Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-09-04
Some Things You Want to Know

Great Britain, after a season OF COM
parative quiet Is again perturbed by
German war scare. second in magnitude
only to that great panic which followed the
revelations concerning the German naval
program early last year. That now his
toric panic was not the result Of ire
spcnsible agitation, nor of yellow Journal
ISM but resulted from the solemn
nouncement by the government that the
German empire had secretly accelerated its
naval program, and was launching dread
noughts and all-bg-gun cruisers much more
rapidly and much more frequently than the
Britons had suspected. The result was a
marked quickenng of the British naval
activity, the immediate augmentation Of
the dreadnought building program, the an
nouncement of the Inauguration OF colonial
navies snd-more taxes
The manner in which the government,
then, as now, under control of the liberal
party, levied these taxes caused the British
people to forget the threatened danger Of
foreign war In the clash and clsmor of a
great domestic political battle. The govern
ment in the Lloyd-George budget sought
to change the method of taxation by intro
ducing the principle of taxation OF land
values and of the unearned increment in
land. 1t also increased the taxation on
such Injuries as spirits and automobile
fuel and 1t added to the income tax a
super-tax which fell only upon the very
wealthy.
The cry for the increase in the navy had
come from the wealthy and the land-own-
ing classes, but they were most unwilling
to submit to increased direct taxation to
meet the financial requirements of a two
keel-to-one-navy. They presented a counter
proposition, advocating that the required
additional revenue should be raised by tariff
taxation, an indirect method They as
serted that this not only would furnish the
needed revenue but would bolster up the
decaying industry OF the islands by afford
ing protection against the cheaper products
of other countries. Harking back to the
ancient English system OF protective tariffs,
this reform was to give protective stimulus
not alone to British manufacturers, but
also to British land owners since the
scheme included a tariff tax on wheat and
other breadstuffs. The fact that Great
Britain cannot produce more than one
fourth of the grain necessary to feed its
people was crcumvented by a proposal to
give the British colonies a preference which
would admit their wheat at lower duty
than that of foreign countries. But in any
event the proposed reform included the sub
stituuon of a tax on bread for the in
tended tax on land. Everybody eats bread,
very few people in England own land.
The ensuing struggle between the two
parties ended in the election last January
of a House of Commons In which the lib
eral government remained in power by
virtue Of a more or less precarious coali-
! ton with the labor party and the Irish
nationallsts. The House of Lords, which
had refused to pass the budget, now bowed
to the will of the people and the new sys-
| tenn of taxation became the law of the
| land. On account of the great task of
assessing the land values, something not
attempted in England in centuries, the
new land taxes are not yet in actual force
and 1t will be some time before the sys-
tenn may be judged by Its results.
During the campaign the real issue of
| taxation was obfuscated by the constant
parade through the press and on the stump
| of the German war scare 1t was con-
| tended that the liberal party had become
too democratic and too sentimental to be
entrusted with the task of saving the en-
pire In case of war with a great military
power like Germany Indeed, II one had
been guided by the public utterances OF
the conservative candidates, he must have
| reached the conclusion that the liberal
| government actually was in conspiracy to
betray the nation into the hands Of the
kaiser But the people did not all adopt
this view, and the liberal government was
returned to power.
| When the election was over the country
realized that the great constitutional ques-
|