Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1925. THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10385, 2 May 1925, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1925. THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Mr Winston Churchill may be relied vipon to do something unusual and this characteristic is strikingly to the fore in his (first Budget. Though industrial and financial conditions have improved but slightly since the Labour Budget was presented, Mr Churchill, not content with reducing direct taxation by a substantial amount, proposes that the country, which has already to raise a revenue of £8,000,000, as compared with £198,000,000 in the year before the war, should commit itself to an ultimate capital liability of £750,000,000 for the purpose of financing a great compulsory pension insurance scheme which will affect about 15,000,000 people and be supported in- part by their contributions and those of their employers. He explained that the new proposals, which cover virtually the whole range of the wage-earn-ing population aim at placing the fund on a self-supporting-basis by means of progressive increases in the contributions. Marked though it is by audacious enterprise, Mr Churchill's handiwork appears to bear evidence also of ingenuity and foresight in the treatment of financial problems. The estimated expenditure for 1925 is £799,400,000, and the revenue £826,000,000, leaving a surplus of £26,600,000. The estimated expenditure is £3,700,000 more than the actual expenditure last year. They ought, said Mr Churchill, to aim to get a reduction in expenditure of not less than £.10,000,000 a year. He believed the revenue would steadily expand, and that a resolute effort would enable a yearly mi'tigafion of the heavy burden of taxation. Though he anticipated a gradual, if slow improvement in trade, however, he did not feel justified in budgeting for any substantial increase. But the pensions proposal is not the only striking feature of the Budget. The income tax which stood at 4s 6d will now be reduced to 4s, with additional relief for earned incomes and also in the basis of assessment for smaller incomes. There will also be reductions in the super-tax, but the death duties on big estates will be increased. The reduction in the income tax is really a compromise bearing- upon defence expenditure. The Army Estimates amount to £44,500,000, which is £500,000 less than those for last year, while the £60,500,000 allowed to the Navy is about £4,500,000 ahead of last year's figures. The Admiralty had desired an increase of £10,000,000, but Mr Churchill, with a shilling reduction of the income tax in view, objected. The difference was compromised by splitting- the

difference, with the result that the concession to income-tax payers was halved. The McKenna duties, which Mr Snowden abolished last year, are to be reiniposed, while the scope of Imperial preference, which was curtailed by the Labour Chancellor, is to be again extended. Certainly the number of items covered by the latter proposal is limited and the amount small, but in the circumstances the concessions may be regarded as an earnest of a sincere desire on the part of the Baldwin Government to foster Empire trade to its utmost. Above all, the Budget is boldly progressive and democratic and it would be imagined should have received warm commendation from the Labour Party, instead of the , grudging praise accorded it.