IMPERIAL POLITICS

Otago Witness, Issue 3085, 30 April 1913, Page 27

IMPERIAL POLITICS

FINANCIAL STATEMENT. LONDON, April 22. The House of Commons was crowded when Mr Lloyd George delivered his Budget. The Chancellor said that during the year every domicile of industry was humming with business despite the harvest of war and strike. In consequence of the increases in the Navy and the charges under the Insurance Act, he wanted an extra millions, but no new taxes were necessary. Basing his forecast on the assumption that the coming year would be the most glowing for British trade the nation had ever seen, he expected that the yields from taxes, Customs and Excise, with a million from the Exchequer balances, would give a balance of £185,000. He estimated the new Budget revenue at £195,825,000, and the expenditure at £195,640,000. April 23. The Chancellor’s Budget speech was uneventful and brief. He stated that the overseas trade had reached its highest point, and the Home trade was the heaviest on record. The coal strike had caused a loss in revenue of £550,000, while the withholding of stacks of tea, sugar and tobacco, in anticipation of a reduction in the duty, had deprived them of revenue amounting to £450,000. Although 8,000,000 gallons less of spirits had been consumed in the last four years, the higher duties had produced an increase of £2,000,000. iLast year the expenditure exceeded the estimate by £4,671,000, due chiefly to unforeseen naval increases and additional medical remuneration under the Insurance Bill. The expenditure of nearly every country had rushed up alarmingly through the growth of armaments, and there were small prospects of retarding this. He confidently relied on the growth of revenue to meet the increased expenditure in 1913 with the exception of £815,000, which would be met by taking £1,000,000, which had not been spent by the Admiralty in 1912. He anticipated that the increases from spirits and beer would be £922,000, from tea and sugar £619,000, and from tobacco £905,000. The National debt was being decreased by £12,000,000 annually. He proposed to reinstitute the practice of having two finance bills, one dealing with taxes, and the other with amendments to the law. Mr Austen Chamberlain said he viewed with anxiety the fact that they were not profiting by the good times, but were spending every penny and mortgaging every penny of further income. The Government was not increasing the reserve to meet bad times. He criticised as disappointing the land value duty, resulting in a yield of £90,000 below the estimate. In two years the old sinking fund had been robbed of £3,000,000 to provide for commitments. He agreed that the expenditure on armaments was beyond the Government’s control, but said the position was different with regard to civil expenditure. Old ago pensions had cost double the amount estimated, and something similar had occurred in connection with the Insurance Bill. He hoped that the Government would consider the question of the severance of the insurance administration from the Treasury. The Chancellor was over sanguine regarding the estimates for 1913. April 24. The lobby views regarding the Budget are favourable owing to the absence of contentious new proposals. The Unionists are inclined to think that the receipts have been over-estimatod and that the Chancellor is sanguine to the verge of rashness, dangerously relying on the revenue reaching tip-top resh-Its. Tho Conservative papers accuse the Chancellor of guess work and of juggling with the sinking fund. The Radical papers agree that the Chancellor is optimistic, but they state that the 1909 taxes achieved great success. They say that it is a remarkable record to produce four budgets in the face of leaping expenditure without new taxation. April 27. The Statist, after carefully examining Mr Lloyd George’s calculations, has concluded that his expected expansion in the revenue is not unduly sanguine. COLONIAL LOANS. LONDON, April 22. In the House of Commons Mr Nortan Griffiths asked whether preference might be granted to colonial loans by imposing a small tax on foreign loans. Mr Lloyd George replied that colonial loans had preference over foreign loans already in the shape of stamp duty, and further differentiation was inadvisable. April 24. Tho House of Commons has adopted a resolution guaranteeing 3J> per cent, on the Soudan cotton growing loan of £3,000,000. A BY-ELECTION. LONDON, April 22. Tire by-election for Shrewsbury resulted os follows : Mr Lloyd (Unionist) ... 2412 Mr Morris (Independent) 1727 At the general election the figures were Hill (U.) 2423, Pace (L.) 1855. April 22. Mr Valentine Fleming, the Unionist member for Henley, is resigning his seat.

HOMES FOR FARM WORKERS. LONDON, April 23. In the course of a speech, the President of the Board of Agriculture (Mr Runciman) said that the crying need of the countryside was agricultural labourers’ cottages. Ninety thousand cottages were required within the next five years. The problem was so pressing that it required national financing. COLLECTION OF TAXES. LONDON,ApriI 24. Lord Saint Aldwyn, in criticising the Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill, said that though he was not in accord with tariff reform he was strongly of opinion that the present system of taxation was imperfect. It was becoming less fair every year, and the time would soon come when some soft of indirect taxes must be imposed to enable the country to bear the increasing exuenditure. THE POSTAL REVENUE. LONDON. April 25. The Right Hon. Mr Samuel, in submitting the Post Office Estimates, said the revenue had shown a remarkable expansion. He estimated the net profit for the current year at £5,860,000. This profit had saved the Chancellor from asking for increased taxation. The remarkable development in the oversea cables through the reduction in press rates had resulted, in doubling the traffic in three years. NEW BILLS. LONDON, April 25. Mr W. Pearce’s Bill fixing the hours of polling from 7 in the morning to 9 in the evening was carried in the House of Commons by 203 to 56. Mr Samuel proposes in a few days to introduce a one-clause Bill to enable colonial newspapers to be reposted in Great Britain at the same rate as British newspapers.