Welsh Journals

LLOYD GEORGE, THE NAVY ESTIMATES, AND THE INCLUSION OF RATING RELIEF IN THE 1914 BUDGET I. TWO aspects of David Lloyd George's political behaviour in the winter of 1913-14 have proved particularly puzzling to historians. First, there has been no ready explanation for his conduct in the prolonged Cabinet contest over the Navy estimates for 1914-15. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government of H. H. Asquith, and leader of the 'economists' in the Cabinet in the previous major contest over the Navy estimates in 1909, Lloyd George showed a natural concern at Winston Churchill's increased estimates for 1914-15. But he never assumed the lead in challenging those estimates, and once he had joined the opposition to Churchill he was the first to offer a compromise solution. In seeking to explain his behaviour, Michael Fry, in a study of Lloyd George and British foreign policy, has emphasised the chancellor's underlying commitment to British naval supremacy. Patricia Jalland, in her study of the Liberals and the Ulster question, has suggested that Lloyd George compromised over the Navy because Churchill was an essential Cabinet ally in his attempt to secure the temporary exclusion of Ulster from Home Rule Second, historians have been puzzled by Lloyd George's inclusion of rating relief and reform in his 1914 Budget, when his original plan had evidently been to tackle the problems of local government finance and taxation in his 1915 Budget. 1914 was premature. The land valuation of the 'People's Budget' of 1909-10, which Lloyd George wished to adapt for rating purposes, was not scheduled for completion until 1915. Likewise, the report of the Departmental Committee on Local Taxation, appointed in 1912, and the urban report of Lloyd George's own 'Land Enquiry', also set up in 1912, were only due to appear in 1914. When Lloyd George presented his Budget to the House of Commons in May 1914, the Local Finance Bill that his scheme for rating reform required had not even been properly drafted, let alone approved by the House. In the event, in June 1914 Lloyd George was forced by opposition from within his own party to withdraw the provisions for local government finance M. G. Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy: The Education of a Statesman, 1890-1916 (Montreal, 1977), pp. 153-81; P. Jalland, The Liberals and Ireland: The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914 (Brighton, 1980), pp. 187-89. See also F. W. Wiemann, 'Lloyd George and the Struggle for the Navy Estimates of 1914', in A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London, 1971).