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He...burst into an enthusiastic defence of the system of raising Party funds by the sale of honours. "You and I," he said, "know perfectly well it is a far cleaner method of filling the Party chest than the methods used in the United States or the Socialist Party." He complained that the Socialist Party was a trade union party solely because of the power of the trade unions to withhold funds. "In America the steel trusts supported one political party, and the cotton people supported another. This placed political parties under the domination of great financial interests and trusts." "Here," said Mr. Lloyd George, "a man gives £40,000 to the Party and gets a baronetcy. If he comes to the Leader of the Party and says I subscribe largely to the Party funds, you must do this or that, we can tell him to go to the devil. The attachment of the brewers to the Conservative Party was the closest approach," said Mr. Lloyd George, "to political corruption in this country. The worst of it is that you cannot defend it in public, but it keeps politics far cleaner than any other method of raising funds. (en) |
