Mr. Lloyd George was in his most bellicose mood on
Friday week at Limehouse, when he addressed a large meeting under the auspices of the Budget League. After charging the Opposition with always wishing to be generous at the expense of others and a good debating " score " off their objection to old-age pensions, by the promise of which they had themselves won elections, Mr. Lloyd George settled down to the task of glorifying the splendid humanity of the Govern- ment proposals, condemning their critics as the " shabby rich," and inveighing against the criminality of landlords. He adduced cases of unearned increment in the immediate neighbourhood to show what was possible up to the present "through the fraud of the few and folly of the million." Further charges of alleged extortion were brought against the ground landlords of Bootle, Wales, Greenock, and Richmond, and the Dukes of Northumberland and Westminster, in regard to which we need only say that Mr. Lloyd George has since been convicted of the most reckless perversion of facts. " Oh ! these Dukes, bow they harass us," exclaimed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proceeding to draw a melodramatic contrast between the landlord whose sole function is " the stately consumption of wealth produced by others " and the doctor who earned his income by practising the divine art of healing. The leasehold system " was not business, it was blackmail," with endless ground-rents, fees, fines, premiums, &c.
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