contributes under the new land taxation its share to the
public of the increment value which the public has given to it.

Then take the death duties. One would suppose from what one hears in
London and from the outcry that is raised, that the whole of the death
duties were collected from the peers and from the county families.
Again I say, look at the facts. The Inland Revenue report for last
year shows that L313,000,000 of property passing on death became
subject to death duties, and of that sum L228,000,000 was personalty
and not real estate, leaving only L85,000,000 real estate, and of that
L85,000,000 only L22,000,000 was agricultural land. These death duties
are represented as being levied entirely upon a small class of landed
gentry and nobility, but, as a matter of fact, there is collected from
that class in respect of agricultural land only seven per cent. of the
whole amount of money which the Exchequer derives from death
duties.[19]

I decline, however, to judge the question of the House of Lords simply
and solely by any action they may resolve to take upon the Budget. We
must look back upon the past. We remember the ill-usage and the
humiliation which the great majority that was returned by the nation
to support Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1906 has sustained in the
last three years at the hands of the House of Lords. That Assembly
must be judged by their conduct as a whole. Lord Lansdowne has
explained, to the amusement of the nation, that he claimed no right on
behalf of the House of Lords to "mince" the Budget. All, he tells us,
he has asked for, so far as he is concerned, is the right to "wince"
when swallowing it. Well, that is a much more modest claim. It is for
the Conservative Party to judge whether it is a very heroic claim for
one of their leaders to make. If they are satisfied with the wincing
Marquis, we have no reason to protest. We should greatly regret to
cause Lord Lansdowne and his friends any pain. We have no wish
whatever to grudge them any relief which they may obtain by wincing or
even by squirming. We accord them the fullest liberty in that
respect.

After all, the House of Lords has made others wince in its time. Even
in the present Parliament they have performed some notable exploits.
When the House of Lords rejected the Bill to prevent one man casting
his vote two or three times over in the same election, every one in
this country who desired to see a full and true representatio