King Country Chronicle. Saturday, March 19, 1932. BRITAIN'S BUDGET.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3445, 19 March 1932, Page 4

King Country Chronicle. Saturday, March 19, 1932. BRITAIN'S BUDGET.

A recent report states that not only is Great Britain going to balance her Budget, but there will be a surplus in the national income and expenditure. There will be no further need to borrow on current account, and the Mother Country i§ now well on the way to stabilisation of its finances, with the possibility of a reduction in general taxation. The credit of the country has been restored in a way which has surprised the world. Whether countries like the United States and France are pleased at the turn of the tide for Great Britain is a matter of conjecture, for they have done their utmost to keep her down by demanding their pound of flesh, manipulating their currencies, and by high tariff walls. Speaking at Norwich Sir John Simon said: "At Geneva, at Paris, in America, everywhere in the world where doubts had arisen as to whether this old country was entering on its decline, a new belief in the power of Britain to save herself -has been established. We have some distance to go before we return to prosperity. But the world believes to-day that Britain has power to surmount her difficulties because the world has realised that Britain has the will to do so. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole world to-day is very impressed with the recovery of Britain." It can be said that Great Britain has won one of the greatest victories in her history. During the many crises which the world has passed through during the last two years, the cards have been against the Mother Country in every way, but of all the large nations she is the only one that will be able to square its accounts. It has been a magnificent recovery, and one that will benefit the whole world. If other countries took the same broad-minded view of Great Britain in world affairs the present depression would soon melt away to give place to a free interchange of trade and finance. The cause of this depression is now well known, but France and the United States refuse to change their present and short-sight-ed policy over war debts, reparations and tariffs—a policy which is crippling 1 industry in every part of the world. It was when Great Britain's credit was under a cloud that the world fully realised what it owed to Great Britain's financial leadership and the difficulty, of finding a country to take her place in this way. For the present stability in finance can only be expected for Great Britain, and it seems that her statesmen, her taxpayers and her electors are all working for that stability, which will be followed by prosperity. At the Ottawa Conference the Dominions will be invited to link up with Great Britain in forming one Empire economic unit, and thus share in the better conditions promised in Great Britain. In these negotiations the Dominions will be called upon to make some sacrifices, and in view of the sacrifices made by the people of Great Britain during her great crisis, it is to be hoped that'there will be a ready response to the offers made by the Mother Country.