A Letter from London

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20167, 8 June 1928, Page 11

A Letter from London

Special Correspondent.

All Rights Reserved.

LONDON, April 29. The Budget. It requires a long memory to recall a Budget speech which contained so much important material and was received so undemonstratively as that which Mr Churchill delivered on Tuesday. He had a crowded House, not merely in the space allotted to members. but in the galleries of the peers and the public, and he held its interest and excited its curiosity up to the last. Except for the hearty cheer given him when he began an>d ended, however, there was little evidence of what his hearers were thinking. At one point he had a slight scuffle with the back bench Socialists, who greeted one of his declarations with some derision, but generally they heard him with quiet attention. A more concise treatment of his many topics would have enabled the Chancellor to reduce materially the time he occupied, but his audience evidently found it none too long. The strictly fiscal part of his scheme can be stated briefly. especially as most of it had been anticipated by conjecture. The Chief Points. Fourpcnce per gallon goes on all imported light oils to create a fund for the abolition of local rates on agricultural land and buildings, and their reduction by three-fourths on productive industry—including railways and docks, on conditions that they pass on the benefit in their freight charges on agricultural produce, coal, iron ore and similar raw material. Fanners, for the use of their tractors and fishermen for their motor boats, arc to be exempt from duty on their petrol, and, as a set-off against the extra cost of kerosene for lighting and cooking, the sugar duty is to be reckoned by a faithing per lb., with a preference to assist the British refineries. The other additions to taxation are negligible—6d. a gallon on British wines, and 6d. each on automatic lighters. Mr Churchill reserved to the last the one surprise of his Budget, the increase of the income tax allowance for dependent children —from £36 to £6O for the first, and from £27 to £5O for each of the others. This, he pointed out. is of far more value to the small taxpayer than a reduction in the basic rate, since it means that the married man with three children will pay no income tax till his income approaches £4OO a year, while on the scales up to £l.OOO, the relief will be substantial. This announcement, made in the closing sentences of the speech, sent members off in a cheerful mood, almost forgetful of the more intricate and technical matters, which had occupied a largepart of the speech. Last Year’s Surplus.

On his experience of the past year the Chancellor was comparatively brief, merely saying enough to defend his view that his surplus of over four millions had been attained in spite of several depressing factors, and had been the result not merely of good luck, but of “hard work and ceaseless scraping.” He showed that during the year he had actually paid off £80.000.0(10 of debt, as compared with Mr Snowden’s £52.000,000. This lea him to an explanation of his new s cheme for establishing a fixed charge of £355,000,000 a year for the service of the debt, a sum which, unless raided by some unholy hand, will suffice to pay off the whole National Debt, internal and external, in fifty years. The most important part of the speech was that in which he analysed the “obstinately chronic figure of unemployment at about a million,” and explained the method whereby he hopes to substitute a virtuous for a vicious circle, by rating reform. The scheme will require a Revaluation Bill, which is to be passed this session, and a Local Government Bill, which it is hoped will come into law by the end of the year, or e*. least by next Easter. Babies Pay for Petrol.

Mr Winston Churchill has more scientific methods of sounding City opinion in advance than many Chancellors have had and the favourable reception given his Budget will perhaps therefore not surprise nim. Even the oil industry does not make very serious complaint because there is no real belief that an extra .fourpcnce a gallon will make any difference in the volume of pleasure motoring while there is relief that no attack has been made on fuel or gas oil. both of which are direct competitors of coal. The only serious criticism is directed at the fourpcnce on kerosene, the incidence of which may <ot prove very equitable since it will fall most heavily on the agricultural worker who lights his cottage and during the summer largely cooks with paraffin. The married motorist with one or two children will still be ablc> to take his family out at week-ends without his motoring costing him any more. For on the average income of the man able to afford a small car the additional relief is equal to more than the rebate on the new petrol tax on runs of 300 miles a week during half the year. The ordinary family motorist docs not do more than 5000 or 6000 miles a year and the increased ’ncome tax relief will pay the petrol tax for him on this mileage. Busy Moscow.

Those who urge resumption of friendly Soviet relations find little encouragement in the latest news. Moscow’s baleful Communist activity is more indefatigable under the now Stalin regime than it was before Trotsky and his associates were booted out. Wholesale arrests of Communist plotters in Japan. Finland, and China bear witness to Russia’s malign meddling everywhere, and hardly less disturbing arc symptoms here. The Home Office insists on direct financial relation between Moscow and Irish gunmen recently discovered in an audacious revolver-running coup, and both the Boilermakers’ and Miners’ Trade Unions officially report subversive revolutionary propaganda among their members which is controlled and fin-

anced from Moscow. I hear a whisper that further sensational police action may shortly be taken which will still more drastically shake Labour’s comfortable view that the Zinovicff letter is a “silly bogey.’’ Comrades Still.

The Anciens-Combatants Associations in Franco and Belgium—the equivalent to the British Legion on this side of the Channel —are doing their utmost to ensure that the pilgrimage of British ex-soldiers to the battlefields in August shall be a success. They have formed themselves into small groups in each town where the pilgrims will stay, and are making all the arrangements. And this is no light task. They have to find accommodation for 10,000 men and women within one kilometre’s walk of the stations in each town, and to ensure that each person will have English meals and a separate bed Motor-cars have been arranged for the British accommodation officers, as well as offices, telephone facilities, medical officers, and motor drivers who can speak English. Under the direct supervision of Marshal Foch. who is taking a great interest in the pilgrimage. the Anciens-Combatants are doing their work well. Their task has been eased by the number of French citizens who are anxious to accommodate ex-British soldiers without payment. There will bo 13 reception committees of Anciens-Combatants, who will meet the pilgrims at various points and conduct them to their billets. The “Iron Horse.”

It was hardly to be expected that the old “Cherubinis.” the 11th Hussars, after a cavalry history of more than two centuries, would take kindly to their new role xs “Iron Horse.” So much is the transformation to an armoured car disliked that a large proportion of the regiment is seeking transfer to other cavalry regiments. That may be permitted in a few exceptional cases, excluding which, the personnel, irrespective of rank must willy-nilly bow to orders to mechanise. Strong detachments of officers and senior non-commissioned- officers are to proceed forthwith to the Royal Tank Corps depot for instruction in their new duties, and in due course they will be followed by the rest of tneir comrades. Th® 11th are particularly disappointed by the change, as they were to have taken a conspicuous part among the mounted troops selected for the tableaux in the great Aidershot Tattoo. Miss Boyden’s Dancing Master. It will startle her friends and admirers to hear that, while on her American tour. Miss Maude Royden, besides smoking cigarettes, has taken dancing lessons. And. to give further piquancy to the fact, her dancing master was none other than Mr Henry Ford, the world’s richest millionaire, now on a visit to London. Miss Royden. who is returning home in a week or two, describes this fascinating occasion in a letter. It was on a visit by Miss Royden to Mr Ford’s house at Dearborn. “I found.” says Miss Royden, “that, besides ;_aking cars, he is interested in dancing. He and Mrs Ford want to revive old-fashioned dances, and, finding that I had never seen the Varsovienne they started a gramophone, and danced it for us. Then Mr Ford taught it to me, and we danced it together! I am afraid I did not get it quite right, but, then, I was surprised to find myself dancing at all.” The Varsovienne is one of the old American dances, which Nfr and Mrs Ford do together very gracefully. It is generally danced to slow time, and is not unlike the English quadrille or the minuet. Polar Hovering. The lure of the impenetrable ice deserts still exerts its romantic sway, but apparently Captain Wilkins, of whose lino flight of 2,200 miles over the North Polar ice fields we have just been hearing, has stolen a march this time on the enterprising Amerrcans. He has. at any rate, got his gallant adventure in first, for the famous American airman, Captain Byrd, is bent on a similar dash by air to the South Pole. To this end he has planned on the vast Antarctic Continent, and is counting on a final South Polar flight which will not be longer than 350 miles. The earlier sections of the attack will be by sleighs and dugs. and the aeroplane reserved for th© last lap of all. It was reckoned that, according to scientific deductions this .summer would be particularly favourable for Antarctic exploration, but Captain Wilkins, the bearded Aussie who looks like a Rembrandt portrait, has even in early spring successfully dared the Northern trip. The Real Stuff. A fact overlooked by everybody, but both patent and momentous, is the icvolt of women. Not only silly sexwar political emeute, the talk about which is sheer moonshine, but a definite revolt against the age-old autocrats of feminine fashion. Women arc in those post-war days just as interested in fashions as ever—perhaps more so—but they refuse to have them dictated from Paris or anywhere else. This ie a great and significant change, and marks their real “emancipation.’* For months Paris has been trying to coax or browbeat women back to longer skirts. The only result, ultra-fash-ionable balbroom gowns apart, is a plainer display of fancy stockings than ever. The same thing is true of hats. Desperate attempts are being mado to scrap the skull-tight model for a cart-wheel hat, but women refuse to be dictated to. Their sole concession to novelty ia decorative instead of plain chapeaux.