The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-03-04
GREAT BRITAIN'SWAR TAX
The $500, 900, 900 Bill Has Been
Paralyzing to Trade.
War Budget Advanced in Parliament
10 Checkmate Heavy Withdrawal
of ENcisabIe Goods From Bond-
The Danger of Foreign CompIica-
fons-An AngIo-American Entente.

LONDON, March 3.-Keeping up its
character for thrills the week closes today
with two fresh sensations. No Parliament
is more jealous of its traditions and cere-
monies than the British House of COM
mons, and a long cherished tradition is
that budget night shall be the one full
dress occasion of the session. well herald
ed for weeks and well led up to.
Judge then into what a whirI of conjec-
lures Mr.. Balfour has thrown the politi-
clans by suddenly announcing in the House
OF Commons last night that the budget will
be taken at two days notice, that is, ON
Monday.
Dissolution said many members. as
they rushed into,the Hobbies to send des-
patches to their constituents. and their ex-
PLANTATION is widely echoed in the press to-
day. The Government it is declared. sees
the country flushed with joy over the sue
cesses in South Africa. and means to seize
the moment to appeal TO the electorate,
for mandate to carry the war through TO
Pretoria, or unconditional surrender on the
Tart of the Beers, and to remake the map
of South Africa on the principle OF no
more republics.
But as a matter of fact, dissolution is the
one thing least likely to happen in Eng -ish
politics just now. The probability is that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer hurries
or the budget in this way because he wants
10 eheckmate the merchants of wine,
spirits, and tobacco, who are Withdrawing
large quantities of excisable goods from
bond to escape the inevitable increases of
nv u-hf in, a-f fha nf =
war must be betrayed. There is. moreover,
a general desire on the part of the govern
Gent, as well as on that of the taxpayer
himself to have done with the suspense, so
paralyzing to trade, and to let the country
know how it has to bear its provisional
war bill Of 5000, 900, 600.
The income tax is now already at the
war level of eightpence in the pound-what
contrast TO Mr.. Gladstone's twopence in
ashland must of course. go up, but each
added penny only brings in two millions
sterling, and the Chancellor wants sixty
millions sterling. Lord Derby used to say
that England drank herself out of the Ala (
bama difficulty. The excise upon Englands
prodigious beer barrel paid that bill, and it |
viii doubtless help to pay this years war
bill. Beer taxes hit the workingman. The
plutocrat may be got at by wine duties aud
increased estate duties. but after all possi-
BILE sources of taxation have been tapped |
ALt CIdilcttlOT must DOITOK largely. truSt-
ing to a war indemnity from the Republics
TO recoup him later on.
Old taxes increased, rather than new
taxes, are expected. though one Govern
ment supporter is heard TO ask signii-
cantly enough in the circumstances of the
moment, how much could be made out of
diamonds in the way of taxation.
The second attempted sensation with
which the week closes arises out OF the
somewhat Z
dispatches to the effect that Mr.. Cham
berlain has, under the pledge of secrecy,
asked the colonial government 10 supply
further troops for South Africa in the
event of the British soldiers now there be-
Ing required elsewhere"
1t is impossible to say what exact weight
should be attached 10 such messages, ereu
II sent Anxiety as regards Russia !
armed threat upon Herat seems. so far as |
the public knows, TO be removed this week
by the Gar S declared refusal to allow
his Government to take advantage of Eng
lands preoccupation in South Africa.
On the Pacific side of Asia fateful April
approaches, with the breaking up of the
ice and the loosening of Japan's hands for
whatever designs she may have. From
Morocco, too, have come, this week, vague,
II ominous reports of long dreaded French
aggression But when all this loose talk ,
has been sifted down it seems most prob ,
able that ii Mr.. Chamberlain has made
these enquiries it is owing not to the
probability of immediate business for the
British Army elsewhere but to the dis
cussion now proceeding in Government :
circles as to the means Of maintaining or S
der and inaugurating new forms of gov J
eminent during the interregnum which e
must succeed war in South Africa
Tommy Atkins the 'verdomde roodnek' i
OF the Boer. will not do for this regime .
OF martial law and peaceful reconstruct d
lion, and suggestions have been earnestly d
pressed upon the ministry, from South b
Africa and elsewhere that after the war y
the republics should be left in the hands | q
not OF English garrisons, of regular SOL f
Tiers, but of the citizen soldiers of Canada. o
Australasia, Cape Colony, and Natal, un- k
der the command of two commissioners, fl
who shall be more than soldiers, and who "
would be trusted alike by the Dutch and 81
British; such men, for instance. as Sir 5,
charles Warren. Plenty Of young Eng !.
ishmen would gladly volunteer for such m
task So, no doubt, would young Ca 9,
iadians and other 'colonials. but would q.
canada and the other colonies, needing ~
themselves all the young life they can get, "
Welcome such an exodus, for two years | =.
It least, and probably forever? -
Wherever one goes among politicians one ~
eallzes the keen interest and haif-conceai %
ID anxiety with which they watch the ap- Vi
Presidential campaign in Amer an
ca in its bearing upon the Angio-Ameri CO
an entente. Remembering the SackviIle lie
Vest case. they are today, through the ca
Times strongly urging the Government of
lot to displace so cool and experienced an "
ambassador as Lord Pauncefote on the &C
question of age at this critical moment. "A II
Presidential election remarks the
Times" puts severe even danger
JUS, strain upon political virtue and II
dds. I'VE cannot leave our Empire at the hi
q any other country" When the Times to
eader writer penned that last sentence he of
robably had in his mind, as most British ra
have, the possibility of ap- he
reaches from President Mckinley. uader ic
he stimulus of Mr.. Montagu White and al
he Irish and German vote, to induce the W
british Government to close the war and th
ecogniZe the status of the republics lie
Trying to gauge British feeling quite i'm fe
artially, it is believed that much as an hi
ngio- American entente means to England, ca
ny such approaches In the present mood Of ex
his nation could only result in an en- br
hattie British mol" few months hence tu
may be different, but today England lei
leans either TO receive or impose uncondi- lie
onal surrender, and she does not dream en-
( replacing the Republics. She may be | sy
ght on wrong. vindictiye. or merely ical- is
US OF her future security, but estimating in
lblic feeling as il is expressed today, thai OF
Gems the only solution that the people.
rought up as the English people have
zen in the past four months would toler- N,
e. az
The Only Honest Way. "a!