Budget Not Tough Enough, Commons Speakers Say

Northern Advocate, 26 April 1940, Page 6

Budget Not Tough Enough, Commons Speakers Say

LONDON. April 24. JHE BUDGET DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS WAS OPENED BY MR P. LAWRENCE FOR THE OPPOSITION. Hr siiill he reserved Ihe atlilude of Iho Labour Party to the proposed .sales tax until the Government had proved that it was not an ■aggravation of a tendeney which lie had already semi toward an unequal distribution of taxes. He said that as the war went on the habits of life and the whole structure of society would tend to change, and the time would come when more drastic taxes would have to be imposed.

Mr Graham White, for the Liberals, expressed doubt whether the expenditure of £2,667.000.000 was sufficiently high.

He said he feared that the Budget was not realistic and did not take sufficient account oi the fact that they were waging a totalitarian war. They could not in safety or honour be satisfied unless they were making sacrifices equal to those of their Allies. He .also reserved the attitude of the Liberals to the sales tax. i Asking- Less Than Justified Mr L. S. Amery expressed misgivings similar to those of Mr Graham White that the national effort indicated was inadequate. He suggested an expenditure in the neighbourhood of £3,000.000,000, and said he felt that the Chancellor had failed in the scale of his Budget. Subsequent speakers from both Conservative and Labour benches proved critical of the Chancellor’s proposals, generally not in a partisan or captious spirit, but for the most part from the point of view that he was .asking less from the nation than its determination to achieve victory would have justified. The debate was .adjourned. War Effort Inefficient Criticism of the inadequacy of Britain’s financial effort was again the keynote of the resumed Budget debate. Dr. Hugh Dalton (Labour) said the war effort was gravely inefficient. The large unexpended amount of money discredited Ministers, who were waging the war half heartedlv and lackadaisically. Britain was not producing enough aircraft and arms and she was not producing them fast enough. She was not producing a sufficiency of other necessaries. Many quarters were most concerned by the waste of foreign assets, due to leakage from the Foreign Exchange Control Fund.

“Treasury’s Clammy Hand” The economic war, said Dr. Dalton, also was being waged most inadequately. The “Treasury’s clammy hand” still retarded economic war in South East Europe .and elsewhere. Dr. Dalton supported a capital levy. The general impression of the Budget debate so far as it has gone (says a British Official Wireless message) is that, although points of detail are questioned, there is a unanimous desire by all parties to see the war prosecuted in the most energetic fashion. Through all the speeches has run an underlying determination once and for all to break the Nazi menace, whatever sacrifice may he involved. ‘‘Purchase Tax” In business circles there is curiosity to know the size of the yield which the Chancellor is looking for from the proposed “purchase tax.” This is shared by trade circles anxious to estimate its effects on business and by those economist critics of the Government who consider its plans do not provide for a sufficiently large diversion of civilian spending.