£50,000,000

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17453, 30 December 1930, Page 7

£50,000,000

A POSSIBLE DEFICIT BEITISH REVENUE LONDON, Doe. 14. Latest estimates foreshadow that the budget deficit in April will be between £40,000,000 and £50,000,000. The revenue receipts at present are £7,000,000 below the figure for the same day in 1920.

Drastic steps, it is thought, will be taken to make up the deficit.' The latest returns show that the deposits in the English banks arc £2,000,000,000, the highest amount on record.

This is the paradoxical sequel to the serious depression affecting, people till over the country, who are apprehensively looking forward to 1931, and are accordingly reducing their spending to a minimum.

Investments have fallen to a record low level, and the- majority of .Stock Exchange firms are living on their capital, with skeleton staffs. The public are either purchasing war savings certificates, yielding 4 per cent., free of income tax, or Jetting the money lie in the banks. Building societies tire so glutted that they a're refusing sums of more than £IOOO.

There is a widespread economy even in wealthy families, which are reducing luxury expenditure. The volume of Christmas trading is the smallest since the war.

Nevertheless, the great; Christmas present custom continues, even if it is on u more meagre scale than usual.