FAR FROM BANKRUPT

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18395, 31 July 1931, Page 8

FAR FROM BANKRUPT

BRITAIN’S POSITION SOUND STATEMENT BY CHANOELLOR. NO NEED FOR PESSIMISM. s (Official Wireless.) (Received July 31, 1.45 p.m.) RUGBY, July 30. The budgetary position was the subject of an important statement in the House of Commons by Mr Philip Snowden (Chancellor of the Exchequer), during a debate on the second reading of the Consolidated Fund Appropriation Bill. Mr Neville Chamberlain, referring to the financial position, said his most important criticism of the Budget v>as the relation between 'the Exchequer and the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The Chancellor had only postponed the inevitable reckoning. There, however, was no foundation for want of confidence in 'the British stability. Mr Philip Snowden in replying, said: “This Is a time when a lightlyspoken word or oven a wronglytermed sentence, might have most serious consequence. The position of Britain in this respect is peculiarly sensitive, because we are the great money market of the world, and it is essential that confidence throughout the world should he maintained in the stability of the London money market." Foreign credits are held in London to the extent of probably hundreds of millions of pounds. He added he was exceedingly grateful 'to Mr Melville Chamberlain for the testimony he had given to the fundamental soundness of the financial position of London and the country generally. Referring to Mr Chamberlain’s criticisms of the budget, Mr Snowden said: Although it would be a sounder course if they could maintain the unemployed from current revenue, he could not accept the contention that borrowing was analogous to creating a burden comparable’ to the war debt. Borowing was an alternative to an increase in taxation, before imposing which they must hesitate. The depression had deepened since the budget had been presented, and supplementary expenditure of nearly £8,000,000 had been authorised; in addition, as the result of the . acceptance of the Hoover proposal, there was a further burden on the budget of nearly £11,000,000. That was a serious position; but he believed it was a fact that perhaps with the exception of one country our position was more satisfactory than any other in the world. “There was an Impression abroad that the budgetary position of Britain was hopelessly bankrupt; nothing could be , further from truth,” declared Mr Snowden amid general cheers. The Chancellor admitted that he had prepared a scheme for a huge ‘■' conversion of the war loan, by which a very large saving in interest would be effected, and which but for recent financial developments, would have been floated before now.