WILL SLUMP FOLLOW BOOM?

Horowhenua Chronicle, 19 July 1937, Page 7

WILL SLUMP FOLLOW BOOM?

BRITISH CHANCELLOR SAYS NO (British Official Wireless.) Received Sunday, 9i20 p.m.' RUGBY, July 16. The third reading of the Finance Bill passed the Commons Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, dealt with the criticisms of the Government’s resort to borrowing to supplement the main contributions provided year by year by the taxpayers. He drew a distinction between borrowing for immediate current needs that came to be criticised in 1931 and the present borrowing for a programme which was designed to give security for a generation to taxpayers ana which was accompanied by large contributions from taxpayers. In 1931 there was no provision for repayment. The provision now being made included a specific arrangement for the redemption of what is borrowed over 25 years and a charge on the defence loan of an annuity. What was happening under the national defence loan was having no damaging effect on credit. Referring to the suggestions that always followed periods of prosperity Sir John Eixnon said he could not accept such a calvinistic view when as at present the expansion of trade was healthy. He described as a fallacy Opposition criticism that the present trade prosperity was of a temporary and artificial nature due to a great extent to-the expansion of armaments. An immense and sustained improvement in trade took place long before. He was not disputing that the additional expansion of armaments did not increase the volume of our trade, but it was not the original or main cause of the present trade prosperity and. it did not follow that, later we were going to fall back into the depths of a depression.