BUDGET HOPES IN BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 145, 16 March 1934, Page 10

BUDGET HOPES IN BRITAIN

As there is every prospect of a substantial surplus at the end of the British financial year the public not unnaturally is indulging.m pleasant anticipations of favours to come when the Chancellor presents his Budget next month. In framing his previous Budget Mr. Chamberlain refused to count on any considerable improvement in trade during the ensuing 12 months, and budgeted on the assumption that the national income would continue to fall. That was souni. policy, and in accord with the conditions existing at that. time. Since then there has been a steady improvement all round, with the result that a large surplus—sonie. estimate it at £40,000,000 —is considered assured. “The very success of the Government,” said The Times in recent comment on the general political situation, ‘ has created some new problems as, for example, the problem of what to do with, a Budget surplus.” Reductions in taxation and the restoration of wages and salaries cuts are the first things that occur to the mind. The British people have had two gruelling years in fighting their way out of the depression. Now that the worst is over, with a financial surplus in sight, demands are certain to be made for an easing of the strain. On the other hand the Government has large schemes in train or in view, for speeding up the process of recovery. It assumed control of the nation s affairs with two main objects in view: First, to stop the financial rot that had set in as the result of-the Labour Government’s profligate expenditure; and, second, to place the nation’s economy on a sound basis for the future. It has achieved the first, and is now preoccupied with the second. In the meantime, however, the general political situation has changed. Old party slogans, dropped when the crisis was at its height, are being revived. The Labour Party has won several by-elections, and scored a major success in the London County Council elections. The Government has suffered in prestige through its handling of foreign affairs and of the disarmament question. Finally, the Samuelite Liberals have crossed the floor of the House. In these circumstances it would seem politic for the Chancellor to relax his rigid control of the finances and frame a popular Budget. It was a panic-stricken electorate that put the National Government in with an overwhelming majority and a doctor’s mandate. But that was over two years ago.. The nation has got over its fright: a large part of it, in truth, has completely forgotten it. Mass opinion has no sense of history. It lives for the day. “The great trouble,” said Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in a recent speech, “is that our people have no memories.” Now that British nerves have recovered their equilibrium, and British electors have again become susceptible to the normal influences and fluctuations of politics, it may be expected that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will Budget as a politician rather than as a doctor. His patient, being now in that stage of convalescence that finds the discipline of the sickroom becoming irksome, is now inclined to clamour and fret under the restraints and rigours of his prolonged and strict regime, and threatening to call in another doctor. That is human nature, and it will not be surprising to find in tile next Budget that “Dr.” Chamberlain has correctly diagnosed these symptoms of unrest.