Tobacco Price Up In Britain: Budget Aims

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 April 1948, Page 5

Tobacco Price Up In Britain: Budget Aims

(Recd. 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, April 6. The Imperial Tobacco Company announced that pipe tobacco would be increased by 2Jd per ounce as a result of the Budget increase of 3s 4d per lb of leaf tobacco. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps, in a broadcast said the keynotes of the Budget were to fight inflation and to encourage the producer, the housewife and the per-* son living on small fixed incomes. The extra cost would fall on those who drank alcoholic liquors, smokers, bettors and, to some extent, by way of the purchase tax on buyers of the less necessary goods. The rest of the burden would fall on those with considerable invested capital, who will be asked for this year of special difficulty to make this once for all contribution to solving the nation’s problems. [ Referring to income tax reliefs; he said that nobody could now complain that they were held back from increased effort by the severity of the income tax burden. The income tax remission would amount to £101,000,000 in a full year. He pointed out that while the Budget surplus on orthodox lines of accountancy was estimated at £789,000,000, the overall surplus of all Government expenditure would be £330,000,000. He said that was a measure of the contribution which he hoped the Budget would make to the total saving necessary to- counter the inflationary tendency. “I am convinced that we as a nation are tackling our problems with a sense of realism and determination, which promise a victorious solution to our problems,” the Chancellor said, “The Budget has been framed to back up the national effort by Government action.”