DRASTIC TAXES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 285, 4 December 1940, Page 5

DRASTIC TAXES

CANADIAN BUDGET INTRODUCED MORE IMPORTS FROM BRITAIN [By Telegraph—Prews Association—Copyright] Received Dec. 3, 5.5 p.m. OTTAWA, Dec. 2. An emergency War Budget, imposing drastic taxes on luxuries, and removing tariff from a wide range of United Kingdom imports, was introduced in Parliament by Mr. J. A. Ilsley, Minister for National Revenue. The Budget prohibits imports of automobiles and other luxuries, including manufactured tobacco, and spirits, except from sterling areas, and imposes excise taxes ranging from 20 to 80 per cent, on private automobiles and 25 per cent, on radios and vacuum cleaners and virtually every type of electrical appliance. It completely suspends the present tariff on United Kingdom exports of cotton, artificial silks, bituminous coal and furniture. Trade With U.S.A. The Budget imposes a diminishing scale of imports of hardwoods, raw silk and all petroleum products. Mr. Ilsley said that regulations were designed to save 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 dollars monthly on the basis of current trade. He said the restrictions would not lessen trade with the United States, but. merely change the character, confining imports to war essentials. He said that pre-war imports from the United States averaged 40,000,000 dollars monthly, while the past six months they averaged 65,000,000, reaching 74,000,000 in October. He said he was not prepared to disclose the urgency of the country’s position in respect to United States exchange, but laid a patriotic obligation on the gold mining industry to increase production in 1941. He said the Government had decided it was justified in mobilising and liquidating foreign securities owned by people, at least until a serious effort was made to restrict consumption o£ non-essential imports. GERMANY STILL AN APPALLING MENACE WARNING TO CANADIANS “WILL TAKE ALL WE CAN DO TO BEAT THEM." Received Dec. 3, 5.5 p.m. OTTAWA, Dec. 2. The Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, warned the House of Commons that Germany, with her forces, machines and materials largely intact, presented “an appalling menace." “It is going to take all we can do and give to beat them,” he said. The Prime Minister dissociated himself completely from Mr. Hanson’s statement that the situation would soon be graver than previously. He said, that if the Government yielded to the public demand earlier in the year and sent thousands of men overseas, it would only have saddled Britain with an additional burden. Instead, a balance programme of war production coincident with Ihc raising of the army, naval and air forces was being worked out.