than was absolutely necessary. Like the late Mr. GLADSTONE, he has a
tendency to digress into financial backwaters instead of sticking to
the main Pactolian stream. His excursus upon the impracticability of
a levy on capital was really redundant, though it pleased the
millionaires and reconciled them to the screwing-up of the
death-duties. Still, on the whole, he had a more flattering tale to
unfold than most of us had ventured to anticipate, and he told it
well, in spite of an occasional confusion in his figures. After all,
it must be hard for a Chancellor who left the national expenditure
at a hundred and fifty millions and comes back to find it multiplied
tenfold not to mistake millions for thousands now and again.

[Illustration: _Budget Victims._ "YOU MAY HAVE WON THE WAR, BUT WE'VE
GOT TO PAY FOR IT."]

On the whole the Committee was well pleased with his performance,
partly because the gap between revenue and expenditure turned out to
be a mere trifle of two hundred millions instead of twice or thrice
that amount; partly because there was, for once, no increase in the
income-tax; but chiefly, I think, for the sentimental reason that in
recommending a tiny preference for the produce of the Dominions and
Dependencies Mr. CHAMBERLAIN was happily combining imperial interests
with filial affection.

Almost casually the CHANCELLOR announced that the Land Values Duties,
the outstanding feature of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S famous Budget of 1909,
were, with the approval of their author, to be referred to a Select
Committee, to see if anything could be made of them. If only Mr.
ASQUITH had thought of that device when his brilliant young lieutenant
first propounded them! There would have been no quarrel between the