BRITAIN'S WAR BUDGET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15770, 19 November 1914, Page 8

BRITAIN'S WAR BUDGET.

ENORMOUS FIGURES.

DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

PREPARING FOR AFTERMATH.

LONDON, November 17.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George, presented his Budget statement in the House of Commons. He estimated next year's expenditure at £206,924,000, in addition to £323,443,000 war expenditure, the probable deficiency being £339,571,000. The first year of the war would cost at least £450,000,000, while the largest sum Britain had previously spent on war in a single year was £71,000,000.

British expenditure was higher in proportion than that of any other country. Already she had at least two million men under arms, and he confidently anticipated that the number would reach three millions in a few months. The separation allowances alone would then cost £05,000,000 annually.

His proposals for taxation arising out of the war included a double income tax, but this year it was intended to collect only on one-third of a person's income. The beer duty would bo increased a halfpenny per half-pint, and tea would be increased by threepence. There would be no extra whisky tax.

The tea duty would produce £32,000,000 next year and the beer duty £17,000,000. The country's income at the present time was £-2,300.000,000, whereas in Napoleonic times it was only £250,000,000. If we rose to the heroic level of our ancestors now, we would be raising £700.000.000 annually. Mr. Lloyd George, continuing his speech, said that during the war industries would be enormously occupied, and the country would then have to face the most serious industrial situation it had ever confronted. The war would have exhausted an enormous amount of the wood's capital, Britain's purchasers at Home and abroad would be crippled, and it was, therefore, desirable to raise as much taxation as was possible during trade inflation.

Tho Government would not levy taxation which would interfere with any productive industry. Britainwas fighting an enemy which, unless subjected to a smashing defeat, would not submit to terms which could prudently be accepted. He hoped the chief result of the war would be an all-round reduction in armaments. WEEK'S WAR BILL. OVER TWELVE MILLIONS. London, November 17. The cost of the war to Britain last week was £12,755,000, the highest figure on record.