BIGGER BUDGET EXPECTED

Southland Times, Issue 23179, 21 April 1937, Page 5

BIGGER BUDGET EXPECTED

BRITISH EXCHEQUER

STRICT STEPS TO AVOID LEAKAGE (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, April 19. A special meeting of Cabinet will be held tonight at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Neville Chamberlain) will explain his Budget proposals to his colleagues. The Budget will be presented to the House of Commons tomorrow afternoon. This will be Mr Chamberlain’s sixth Budget statement, but it is expected that he will have relinquished office before the Finance Act of the year that will be introduced to implement his proposals is placed on the Statute Book. Many speculations are being made in the Press about the contents of the Budget, but precautions to prevent any premature disclosure have been strictly drawn and no reliance can be placed on these forecasts. The publication of the estimates shows, however, that provision must be made for an expenditure of £408,000,000 for the civil departments, £14,000,000 for the revenue departments, excluding the Post Office, which is a self-balancing service, and £197,000,000 for the defence service, in addition to £80,000,000 to be met out of loan. A further sum of £235,000,000 will be required to meet the debt charges if the amount paid under this head in the past year remains unchanged. This represents a total of just under £855,000,000, which is £57,000,000 over last year’s Budget. It is assumed that because of the continued improvement in trade, Mr Chamberlain will be able to count on a substantial increase in the yield of revenue from most of the existing forms of taxation.