§
Finally, still on the task of fortification, I come to that celebrated group of duties for ever associated with the name of the eminent free trade financier and Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. McKenna. When that right hon. Gentleman first proposed these duties, he used the following words. I see a great many Gentlemen on the opposite benches who were his colleagues at the time, and who supported him accordingly in the use of these words:
The particular articles which we have chosen have been chosen, primarily, upon the ground that their consumption is not
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required in this country; secondly, upon the ground of improving our fallen exchange; and, thirdly, on the ground that, in satisfying these two objects, we shall still obtain a certain degree of revenue.
§ Those were his reasons in 1915, and every one of those reasons exists to-day. If those articles were luxuries then, they are luxuries now. If there was a need to diminish luxury importation from the United States of America then on account of the dollar exchange, has that need become any loss urgent on the morrow of our return to the gold standard? If such comparatively small receipts of revenue counted in the great War Budgets of those times, surely they count much more in the meagre period to which I have succeeded. These duties will give pleasure in almost every quarter of the House, for various reasons. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite below the Gangway will be able to point out how wise and farseeing they have been in warning the country of the hideous dangers of Protection which they were recklessly incurring; hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on this side, and perhaps above the Gangway, too, will be able to use all those arguments about stimulating British trade in particular industries with which we are all very familiar. I do not grudge anybody any reason which may lead them to vote for the reimposition of these duties. To some they are a relish, to others a target, and to me a revenue. They will bring in £1,600,000 a year in the first year and nearly £3,000,000 in a, full year. We cannot afford to throw away a revenue like that.
§ I said last year that the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in deciding to single out these duties, which were lying quite quietly and not interfering with anybody, and to bring them into the forefront of affairs, was actuated much less by considerations of high finance than by considerations of high political strategy. His action was not endorsed by the electorate at the following election. I believe that a great majority of Members in this House won their seats on a clear view that those duties ought not to have been taken off. We cannot afford the loss of this revenue, and the duties must be restored. They are capable of annual review, after all, and there may come another Chancellor 70 of the Exchequer, in times when revenue is more abundant and when expenditure is less exacting, who may be able, once again, to roll away this hideous cloud of oppression, and wealthy and patriotic persons will once again be able to recreate their exhausted strength in untaxed foreign motor cars no longer burdened by a 33A per cent. duty.
§ The total yield of all these optional taxes will be £5,730,000 in the first year and £10,000,000 in a full year. In order to obtain the maximum yield from the Silk and McKenna Duties, we shall endeavour to bring them into force on the 1st July, and for that purpose we shall have to ask the Committee and the House to press steadily on with the Budget in. the intervening period.
§ 5.0 P.M.
§ I have now completed my fortification of the revenue. None of the new duties falls en the mass of the people, none touches the necessaries or even moderate, common comforts of daily life. Together, they will yield £10,230,000 in 1925, and, what is far more important to me in the policy which I propose to outline, they give more than £20,000,000 a year of permanent revenue in 1926 and in future years. The surplus, therefore, of £26,600,000 is now raised by these additions to £36,830,000, and I also have a permanent addition to the Revenue worth anther £10,000,000 which will accrue in the following year. That is, over and above the extra £10,000,000 added this year there will be another £10,000,000 next year, and over and above the normal revenue of this year it represents an increase of £20,000,000.