PRESS COMMENT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 110, 22 April 1936, Page 7

PRESS COMMENT

Debt Service Might Have Been Reduced TAXING THE POOREST (Received 22, 1.10 p.m.) LONDON, April 22. "The Times” says: ‘‘‘The Budget dues not make pleasant reading, but the disappointment will be cheerfully borne because the wisdom of the expenditure is universally recognised. The Government is still valiantly striving to establish a new rule of order and justice throughout the world based on collective resistance to all acts of lawless aggression. Such a policy will require adequate armed forces. “Mr. Chamberlain,” adds the paper, "clearly sought to spread the increase of taxation as equitably as possible over the whole population.” The "Daily Telegraph” expresses the opinion that the Chancellor might have deferred the question of the tea duty until a decision had been made regarding a defence loan. Alternatively, he might have reduced the £224,000,000 allocated to the debt service by the sum he expects to get from the extra duty and from the increase in income-tax.

The "Manchester Guardian,” describing the speech as the gravest since the war, says: "The arguments for embarking on a great armaments race and the foreign policy with which it will be bound up will be examined in a different light when even the poorest home is taxed to meet the cost. This is clearly the first of a series of crisis Budgets in which the canons of finance, seemingly so desperately important in the other crisis in 1931, will bo *.iought of small account.”