Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-30


~ Ssg being rude, whenever some
lS ESSI Republican calls some Demo-
III PpI crat a demagogue and the
ksysEEss Democrat retorts by calling
the Republican a liar; then
someone is sure to rise up and say that
only in the United states is such un-
dignified procedure possible. Therefore,
when a visiting American finds that the
British politicians use more billings
gate i'm a week than the Americans use
in a lifetime of politics, his efforts to
deplore the situation are somewhat
tinged by a Congratulatory feeling for
the boys at home.
/ The words '1le" and liar have been
so freely used in this British parlia-
mentary campaign that one wonders
/ what has become OF the boasted British
/ dignity. Mr.. Balfour has been kind
/ enough to gather the entire Liberal
propaganda within one bracket and APP
ply the short and ugly word to the
/ whole business. Mr.. Asquith and Mr.
/ Lloyd-George have similarly used the
/ word of three letters in reference to the
/ lords defense and the tariff reformcrs
promises Mr.. Lloyd-George, in addi-
! tion to this, has been at some pains to
specify some particular lies and liars
using the plainest possible English in
/ SO doing.
/ Mr.. Alexander Ure, lord advocate of
/ Scotland, and an officer in the gov
/ ernment, early in the action made a
1 speech in which he intimated that the
| Conservatives, if given a majority/in
the commons, would stop the old age
| pensions granted by the late Liberal
/ parliament. Mr.. Balfour retorted with
/ the pleasant statement that Mr.. Ure
was telling a cold and calculated lie.
| The Conservative newspapers and
| campaign literature kept up the Ure
| business until the very close of the
| campaign. Posters quoted Mr.. Ure,
and then added, in letters ten inches
/ high, That's a lie!" AT the same
| time the Conservatives, who opposed
/ old age pensions in parliament, flood
| ed the country with posters reading
1 vote for Unionism and old age PEN
sions." To which the Liberals retort-
ed with the lie direct.
Mr.. Lloyd George in his famous
Limehouse speech, delivered two
months before the campaign opened,
undertook an exhaustive defense of
/ his scheme for the taxation of I'M
| earned increment in land values. He
used for illustration two pieces of
| property in Cardiff. In the heart of
that prosperous city stands fine old
castle with 100000 square yards of
| placed on the market. It's occupant,
| the marquis Of Butte, pays rates on an
| annual rental of $4605. Next door,
said Mr.. Lloyd-George, was a tailor
| shop with only 500 square yards of
| land, whose occupant paid rates upon
an annual rental of $685.
The Welsh Liberal leader was i'm
mediately denounced by the ConserV-
| attve press as liar as a "purveyor
lie Col l.,
| chief maker" as an enemy of truth,
! law and order" and as "a deceiver of
| the public" because, as the newspapers
! stated the tailor shop was not next
| door to the CASTLE but was in the next
street, half-block away. Mr.. Lloyd
| George replied that he knew that no
/ building could be literally next door
| to the castle when it was surrounded
| by park, but that he used the term to
indicate that the tailor shop was in
| the immediate neighborhood. when
| say man is next door to a fool" said
| the chancellor of the eXchequer, 81
don't mean he lives next to one, but
/ that he is somewhere in the neighbor-
hood of being one.'
All through the campaign, until the
very last, the denunciations of Lloyd
| Georges '1ie" were repeated, and con-
stant reference was made to the little
tailor shop and Cardiff castle, to prove
that no credence whatever should be
given to anything Mr. Lloyd George
might have to say.
One of the many side issues in this
| campaign was the licensing bill, by
which the Liberal government had
raised the license tax on the sale of
Intoxicating liquors and had provided
| that in the future such licenses might
| be renewed annually. For years they
| had been regarded as vested right.
In discussing the attitude of the gov
ernment to the liquor trade and the
raising of license fees to scale about
one-fifth of that obtaining in New
York. one of the leading London news
papers of the Conservative type used
! this language in one editorial:
utter iniquity. Sheer brigandage.
Fanatical legislation. Socialistic CON
fiscation. A gigantic act of public
theft A raiding expedition of parti-
| san blackmailers. The sum of hypoc-
risv with the maximum of wrong. A
measure of plunder. A measure of
fraud. The government are acting in