BRITAIN'S BUDGET OUTLOOK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21910, 20 September 1934, Page 10

BRITAIN'S BUDGET OUTLOOK

The British Exchequer returns of revenue and expenditure for practically half the year, now available, offer the basis for a comparison with the course of public finance last year. The achievement in 1933-34 of balancing the accounts, with a realised surplus of £31,000,000, was impressive. It can be said, in fact, to have impressed the entire world! With the encouragement of such a result, critics and commentators did not limit themselves in forecasting the Budget that was produced last April. Some estimates suggested that on the basis of existing revenue resources, the current year would yield a surplus of £75,000,000, a figure that gave plenty of scope for proposing concessions and extensions of Government expenditure. Mr. Neville Chamberlain declined to be carried away by any such tide of optimism. He budgeted for a total revenue exceeding that for the previous year by only £4,700,000 —actually £2,700,000 on ordinary revenue account —and for an expenditure greater by £6,700,000. Thus the prospective surplus became £29,000,000. This amount the Chancellor earmarked for concessions to the unemployed and to Government servants, and for reductions in taxation, notably one of sixpence on the standard rate of income tax. By such means he distributed all but £BOO,OOO of his surplus without making any allowance for supplementary estimates. It was immediately suggested that he had been unduly cautious, and that the result would inevitably be another huge surplus. The accounts for the year, as far as it has gone, are on the side of the Chancellor and against his critics. Ordinary revenue is actually less, by £2,223,000, than for the corresponding portion of 1933-34, while expenditure is £3,428,000 higher. Such comparisons are not conclusive, for the flow of revenue is not uniform year by year, and new developments in the economic field can speedily affect the income of the State. Similarly, payments are not necessarily made at exactly corresponding periods of two different years. Allowing all that, it is still a reasonable inference from the accounts that Mr. Chamberlain followed the sound course iij} limiting his expectations for the current year from the very successful financial results of 1933-34.