THE GRAPHIC, April 23, 1932
591
T BUDGET.-Well, the ordinary income-tax payer did not get very much. In fact he got nothing-except hope and praise. The first he has already lived on for more months than he cares to remember. The second has already been laid on SO heavily that its sweetness had already begun to pall before the Chancellor began to show his generosity-in words. Because of the magnificent response to the national appeal for early payments by all alike, companies, individuals, and surtax payers, and by people with small incomes, everybody had showed the sense of duty and citizenship for which we had always relied on the British public in times of crisis. Income tax payments had reached such a flood that collectors had been unable to keep pace with the income in getting out receipts. That was a new and strange form of the embarrassment of riches. (Laughter.) Income-tax payers have this consolationthat they have effected a saving in the cost of Treasury Bills, and, by their example, they have invigorated peoples in other lands to look towards Great Britain with fresh confidence and hope in the capacity of this country."
THE NOES HAVE IT.-It was mainly a Budget of negatives. No income tax relief even to the small extent of adjusted allowances or in more equable half-yearly payments no reduction of the existing beer duty no war loan conversion scheme no promise of a second relief budget next September not even the expected something up the Chancellor's sleeve.
With the exception of the prophesied duty on tea (4d. a lb. on foreign and 2d. on Empire-grown leaf) and the slight juggling with sugar, the political tipsters guessed wrong every time. So the nation once more-in the words of Mr. Garvin in one of his less classical with the old kit-bag on moodshis shoulder will swing on and smile, knowing nearly for sure that at the end of another good march there will be some easing of the burthen.
This ENGLAND
FACTS AND FIGURES.-If the individual is no better off, there is at any rate a collective consolation in the fact that a threatened deficit of £74,000,000 last September has been changed to a small surplus-£796,000. The country was, in fact, said Mr. Chamberlain £9,000,000 better off to-day than Mr. Snowden anticipated when he drafted his Emergency Budget.
Budget for the forthcoming year: Supply services, £447,200,000, consolidated fund, £318,800,000, making a total expenditure of £766,000,000. To balance this the Chancellor, warning the House that it was in for a not agreeable quarter of an hour," reminded his listeners that in September Lord Snowden anticipated a fall in the Inland Revenue of £35,000,000. The imposition of £57,500,000 additional taxation had brought the revenue up to £459,500,000. As regards income tax and surtax, he could not estimate more than £260,000,000 and £66,000,000 respectively.
These taxes are not based upon profits of incomes accruing in the present year, but upon those of the year past. That is a year which reached a climax of depression unprecedented in our experience. I think we cannot have more convincing proof that we have approached the practical limits of raising money by income tax." The pre-tariff duties from Customs and Excise were calculated to yield £264,475,000. There was a prospective deficit of nearly £35,000,000. This has been largely offset by the new tariffs. Mr. Chamberlain, basing his hopes on figures already yielded by the Abnormal Imports duties, the horticultural duties, and the ten per cent. tariff, estimated a yield from this source of £27,000,000. From further recommendations of the Tariffs Advisory Committee (postponed, it was whispered
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because of internal Cabinet worries inseparable from the inevitable process of agreeing to differ ") a further £5,000,000.
THE LIGHTER SIDE.-If there were fewer comforts than usual in this Budget, there were much more humour. Mr. Chamberlain, usually described by political scribes as formal, unbending, icy, remote," got laughs with the regularity of a Robey. Beer was of course an obvious subject for jesting, death less SO.
The Chamberlain quips, perhaps offered instead of more solid consolation, included the following Even beer has not done SO badly as was anticipated by some enthusiasts. I wish to make my acknowledgments to those who, SO they have told me, have paid more money for worse beer rather than disappoint the expectations of the Treasury. I have received pathetic appeals to try to alleviate the hardship which was inflicted upon the beer drinker last September. I must say I have regarded their appeals with the sort of feelings with which the angler may regard a river that was being over-fished. In my opinion beer is overtaxed. (Cheers). But then, what industry and what individual is not overtaxed ?
As regards death duties, there has been an unprecedented shrinkage in the number of millionaire estates. It is very puzzling. I cannot explain the circumstances unless it is that the very rich have entered into some sort of patriotic conspiracy to cling to life. I have been tempted sometimes, in looking at these figures, to repeat the exclamation which I think was made by a British General in the Peninsular War when his men showed signs of hesitation in obeying an order. He shouted out, Come on. you rascals ! Do you want to live for ever
On politicians The savings on the expenditure side satisfactorily confound the sceptics who believe that politicians only keep one kind of promise, namely that they will spend more of the taxpayer's money than their predecessor."
And one more for the said Free Trader predecessor: Customs and Excise showed an increase of £3,000,000 over the September estimate. A good part of the increase is due to measures not in the mind of Lord Snowden when he was framing his estimates in September."
HOME FRONT SECURE.-Most heartening of the pre-Budget speeches was Mr. Runciman's review of trade conditions. In the campaign for prosperity, as the President of the Board of Trade outlined it, there were three stages-security of the home front a consolidation of those markets which were most hopeful, namely, the markets of the Empire and a final attack on world markets by negotiation for better trade with foreign countries. Because of the Abnormal Import duties, our imports had been cut down directly by some £8,000,000, and indirectly by about £17,000,000. This reservation of our purchasing power abroad had given much-needed impetus to industries at home. Although our exports for the first quarter of 1932 show a decrease of £11,000,000 compared with the first quarter of 1931. the diminution was less than that "suffered by the other principal trading countries. The best measure of our returning activity, said Mr. Runciman, was the remarkable fact that 250,000 more people were employed to-day than was the case in the critical days of last September and, in the measured words of the Government spokesman as far as we have been able to ascertain, the movement has not exhausted itself." Hopeful, too, was the evidences of foreign interest in the possibilties of Britain as a land fit for factories to live in. During the last two months nearly 400 foreign firms have made inquiries with a view to establishing factories inside the tariff walls. Seventy British concerns were extending plants at the request of foreign houses. Production had already started in forty-three of these new factories. The home front, said Mr. Runciman, is now secure. J.B.P.
