§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon)Sir, it has been my privilege for a great many years to listen to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining to the-Committee the financial position and his-proposals for the year I confess I have always felt a great deal of sympathy with previous Chancellors of the Exchequer in their discharge of what I have always thought has been certainly a complicated, and often a very difficult task. But, great as has been my sympathy with previous Chancellors of the Exchequer, it has never been so-profound as it is with the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. I feel that I shall require at the hands of the Committee all the consideration and indulgence which it is in their power to-grant tome to enable me to accomplish, even with moderate satisfaction, the task which now lies before me; and I am satisfied that, under all the circumstances, I shall not make an appeal for 229 that consideration and indulgence in vain, but that it will be readily granted to me. I have peculiar difficulties to encounter in fulfilling the task which I have now to discharge. I am comparatively new to the responsibilities of the high office which I have the honour to hold; and I succeed a Minister who occupied this position, and, I think, occupied it with satisfaction to the Committee and to the House for a great many years, and who, at any rate during the latter portion of his term of office, had to deal with a very difficult situation. He had to finance a great and prolonged war—a task which, I hope, will not fall to the lot of any Chancellor of the Exchequer of this country for many years to come. He had to come down to the House and ask power from the Committee to impose, year after year, fresh taxation; and, in doing so, he displayed courage, resource, and above all, consideration to a very great degree. I am sure that even those who suffered, or thought that they suffered, from the new taxation which he had to impose will be the first to recognise that, consistently with the duty which he thought devolved upon him, he endeavoured to meet all the objections and suggestions which were made to him with the greatest consideration; and however much they disliked the taxation, they could not but admire the manner in which that taxation was imposed upon them.
My task is a more agreeable one than that of my right hon. friend. His task was to impose taxation. My task, I am glad to think, is to remit taxation. But do not let the Committee imagine that this task, although perhaps not attended with the same difficulties as the other, is by any means free from difficulty. I can assure the Committee that if they had the opportunity of studying my correspondence for some considerable time past they would find that, in comparison with the money I have to give away, the claimants are very numerous indeed. It is not an easy matter, when one has a limited sum to give away, to choose between the various directions in which it can be applied and to give satisfaction to all those who have made application. I have no doubt that, having regard to the fact that taxation is to be remitted, the 230 Committee would gladly dispense with the long introduction which Chancellors of the Exchequer naturally have to make, and would like me at once to come to the point. I am afraid that my duty is to conduct them to that goal through, perhaps, long and tortuous and paths; but I can promise the Committeethat, that if they will give me the patient hearing which I am sure they will give me, I will endeavour to mitigate their distress as much as I possibly can, and to go as rapidly over the various subjects with which I have to deal as I can, with justice to them and to the Committee. But, as the Committee will understand, I have necessarily much ground to traverse.