BRITISH FINANCES

Evening Star, Issue 19197, 13 March 1926, Page 4

BRITISH FINANCES

, THE ECONOMY BILE. Prcfig Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. .LONDON, March 11. It is estimated that between £8,000,000 and £10,00(.),000 will he saved in the coming year under the Economy Bill which was introduced in the House of Commons by Mr Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer). Speaking in the House in regard to the measure, Mr Churchill said that the savings during the second year would he slightly less than in the' first year. There would be a yearly saving for the next three years of £2,750,000 on the health insurance grants and a weekly reduction of |d per capita in the Government’s contribution to unemployment insurance.—A. and N.Z. Cable. ECONOMY JN BRITAIN. A warning of the urgent need of economy in national and local public expenditure was given by Air Stanley Baldwin hi an address to a Conservative meeting in London. He referred to a recent speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which Mr Churchill stated that before there could bo a reduction in expenditure it would be necessary to effect savings equivalent to the increases in expenditure that had occurred in connection with tba cost of the new pensions scheme, the building of cruisers to replace obsolete ships, and also the automatic growth of expenditure on existing services. “We shall need the stoutest support of all our friends ivhen we lay our proposals before Parliament,” said Mr Baldwin. “ Unless great economies are secured — and I cannot state tins too definitely—an increase of taxation, either this year or next, whatever Government is in power, will be inevitable. I want you to be under no illusions as to the difficulty of effecting economies, even under favorable The ground has been gone over with care by successive Governments, and it is obvious that substantial economies today must mean sacrifices; not necessarily of luxuries alone, but of things that we have perhaps regarded almost in the category of necessities. My colleagues and I have been going into this matter throughout the winter months with the greatest care, and we shall endeavour to hold the scales evenly between the various competing claimants upon the National Exchequer.” Referring to local expenditure, Mr Baldwin said:—‘‘Rates press upon industry quite as much as taxes, perhaps more so, because their incidence is less adjusted to the capacity to pay. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should endeavour_ to practise economy in local as in national affaire. In so doing you can help to case the total bulk of the national burdens and to increase the national savings.”