BRITAIN’S BUDGET

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 20

BRITAIN’S BUDGET

THE CHANCELLOR’S SPEECH. ARMY AND NAVY EXPENDITURE. DISPOSAL OF THE SURPLUS. LONDON, April 23. Mr C. T. Ritchie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, anticipates a surplus of £lO,81(3,000. Eight and a half millions are to be devoted to a reduction of fourpenee in the income tax. Indirect taxation is to ho relieved with the balance, including a- remission of the corn tax. LONDON, April 24. Mr Ritchie’s Budget speech was cautious. but not unhopeful of trade prospects. The Chancellor emphasised the necessity of a mutual understanding between capital and labour, and urged the advertising of consols. He dwelt on the exceptional Government borrowings, tho suspension of the sinking fund, the smaller supply cf gold from South Africa, and the increase or trust securities and of borrowings by the colonies and by municipalities. The fall in tho price cf consols, Mr Ritchio said, was not surprising, and there was no reason far apprehension. Mr Ritchie estimated the revenue for the current year at £154,7/0,000 and the expenditure at £143.954,000. It was intended, he said, to devote twentyseven millions annually to the sinking fund, enabling, if there wore no additions in tho meantime to .the national debt, the whole to ho extinguished in half a century. The Chancellor expressed concern at the military and naval expenditure. He hoped t-herq, would be a considerate o reduction in the former in fu-uro yea:S, but for Britain a strong navy was a matter of life and death. . There was no menace, said Mr Ritchie, to the happ'ly pleasalfT terms between Great Britain and all the Powers. I\ir lixtcine, said iio ns glad to think some oi Britain's lieigubours wore inclined to cry a haltmn the matter of naval expenditure. . He welcomed such indications, and said that li others adopted such a policy Britain wculd readily and loyally respond. Upwards of half of the war taxation. Mr Ritchie stated, had fallen on the income taxpayer, whose contribution was 639,884,000, while the indirect taxpayer had contributed £31,9(32,000. The Chancellor said iio would be glad to appoint a committee of the of C’cmnioiis to consider the incidence and equity and also the evasion, of the income tax. The corn tax was a f necessity of life” duty. It was inelastic and t-asily subject to misrepresentation. The io,j iission would operate from July Ist. ' The cost of the South African and Chinese Avars had been two hundred and seventeen millions, of which eighty-seven and a half millions had been met out oi re' enue. and the remainder out of capital. Mr Ritchie said he hoped to recover from China six millions, and from South Africa thirty-four millions of the aforesaid. The fixed annual debt charge was twenty-seven millions, which would leave £6,600,000 for a sinking fund. This, Avith receipts from the Transvaal, would rise in five years to nine millions, or Uf per cent, of the entire debt. This percentage, the Chancellor added, was unprecedented. Sir William Vernon Harcourt (Liberal) congratulated Mr Ritchie, but said it Avas scandalously unjust to benefit so largely the payers of direct taxation compared with indirect taxpayers. The Right Hon R. H. Haldane (Liberal) characterised it as “ an electioneering Budget.” . Mr Ritchie stated that after the Crimean Avar the reduction of direct taxation was 75 per cent, and of indirect taxation 25 per cent.