WORKING FOR STATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 21, 24 July 1940, Page 9

WORKING FOR STATE

THREE AND A HALF DAYS

REAL OBJECT OF THE BUDGET

TAKING SURPLUS

LONDON, July 23.

A London commentator said that, taking the nation as a whole, one-half of what the people earned would go to the State and they could only spend the other half on themselves. For three and a half days of the week the country was working for the war effort. They could only consume

the goods they produced in the other three and a half days of the week, and if they had some money over that was not needed to buy goods it would go to the State.

. The real object of the war Budget, supplemented by the national savings campaign, was to take from the people their surplus money either in war taxation or war loans. The Budget would leave means for the necessities of life and just enough over to pay for some relaxation. That was all the people of Britain could afford today. The smaller incomes would bear comparatively little income tax, which was right and proper, but the moment that people began to buy luxuries they must bear their share of the national burden. The taxpayer was to have the taxation compulsorily deducted from his wages or salary week by week or month by month. After paying their taxes, the people must still save voluntarily another £2,000,000,000 a year. The real object of the Budget was to make the people spend less on what they could do without while providing for the necessary war expenditure. . c