The wizened, gnomish little Yorkshireman who goes tapping about the House of Commons on two canes popped up again last week, made Mother England jump at his shrill words like a drowsy old lady at the squeak of a mouse.
Philip Snowden is a country mouse. In the Chancellor of the Exchequer's honest squeak there is power, much reverence for God and small regard of men. Indeed what he said last week chiefly embarrassed the Labor Government of which he himself is the most brilliant member. Some 21 radical Labor M. P.'s threatened to leave the party.
The Chancellor was forced into making the speech he made. It was his defense against charges of "gross extravagance" leveled against him by Conservatives. As the little Yorkshireman began his defense there were Labor cheers, then vigorous Conservative heckling. But as he progressed dead silence came upon the Labor benches behind him, finally settled like a pall over the whole House. Members listened as if stupefied to his declaration that Great Britain not only faces a budgetary deficit of $150,000,000 for the fiscal year ending March 31, but will face next year a deficit equivalent to a quarter of a billion dollars.
"I say with all the seriousness I can command," cried Philip Snowden, "that the national position is so grave that drastic and disagreeable measures will have to be taken. . . . The greatest sacrifices will have to be borne by those best able to bear them!"
"Posterity Will Curse!" When the till is short the cashier is supposed to feel guilty. With an almost religious fervor Mr. Snowden cast the onus of this guilt upon his predecessors at the Exchequer. He directly faced and was seen to point an avenging finger at Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin (who as Chancellor of the Exchequer negotiated the Anglo-U. S. debt settlement) as he said:
"I don't want to give offense to anybody when I make this statement, that when the history of the way, in which that debt was incurred—its recklessness, its extravagance and its commitments made, which were altogether unnecessary at the time—when all that comes to be known. I am afraid posterity will curse those who were responsible!"
Turning upon Conservative Winston Churchill, his immediate predecessor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Snowden declared that to untangle the "mess" made by Mr. Churchill of the nation's finances he, Snowden, has had to impose an extra $200,000,000 of taxation.
Cut the Dole? Such pot shots at the enemy pass more or less unnoticed in Parliament, but Mr. Snowden made his own party sit up and gasp when he appeared to foreshadow a cut in the unemployment dole.
"Expenditure which may be easy in prosperous times," he said, "becomes impossible in times of grave industrial depression. . . .
"I have been in active politics for more than forty years and my only object has been to improve the lot of the toiling masses. If I ask any temporary suspension it is because I believe it is necessary to make future prosperity possible. The budget position is serious. . . .
"I may put it bluntly. An increase of taxation now, an increase which fell upon industry, would be the last straw.