Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1919 — VOTE DEFEATS LLOYD GEORGE [ARTICLE]

VOTE DEFEATS LLOYD GEORGE

Test on the Alien Bill Is Lost in the House of Commons. ■ 1 ■■ ll • LEADERS TO DECIDE ACTION Sonar Law Announce* That General Discussion of National Financial Question Will Take Place Next Week. London, Oct. 24.—The government was defeated by a majority of 72 in a vote in the house of commons on an amendment to the aliens bill. Bonar Law immediately moved to postpone further consideration. He said the government must discuss the defeat and decide what course it should adopt His motion was agreed to. The house then adjourned until Monday. The vote by which the government ’was defeated was 185 to 113. It is the first time that the coalition government has been defeated with the whips present. The reverse came on the government’s pilotage of provisions fn the aliens bill in which it is proposed to admit French pilots to special consideration at British ports. It was a minor matter, but involves big principles. The government had made a convention with the French granting such a privilege. Before the war, the granting of such privileges to aliens had made it possible for German pilots to familiarize themselves with British ports. The new bill gave protection against repetition of this state of things except in respect of the French. Sir John Rutherford, conservative member, struck the keynote of the sentiment of the house in saying: “The time has come for clear-cut conventions with France or any other nation. It Is time that we made up our minds that no certificates shall be granted in the future to pilots unless they are British-born subjects.” Talk Finance* on Wednesday. Before the vote on the aliens bill was taken Mr. Bonar Law announced that the promised general discussion of national financial questions will take place on Wednesday of next week. In discussing finances J. Austen Chamberlain, chancellor of the exchequer, said the average daily expenditure from April 1 to September 30 this year was £4,225,000, and from October 1 to October 19 it was £3,763,000. Regarding the question of -Imports Bonar Law informed the house that an “antidumping” bill was being drafted by the cabinet for early introduction.

Special measures to deal with speculation in cotton, tobacco and soap under the antiprofiteering act are being considered by the government, according to a statement by Undersecretary Bridgeman ’ of the board of trade. Lords Take Up Money Crisis. The house of lords had its first word in connection with the financial state of the country. It was in the form of a resolution by Lord Buckmaster, calling attention to the “gravity of the financial position,” and suggesting that it was “essential that further taxation should be imposed.” Lord Buckmaster declared his motion was not intended as a vote of censure of the government. The salient features of the situation, he said, were the inflation of the currency, the slightness of the reduction of the ways and means advances, and the excess of the daily expenditure over the revenue. He emphasized his view that the financial position was at the very root of the industrial discontent. Chamberlain Is Unheeded. Referring to the warning of Austen Chamberlain, the chancellor of the exchequer, in the house of commons last August that if the country continued spending at the rate It was doing its course would lead straight to national bankruptcy, Lord Buckmaster said the government had not heeded this warning and was pursuing the same road with unabated speed. Lord Buckmaster estimated that the country must find in normal times £600,000,000 by direct taxation, to secure which there were only three methods —namely, a general capital levy, a capital levy on war profits, or an Increase of the income tax. He contended'the best course to be adopted was a capital levy on war profits, with perhaps an Increased income tax also. The nation, he declared, must follow the road of sacrifice and hardship, but it was the road of honor and safety. ,