§ Now I come to the expenditure side of my balance sheet, and it is to this, after all, that must mainly be ascribed the exceptionally heavy deficit. Were I dealing with a shortage due only to a temporary cause like forestalments I might have resorted to some temporary shift which, would have carried me over until next year, when the revenue would resume its normal course. But, unfortunately, I have to reckon not merely with an enormous increase in expenditure this year, but an inevitable expansion of some of the heaviest items in the course of the coming years. To what is the increase of 475 expenditure due? It is very well known that it must be placed to the credit of two items and practically two items alone. One is the Navy and the other is Old Age Pensions. Now, I have one observation which I think I am entitled to make about both, and I think that now I am about to propose heavy increased taxation it is an observation that I am entitled to make on behalf of the Government. The increased expenditure under both these heads was substantially incurred with the unanimous assent of all political parties in this House. There was, it is true, a protest entered on behalf of hon. Members below the Gangway against increased expenditure in the Navy, but as far as the overwhelming majority of Members in this House are concerned the increase has received their sanction and approval. I am entitled to say more. The attitude of the Government towards these two branches of increased expenditure has not been one of rushing a reluctant House of Commons into expense which it disliked, but rather of resisting persistent appeals coming from all quarters of the House for still further increases under both heads.
§ As to the Navy, we are now in the throes of a great agitation to double and even treble the cost of our Construction Vote this year; and as to old age pensions, the responsibility was cast upon me of piloting that Bill through the Committee, and the one difficulty I experienced was to persuade the House of Commons not to press Amendments which would enormously augment the very heavy bill we were incurring under the original proposals. I had constantly to appeal to the party loyalty of the supporters of the Government to resist Amendments which commended themselves to hon. Members, and which we ourselves should like to have seen carried, in order to confine within something like reasonable limits the Bill which we were encouraged to pass. And these were not Amendments moved by small sections of the House; on the contrary; they were moved from all quarters and almost invariably received the official sanction and support of the Opposition. I say that in order to show that, in the main, the two great items of expenditure which are responsible for this deficit are items which a vast majority of the Members of the House of Commons have not merely sanctioned, but in regard to which they brought a con- 476 siderable amount of pressure to bear upon the Government to increase.
§ I made a calculation the other day as to what these Amendments would have cost us in the aggregate if we had assented to them, and I am sure the Committee will be surprised to find that Amendments which received the support of the official Leaders of the Opposition, if they had been carried, would have left me to-day to find not £9,000,000, but £14,000,000. The Amendments received the official sanction of the Leaders of the Opposition. I am not complaining of that. On the contrary, I think that many were Amendments which represented the extensions of the principle which I think are inevitable, but for the time being our attitude was to restrict expenditure rather than extend it. There were a few hon. Members who opposed the Bill altogether. There was my hon. Friend the Member for Preston and the hon. Baronet for the City. They represented a very small party, although no doubt a very intelligent party. I am not mentioning these matters by way of reproach to any section, nor with any desire to divest the Government of any share of its responsibility, but merely in order to show that the deficit in respect of which I have to suggest such heavy imposts to-day is not, as has been hinted in many quarters, one which the Government has landed the country in by wild and extravagant socialistic proposals, but rather an expenditure in which the Government represented the minimum demands and in which its proposals were more moderate from the point of view of expenditure than those which emanated from any other section of the House.
§ Before I dismiss this question of the expenditure for this year, I think I am entitled to answer a criticism from another quarter. We are told that we ought not to have touched old age pensions—at least, not at the present moment, when heavy liabilities were in sight in connection with the defence of the country. I may point out that when we introduced our Old Age Pensions Bill the emergency had not arisen. But, apart altogether from that, we had no honourable alternative left. We simply honoured a cheque drawn years ago in favour of the aged poor, which bore at its foot the signature of all the leaders of political parties in this country. They had all promised pensions at election after election, and great political parties have no right to make promises to poor people in return for political support, which is all these people 477 had to give, and then—time after time—return the bill with "No assets" written across it. It was time this measure should be carried for the fair fame of British politicians as a whole. I am glad we have done it. I am not here on behalf of the Government to apologise for having done it. On the contrary, I think all political parties ought to be pleased that this thrice defaulted obligation has at last been discharged.