BUDGET PROPOSALS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 175, 21 April 1937, Page 11

BUDGET PROPOSALS

Mr. Chamberlain’s Sixth and Last NATION’S DEFENCE PLAN (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, April 19. A special meeting of Cabinet will be held to-night, at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, will explain his Budget proposals to his colleagues. The Budget will be presented to the House of Commons to-morrow afternoon. This will be Mr. Chamberlain’s sixth Budget statement, but it is expected he will have relinquished office before the Finance Act of the year that will be introduced to implement his proposals is placed on the Statute Book. Many speculations are made in the Press as to the contents of the Budget, but precautions to prevent premature disclosure are strictly drawn and no reliance can be placed on these forecasts. Publication of the Estimates shows, however, that provision must be made for an expenditure of £408,000,000 for civil departments, £14,000,000 for revenue departments, excluding the Post Office, which is a self-balancing service, and £197,000.000 for defence services, in addition to £80,000,000 which is to be met out of a loan. Meeting Debt Charges. A further sum of £235,000,000 will be required to meet debt charges if the amount paid under this head in the past year remains unchanged. This represents a total of just, under £855,000,000, which is £57,000,000 over last year’s Budget total. It is assumed that owing to the continued improvement in trade, Mr. Chamberlain will be able to count on a substantial increase in the yield of revenue from most of the existing forms of taxation. , A Press Association cablegram from London states that apart from base metals expectations of firmer commodity markets were fulfilled. Stock markets were firm, gilt-edgeds and industrials rising, thus suggesting that the Budget is awaited without trepidation.