The Government's exultation at the alleged popularity of the Budget
in the country has been short-lived. While there are no trustworthy indications that the nation at large approves of the new Land-taxes, there is abundant evidence that the Parliamentary situation is becming daily more and more complicated. and difficult. Pressed not only by the protests of the Opposition, but still more by .the inherent absurdities, injustices, and paradoxes of their own proposals, the Government have had to make concession after concession. But since those concessions are not made in obedience to any coherent principle, bat are largely the out- come of considerations of expediency, they as often as not lead to new and even greater complications. For example, the injustice of forcing the owners of land which will not be affected by the new taxation to go to the tremendous expense of valuing their own land in order to show whether it is or is not taxable could not stand the criticism brought to bear upon it. The Government's new proposal to do the work themselves at a cost which they calculate will be two millions, but which is much more likely to be ten, will need the employ- nient of a horde of new officials, and has at once brought into view a whole crop of fresh difficulties.
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