§ Before I sit down I should like to say one word about the finance of the National Insurance Bill. It affects the finance of the future.I promise not to detain the Committee very long, but I think that, on the whole, not merely the Committee, but the public are anxious to know whether there is any prospect of increased taxation as the result of our undertaking this new gigantic liability. This has been a year of exceptional expenditure—some of it temporary. No sane person could possibly wish—and I do not think any sound person will expect a continuance of our present inflated naval and military expenditure. If half the rhetoric which has been spent on the peace campaign were genuine—and I believe it is all sincere—there would be an enormous reduction of armaments as an immediate effect, and we should be able to spend more money on perfecting our education, reducing the burden of rates, reorganising rural life and industry, and effecting some improvement in the squalid homes of the people. But I am not building on that foundation at all. There have been just as promising campaigns which have ended in nothing. I am building purely on facts, when I come to look at the financial prospects of the next few years.
§ The extra four "Dreadnoughts"—the contingent four—will be off our hands this year. They will not be a charge upon us next year. In addition to that there will be a fall in the statutory provision for German shipbuilding, and that will involve a necessary reduction in our naval armaments unless some new menace which we cannot foresee is imposed on us. The First Lord of the Admiralty, and I think the Prime Minister, have already indicated that we have reached the climax in our naval expenditure, and next year we may look forward to a substantial reduction, to be followed in the succeeding year by a still greater reduction.
§ Can we finance insurance without fresh taxation? I will be perfectly frank with the Committee. The answer to that depends entirely upon the Departments and on the House of Commons. Can they keep down the expenditure? The Departments cannot keep down expenditure without the House of Commons, with which rests the primary—the first and the last—responsibility. The Exchequer is pressed from two quarters—it is pressed to spend more and to charge less. You 1869 cannot do both. If you raise more money for any purpose you must find it somewhere. More expenditure means more taxation, and if every man when he proposed an increase of expenditure had in his mind the necessity for finding the cash for the purpose, I am perfectly certain there are many proposals made in this House which would never be advanced. The Committee will forgive me for speaking very frankly. There is a tendency when there is a Debate on any particular purpose which involves expenditure to consider each case separately without any reference to other demands. That is a thing you cannot do. It is said "this is a good case." But I would respectfully say that that is not the point. The whole question is, what, is the general position—what can we afford? There is too much attention paid to the case; and too little to the cash. I respectfully appeal to the House of Commons on this point. I do not suggest for one moment that one side is more to blame than the other. Whenever there is a demand for increased expenditure it is the duty of the House of Commons to review the whole financial position and not merely each separate item for which special taxation is asked.
§ I am going to make a special appeal on behalf of the National Insurance Bill because I have some recollection of the carrying of the Old Age Pensions Bill. On my old original plan I could easily finance the Insurance Bill without a penny being taken out of taxation. The matter, however, was taken out of my hands and out of the hands of the Government. The insurance could have been easily financed out of the Budget of 1909 without any increased taxation if the original plans had been adopted. The House has, if I may say so, been considering each item separately without taking into account the whole of the finance. Pressure was brought to bear on the Government to find £1,500.000, which had been intended, for the moment at any rate, to be placed on local rates—out of the Exchequer. I want the House to bear that in mind. The same thing applies to the Land Taxes.
§ What about the present Bill. There are difficulties in the insurance part—I am referring now purely to finance. There is always a temptation, whenever there is a difficulty of that kind, to solve it by increasing the State, Grant. It is said, "Let us go to the State," exactly as if taxes were like the gentle rain from Heaven coming down from somewhere without anybody interfering or putting their hands 1870 into their pocket, and forgetting that all those clouds of t axes have to evaporate out of the taxpayers' pockets to begin with. And when we come to consider the finance of the insurance scheme I have no doubt, some one will suggest "another half million from the State: surely it can afford, that," and there will be another proposal for £300,000, and "that, is nothing to the State." Surely the most extravagant way to cross a ravine is to build golden bridges over it. That is really the danger which we are liable to fall into when we come to consider a question of this kind.
§ I believe, and I still say so after considering carefully, that we can finance the National Insurance Bill without increasing the taxation of this country by a single penny, always provided that no additional demand is made upon the Exchequer in the meantime. Next year we shall have to find £2,500,000, and I believe we can find it. The following year we shall have to find £4,126,000, and the following year £4,781,000, and I believe we can find all that money without increased taxation. provided the conditions which I have ventured to lay down are strictly adhered to. In Germany the German contribution to the whole scheme is £2,500,000. Ours is very nearly £19,000,000. Surely that is lavish enough, and I respectfully warn the House of Commons—and I am sure nobody will think that I am not doing what. I really consider to be my duty in doing so—I respectfully warn and urge the House of Commons to consider the danger of the policy of moving increased demands in order to be able to go down to the constituencies and say. "I proposed this or I voted against that," and then casting the responsibility and the abuse for finding the money upon the poor Minister. It is really the House of Commons alone which is responsible, and I warn the House of Commons that any attempt to increase benefit must increase the extent of taxation. I appeal to Members therefore to assist the Government in resisting every inducement to place fresh burdens for this purpose upon the taxpayer in addition to the generous provision made for it. I beg to move: