The Daily News WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1931. THE BRITISH BUDGET.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 April 1931, Page 6

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1931. THE BRITISH BUDGET.

There has rarely been a British Budget in which greater interest has been felt by the self-govern-ing Dominions than the one presented to the House of Commons on Monday by the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer-, Mr. Snowden. The reasons for this interest were varied. It was known that the British Government was facing a deficit of over £23,000,000 in the financial year that has just closed and that it followed a deficit of £14,500,000 the year before. Mr. Snowden himself had indicated that taxation had reached its limit, and that the cost of “social services” must be checked if national solvency were to be maintained. Suggestions had been made that a departure from the free trade policy, of which the Labour Party hasbeen a firm supporter, might be necessitated by the need for raising more revenue/ and that it might be introduced by way of a “revenue tariff.” Only last week the- Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, hinted at a surprise that the Budget might contain, and in view of the strong representations made by the Dominions at the last Imperial Conference they were perhaps the more willing to believe that such an unbending free trader as Mr. Snowden might have been converted by the logic of events. His Budget speech has completely disillusionised all who thought

there was hope for the early development of a policy of Imperial preference for Dominion, products. He would never, said the Chancellor, be a party io obtaining revenue from tariffs, which would relieve the rich at the expense of the poor and would be an indirect attack upon wages. The statement has at least the merit of plain speaking, though its "class'’ attitude is scarcely likely to appeal to the British taxpayer so much as it will to the rank and file of the Labour movement. The insidious effect of political considerations way be seen in the financial proposals themselves. The deficit is to stand over until the results of proposed economies arc ascertained and until it is seen whether the Chancellor’s hope of a revival of commerce and industry is borne out by the current year's trading. Taxation on motor-cycles is to be lightened, but the petrol tax is to be increased by 2d per gallon. Possibly no great exception will be taken to these proposals, which are evidently an attempt to place the burden of taxation upon, those who should be best able to bear it and to avoid an increase in direct taxation. The use of motor vehicles for industrial purposes has now reached such proportions, however, that an increase in the petrol tax must really be regarded as one of those additional burdens upon industry which Mr. Snowden has deprecated so eloquently. But the Budget proposition that is bound to arouse fierce hostility is the new land tax, A tax of .one penny in the pound on the capital value of land is proposed, and if the assessment is to he made on urban as well as rural properties the revenue should be considerable, while a very heavy addition will have been made to the burden of the landowner. Land tenures in England are considerably more complicated than in New Zealand, and comparison of the effect of a land tax in Great Britain with a similar assessment here is very difficult. It may be said at once that the new tax will make the lot of the British landowner less desirable than ever. The breaking up of large estates has been one of the features of. post-war deflation. Its effect for good or ill is the subject of much controversy. What has emerged beyond question is the certainty that there is little profit in holding large estates and that very little of what used to be called the “unearned increment” is now obtainable by any landowner. Mr. Snowdon’s Socialistic friends will doubtless acclaim his taxation proposals as putting another screw upon the hated capitalist. Whether the country will support this view has yet to be determined. The Labour Budget has effectually quenched any hope of Empire trading receiving a stimulus at the hands of the British Government and with this element removed it becomes more a domestic matter than one in regard te which Dominion views can have any effect. There is nothing dramatic in the financial proposals of the British Ministry. On the contrary, they are class-conscious to a degree, a characteristic that of necessity makes for narrowness of view.