THE FINANCES OF BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20219, 2 April 1929, Page 8

THE FINANCES OF BRITAIN.

With commendable promptitude the figures for British revenue and expenditure in 1928-29 have been issued, showing a surplus considerably in excess of that expected. There is, however, a feature not explained, the reduction of the sinking fund payment, provided for at the rate of £65,000,000, by roughly £7,500,000. Presenting the last Budget, Mr. Churchill said he expected a grogs surplus of revenue over expenditure amounting to £33,702,000. From this he proposed to take certain sums, including £14,000,000 to make the sinking fund up to £65,000,000. This was the principal deduction by which he reduced his surplus to the net estimated figure of £14,502,000. It follows that if the full payment to the sinking fund had been made, the surplus would have been roughly £31,000,000, or actually smaller than his estimate. Even so, the position is easily the best that has been disclosed at the end of any financial year for a considerable time. Last year there was a surplus of £4,239,124 ; 1926-27 produced a deficit of £36,693,794 and 1925-26 ortfb of £14,038,120. The earlier deficit was caused by payment of the coal subsidy in that year, the second, and even larger adverse balance of 192627, partly by the coal subsidy and partly by the cost, immediate and remote, of the general strike and coal strike of 1926. However readily explained deficits are never welcome. The modest surplus last year was hailed as an encouraging change from the two deficits aggregating some £50,000.000. The much more brilliant result of this year's budgeting will certainly be welcomed even more gladly. Though one of the factors contributing to -it, a heavy total of death duties, must be classed as partly adventitious, the other, improvement in trade, is more likely to be permanent, and is more significant. The estimated surplus of £14,500,000 was appropriated in advance. It was earmarked for transfer to the Suspensory Fund, to be used against the ordinary contingencies of 1928, anil to launch the Government's scheme of rating relief. It is the increase of the figure to nearly £18,400,000 that gives point to the prediction of a "free breakfast table" Budget. This will, without a doubt, be the election year feature of Mr. Churchill's forthcoming Budget.