COMMENT ON THE BUDGET

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22388, 29 April 1938, Page 11

COMMENT ON THE BUDGET

DEBATE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

LABOUR CONDEMNS INCREASE IN TAXATION

(BRITISH OFFICIAL WIIWLMB.V RUGBY, April 27. The debate on the Budget was opened for Labour by Mr F. W. Pethick-Lawrence, who said that although it was a peacetime Budget it was not' merely depressing but deplorable. It placed burdens on every section of the community by adding to taxation and tying up posterity with increasing burdens of debt. Faltering finance had marked the conduct of the last war, but this time it had started before the war had begun, added Mr Pethick-Law-rence. The Government was asking for unity and sacrifices. For a policy which would secure the + world against war, the Labour Party and the whole country would face great sacrifices, but the Opposition could see no evidence that the policy of the Government was one to command the united sentiment of the nation. It seemed rather that they were asking for sacrifices, not for the things of which unity could undoubtedly be obtained, but for the triumph of aggression and the suppression of democracy. . , . /T Sir Archibald Sinclair (Liberal) described the Budget as austere and honest. There was no doubt that Parliament would pass the defence expenditure, because all parties were convinced of the necessity of rearmament. Foreign Governments would make a great mistake if they reckoned on any faltering so long as the threat existed ,of aggression from Powers which were ,still using war as an instrument of national policy. However, he thought that the strength of national unity depended on the diligence, firmness, and resource which the Government showed in pursuing the , construction of its policy of peace. Sir Alan Anderson (Conservative) said that the Budget was Recognised as the Budget of a crjpis. He was glad that was so,.as the fact would reverberate through the world and the world would realise that the nation intended to be strong and united and that it would face the consequences. The great contribution of England to civilisation was the idea of freedom, and he looked upon these annual Budgets as a test of their profession of the desire that freedom and democracy should survive.