BRITAIN'S BUDGET

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24250, 16 April 1942, Page 6

BRITAIN'S BUDGET

The Budget figures produced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his statement to the House of Commons show that, enormous as Britain's war expenditure has been up to the present, it will be greater in the immediate future. Though lease-lend assistance has reached the rate of £1,200,000,000 a year-; Britain's own expenditure is expected to go from £4,776,000,000 last year to £5,286,000,000, an increase of £510,000,000. In marshalling his resources to provide as nduch as possible from revenue, the Chancellor has, for once, given direct taxation a respite. The latest operations m that field, he says, have been too recent to contemplate any further exactions. Probably he, too, shares the doubt, expressed by recent commentators, whether the existing system of direct taxation could stand any further increase without productive capacity being impaired. So he turns to the alternative source. Excise duties on beer, spirits and tobacco, the sales tax on a wide range of luxury goods, and the entertainment tax are all to be steeply increased. It is noticeable that the effect of the new duties is given, in several instances, by quoting what the increase in the price to the consumer will be. It is obvious the taxes are designed not only to raise revenue, but to discourage consumption. The inflationary effect of high money incomes and reduced stocks of goods is never absent from the Chancellor's mind. Taxation is one of the remedies, and it is being applied with no sparing hand. Ever since the war began the British people have been required to accept Spartan conditions. The disciplinary screw is given another turn by this Budget.