of which were imaginary; there would be harder cases under a Tariff Reform Budget, for example. Tariff Reform was tending to exclude men of real intellectual distinction from the Conservative party; Mr. Balfour was an exception, but his speeches were sometimes investigated by the Tariff Reformers "as if he were a ticket-of-leave man reporting himself to the police." He himself was becoming more and more convinced that if the uncompromising Tariff Reformers obtained control of the Conservative party it would be the ruin of the country industrially and imperially. Nothing could be more unfortunate than that the Liberal Government should establish a right to dictate the duties the Colonies might impose. The Government should be judged not only by the existing situation, but by that existing at the last general election; he made special reference to Army reform and South Africa. Had the Government followed the advice of the Opposition, South African Federation would never have been achieved.

On the same day a "Budget League" was formed by the Liberal members of the House of Commons to conduct a vigorous campaign in its favour in the constituencies, at a meeting held at the House of Commons. Mr. Haldane presided, Mr. Winston Churchill spoke, and it was made clear that no pressure would be put on any Liberal opponents of parts of the Budget; and Sir John Dickson-Poynder, one of the alleged leaders of the "cave," was co-opted a member of the organising Committee.

Sir Edward Grey's defence of the Budget was followed up by the Prime Minister at a luncheon given at the Holborn Restaurant on June 24 by the Land and Housing Reform Joint Committee, representing the principal societies for the promotion of these causes. Sir John Brunner presided. Mr. Asquith began by a brief reference to the Small Holdings Act-under

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which nearly 42,000 acres would shortly have been acquired as against 900 acres in fifteen years under the Small Holdings Act of 1892 and to the excellent prospects of the Housing and Town Planning Bill. Going on to the land taxes, he said that Lord Rosebery's "revolution" clearly referred to these alone; but Lord Rosebery himself had publicly advocated the taxation of ground values fifteen years before at St. James's Hall [March 22, 1894]; Bills embodying it had been discussed in four sessions and carried twice, in 1904 and 1905, and at the last general election on land law reform had generally been warmly supported on the Liberal side. All the epithets applied to the Budget had been applied to Sir William Harcourt's Finance Act, imposing death duties, in 1894. The land taxes were taxes not on land, but on the communal value added to land by the existence and exertions of the State. The method of taxation was novel and complex, and there were many points for legitimate criticism; but the only two arguments against taxing unearned increment were that it applied to other property besides land-which was an argument for taking it there also— and the argument based on "decrement," which was childish. Let them remember that they started with the increment duty from present values; it was impossible to draw a line between rural and urban areas; and it would not apply to increment due to general causes affecting agriculture as a whole, but solely to that due to social causes. Mr. Lloyd-George's answer to those who claimed the whole of the product for the municipalities (p. 143) was unanswerable; and the division with the municipalities was only provisional; when the relations between Imperial and local taxation were readjusted, the increased subventions would take the form of a transfer of service, not of a dole in relief of rates. The Times report of the estate market showed that land was being eagerly bought in spite of the Finance Bill. The City meeting had admitted the necessity for increased taxation, but rejected all the new taxes. What alternative would Free Fooders propose? He asked his hearers to join with unanimity and enthusiasm the crusade started by the Budget League.

Mr. Lloyd-George, who followed, scoffed at the City meeting and the speakers in too personal a tone. He ridiculed Lord Rothschild's description of the halfpenny land tax as Socialism and confiscation, insisted that there must be alternative suggestions, and remarked on the resolution (p. 66) moved at the City meeting of April 1. “We were having too much Lord Rothschild." Some countries would not have their politics dictated by great financiers, and this country would join them; and apart from purely party moves, there was no move against the Budget at all. It was recognised as a fair and equitable distribution of burdens, perhaps because it provided not merely for the needs of the year, but for the social needs in front. They meant to succeed under Mr. Asquith's brilliant leadership.

Lord Avebury, however, answered Mr. Asquith's challenge to suggest an alternative method of providing the money in the Times of June 29. He accepted the reduction of the Sinking Fund, the new indirect taxation and stamp duties, and, though very reluctantly, the additional 2d. in the pound income tax; but he proposed to drop the land value duties and the super-tax, inasmuch as their estimated product, 500,000l. each for the current year, was more than covered by the Treasury windfall of the duties on Mr. Morrison's estate (1,100,000l.). Mr. LloydGeorge replied (Times, July 1) that Lord Avebury had confused the estimated yield for 1909-10 with the estimated yield for a full year, had put the yield of the death duties too high, and had allowed nothing for contingencies, while in 1910-11 naval expenditure and the cost of Old Age Pensions must inevitably increase. For the current year Lord Avebury's proposals left a gap of 4,000,000l. A little later, Mr. Leonard Currie, President of the City Liberal Association, suggested that the income tax might have been raised to 1s. 4d. with an abatement to 1s. for earned income; and that with the licensing and stamp duties, and either 2,000,000l. more from the Sinking Fund or a small tax on amusements, the additional death duties and tobacco duty, and the super-tax, might have been dispensed with. And in the July Quarterly Review Sir R. Giffen suggested taxes on largely used commodities, e.g., sugar, corn, and coal.

