Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 27 July 1938, Page 6

Timely Topics

"Sir John Simon's line of thought must have been," lasserts the "Financial Times," "that it is described to finance as much rearmament as possible cut of taxation, and that, therefore, he must take every advantage. of what will be a good tax year. It m'ay be the last really good tax year for some time, for he did net seek to: conceal his opinion that trade was in a deciine. While it should not be exaggerated, the danger that this decline may be speeded up by a deflationary Budget cannot be ignored. The concessions to the small taxpayer and the increase of depreciation allowances to industry shew that the Government is aware of the danger and anxious to mitigate it. The expenditure of borrowed money this year should help to balance the increase in ' taxation, and in the years to come a more inflatior.'ary form of Government finance seems unavoidable. The peak of armament expenditure may not be seen until the year after next, and so we have by no means experienced the maximum effect of arms spending !upcn the economic system. If the immediate economic outlook is not 'improved by the Chancellor's proposals, it seems to make the use of finan- [ cial strychnine more certain in the [future." 1 SI. g g ig

ECONOMIC STRYCHNINE.

[ "The Yellow River, not inapproprifately named 'China's Sorrow," choos»es this moment when its -defences J have been dam'aged or neglected, to seek another course to the sea (says "Oriental Affairs," Shanghai). Seven times previously has it done so, in historical times. The League of Nations experts who surveyed it in 1935 reported that at some points its bed was already thirty feet above the level" of the plain. Destruction of some' of the dykes by the Chinese was reported early in March. It is conceivable, if it is not actually probable, that this waterway will inflict more casualties and material loss upon the, unforseveral years of warfare on the same tun'ate Chinese people, than would scale as that of the past nine months. "It may—according to which " direction the floods spread—b&r the advance of the Japanese on Hankow. But at what la cost. The question of a military victory on either side may be overshadowed by <a natural calamity greater than has ever been recorded in history. For the density of population in the four provinces most likely to suffer—Hopei, Shantung, Horan and Kiangsu—averages more than two hundred per square kilometre." .--..._■•

CHINA'S SORROW-