The Sun WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1914. MR LLOYD GEORGE'S BUDGET.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 76, 6 May 1914, Page 6

The Sun WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1914. MR LLOYD GEORGE'S BUDGET.

Eight years of Liberal finance has doubtless prepared the British taxpayer for a two hundred million Budget. When the Liberals came back in 1905 their opponents were taking £129,776,290 per annum out of the people's pockets in the shape of taxation. Revenue from the post office and other sources brought the total receipts up to £153,878,865. Last year the taxation was up to £160,000,000, and when the miscellaneous revenue added the total came to £194,825,000. The cables to-day do not discriminate between the estimated revenue from taxation and the money the Chancellor expects to get from other sources, but they stated that he proposes to raise £9,000,000 by increases in the income tax, and to make readjustments -Calculated to produce a good deal more. Unkind Unionist critics allege that it is an electioneering budget, because the increases are nominally at the expense of the well-to-do classes, and are, therefore, bound to be popular with those who think they are evading taxation when the cheque for it is paid over by someone else. It is a common delusion, and there is no need to go to England to find how widespread it is. The super tax on British incomes will be paid in the main by the wealthy manufacturers, ship owners, landlords of urban areas, and persons whose incomes are derived from large investments in securities, etc. But the tax has to be earned before it is paid, and it is earned like everything else is earned by the wealthproducing classes, who consist largely of workers. To tax the income of a wealthy cotton or cocoa manufacturer, who is generally a pillar of Liberalism and free trade, is merely increasing the cost of the production of cotton goods and cocoa, and is not necessarily reducing the income of the payer, who in the majority of cases, lays himself out to get a certain minimum return on his capital, and allows in his calculations for the toll that harassed Chancellors are liable to levy on him w T hen the land and other hen roosts occupied by their opponents are incapable of further exploitation. Still, the wealth of Great Britain is growing so rapidly that there is no reason for supposing tiiat the burdens of Air Lloyd George's latest Budget will be insupportable. Social reform is always costly. You cannot have national insurance, pensions, and similar benefits in a country like England without incurring an appalling expense, but the British Treasury officials are amongst the world's greatest financiers and economists, and they will probably keep the Chancellor from outrunning the constable. Since they ha,ve been in office the Liberals have paid nearly £100,000,000 off the National Debt, and that is an achievement of .which they have cause to be proud. To have done this, in addition to finding many millions for social reform is an eloquent tribute to the resources at the Chancellor's disposal and the magnitude of the national income. The present Budget would be a good one to go to the country upon .were it not for the fact that national finance, which is taken much more seriously in England than in New Zealand, will be completely overshadowed by the Home Eule issue.