Though the keenness of the conflict over the Finance Bill tended to unify the forces supporting the Government, there was continued impatience among the Labour party and a section of advanced Liberals as to the deportations of political agitators from India, the position in Persia-where the Russian officers in the Shah's service were believed to be in communication in his interest with the Russian Governor of the Caucasus-and the approaching visit of the Tsar. Their impatience was manifested in repeated questions in the House of Commons; and on June 17 the Prime Minister, in answer to five Liberal questioners, refused to state the evidence on which nine persons had been deported from India without trial or how it had been obtained. It had been examined, he said, by four LieutenantGovernors and the Governor-General in Council, and the Government were satisfied that recourse to Regulation 3 of the year 1818 was advisable and necessary. To take proceedings would frustrate the purpose of the regulation, and such questions were tending to revive the agitation and keep up the use of the regulation. This answer caused profound dissatisfaction. So also did the investment of the Tsar's visit with an official character; but here a counter-current was set up by the visit of a party of members of the Russian Duma and Council, on an invitation joined in by the two Archbishops, the President of the Royal Society, the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and various Peers, Bishops, and persons of distinction irrespective of politics. The party included the President

of the Duma (M. Homiakoff), MM. Guchkoff, Miliukoff and Tevkéleff, leaders respectively of the Octobrists, Constitutional Democrats, and Musulmans, and representatives of all parties except the Socialists and the extreme reactionaries. Arriving in London on June 20, they were entertained at luncheon at the House of Commons on June 22. The Prime Minister welcomed them as colleagues and as representatives of the Russian people, declaring that the friendship between the peoples must supplement that between the two Governments; and Mr. Balfour extolled the work already done by the Russian Parliament. The King, receiving them on June 25, declared that he had followed the proceedings of the Duma with the deepest interest; they were welcomed in Liverpool, and several of them received honorary degrees at Oxford and Cambridge. An ill-advised protest against the Tsar's visit issued by the Executive Committee of the Labour party on June 25, declared that the Royal reception of the Tsar in the name of the nation was an insult to national good fame, "especially when his personal approval of the criminal agents had been placed beyond question"; and that the Reval meeting of 1908 had made the domestic situation in Russia even worse than before, in respect of the number of prisoners, executions, and suicides in prisons. However, M. Homiakoff, the President of the Duma (June 29), condemned this manifesto as setting up an offensive contrast between the Tsar and the visitors as representatives of the Russian people; and the effect of the Anglo-Russian understanding had been strikingly exhibited in the calmness with which the British public had received the firing by a Russian destroyer on the British steamer Woodburn (June 17) when taken by her Finnish pilot within the prohibited area round the Imperial vessels near Björkö on the occasion of the meeting of the Tsar and the German Emperor. A fireman was accidentally wounded; the matter was settled quietly; under different conditions it might have set up a war scare.

Parenthetically, it may here be mentioned that Field-Marshal Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha, the head of a special mission to announce the accession of the new Sultan of Turkey, was received by the King at Buckingham Palace on June 22, and previously by the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary; and thus Great Britain formally recognised the new departure in the Turkish Empire.

Another step towards international friendship was taken by the visit of the representatives of Christian Churches to Germany (June 7-20, p. 118) in return for the German clerical visit. of 1908 (ANNUAL REGISTER, 1908, p. 121). The party comprised the Bishops of Southwark, Hereford, Salisbury, Rochester, several retired or suffragan Anglican Bishops and other leading clergy, and numerous representatives, clerical and lay, of the Roman Catholic and Nonconformist Churches, including several members of Parliament. They crossed in a special steamer from Dover to Cuxhaven, visited Hamburg, Berlin, Eisenach

and the Wartburg, and Bremen, and had a most cordial welcome. They were received at Potsdam by the Emperor and Empress on June 14; the former read an address hoping that the visit would tend to promote good feeling between two great kindred nations. A friendly message was also received from Prince Bülow. A permanent Committee was to be appointed to promote Anglo-German friendship. Early in July again, two minor parties of visitors arrived from Germany-a body of horticulturists and a deputation from the German Garden City Association, who were entertained likewise by their English hosts. It was stated (in the Nation, June 26) that Admiral von Tirpitz had unofficially expressed his regret to members of the English Churches' deputation that his personal assurances that there had been no acceleration of the German naval programme had not been accepted by the British Government.

On the other hand, the Imperial Press Conference had shown that, if there were any dangers from abroad, the Dominions were ready to stand together with the MotherCountry against them; and it had thus been a useful preparation for the coming conference on Imperial defence. After a provincial tour, the delegates had resumed their sittings on June 26, to discuss a reduction of cable rates, which was at once accorded by the Pacific Cable Board, New Zealand and Australia. At the closing sitting next day Lord Esher remarked that the Empire had of late years come to connote primarily Great Britain and the Dominions, and suggested that the latter might help in defending the coasts of the Empire and policing the trade routes; but a clearly defined scheme was premature. He hoped for Colonial representatives on an Imperial General Staff. Lord Charles Beresford, who followed, said that a number of statesmen had made non-committal speeches on Imperial Defence at the Conference, and the real reason was that they knew we were unprepared. The Colonial offers of Dreadnoughts and money constituted the severest possible condemnation of our state. The recent inspection of the Fleet (p. 131) did not prove that we were ready for war. Owing to deferring our obligations, and to wrong information given to the public several times within the last two or three years, we could not maintain the two-Power standard without help from the Dominions. They might help by looking after our trade routes with their own fleets, the ships to be standardised and interchangeable with our own. They might also help to restore the repairing stations which, owing to some mad infatuation, we had dismantled, and they must act under the great strategic bureau which would be, but was not, at the Admiralty. Let party be kept out of Imperial defence; if we were properly prepared, we could prevent what the peoples of the world loathed -war. General Sir John French emphasised the need of linking up the Naval and Military Forces by an Imperial General Staff, and enjoined on the Press the need of secrecy in war. A