THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12784, 6 May 1914, Page 5

THE BRITISH BUDGET.

ESTIMATED REVENUE

£2O 0,(555,000. AND EXPENDITURE £205,985,000. By Eloctric Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, May 4. The British Budget has been presented to the House of Commons, by Mr Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The estimated revenue is £200,655,000 and the expenditure £205,985,000. Another £4,000,000 required to as sist local authorities. It is proposed to raise £9,000,000 by an additional tax on incomes over £IOOO ranging from to 16d up to £3OOO, while the supertax limit is lowered to £3OOO. The readjustments will yield £5,250,000 and the supertax £2,500,000. Death duties have been increased on estates over £(>0,000, yielding an additional £OOO,OOO. Capital invested abroad will be taxed, yielding £250,000. The balance of the deficiency will be taken from the sinking fund.

ALL PARTIES PUZZLED

ASSISTANCE TO LOCAL BODIES. GRANTS TO STARVING SCHOOL CHILDREN. LONDON, May 5. The Budget speech occupied 2Yj hour 3. There were practically no purple patches. The magnitude and in tricacy of proposals puzzled all parties. Mr Lloyd George said the relief rates averaged 9d in the £ and in some cases Is fid. A precondition to a grant to local authorities -would be efficient service in respect to the poor law, police, roads and education. Parliament for forty years had been imposing costly functions on local authorities without making provision to sustain them. Many Acts, particularly housing, were dead letters in some districts where the rateable value was. low and municipal activity was at a standstill. Parliament practically acquiesced in the suspension of many laws because the local authorities were without means to carry them out. The essential part of the scheme was a national system of valuation for local taxation which would be more equitable and impartial between the classes and localities than the present system. Such valuation would separate site from improvement, but ho had no intention to transfer the whole burden to the site. Half a million would be devoted to meals for needy school children, physical training and open air schools. Hundreds of thousands attended the schools daily in a condition of semistar ---utirn an 3 any attempt to teach them was a mockery and torture.

NATIONAL NURSING SERVICE

INCREASED INCOME SUPER-TAX

Received 10.50 p.m. LONDON, May 5

Under the Voluntary Act 3(50,000 children would be relieved, but another £260.000 was required to help the future exchequer to contribute half the cost of the meals. £750,000 would be spent in developing a national nursing service and local centres for diagnosis and research. After consulting the best authorities Mr Lloyd George was of opinion that though there would be slackness in certain trades others would hi busier than ever and on the whole he expected no serious set back. Trade in 1914 was likely to be of the average, but it was not safe to anticipate a continuation of the boom of 1913, but the depression will be shallow and will not last long. Dealing with taxation Mr Lloyd George pointed out that direct taxation is now 00 per cent and indirect 40 per cent and when Government came into office c-ach was 50 per cent. Death duties on estates over £60,000 had increased until the maximum of 20 per cent upon an estate of £1,000,000, instead of the present 15 per cent, realising £3,000,000 in the full year. Increases in the income and supertax would make a man with an income of £IOO,OOO annually pay 2s (id in the £ compared with the present Is Sd. A statutory declaration of the total income would be enforced under stringent penalties in order to prevent investments abroad where income accumulated as capital. The only reduction announced was the doubling of the paternity benefit.

Mr Chamberlain said ho would not attempt to debate the complicated changes, though he deprecated the raid on the sinking fund. The House of Commons agreed to the income tax resolutions and adjourned. There was some surprise in the lobby and a period of embittered party controversy. The House of Commons will be asked to consider a complete recasting of local government finance. Some Unionists describe it as a dissolution Budget owing to the heav/ calls upon the rich. The Liberals generally approve of it.