Finance—Public & Private
A Sound Budget
IN the Spectator of March 19th and again in the issue of the 9th of this month, I deprecated the optimistic views expressed in many quarters with regard to Mr. Neville Chamberlain's first Budget. The result has justified the warning which I gave, for the Budget introduced last Tuesday gives no relief either to the direct or indirect taxpayer. As I anticipated, the Chancellor was con- strained to forecast such a fulling off in income and surtax revenue that not all the new tariff duties already imposed and about to be imposed were sufficient to enable the Budget to be balanced 'without the imposition of about £2,500,000 in new taxation consisting of fourpence per lb. on tea, with an Imperial preference of 50 per cent.
Nevertheless, I regard the Budget on the whole as a sound one, and those who naturally feel disappointment at the lack of any lightening of the burden of direct or indirect taxation fail, I think, fully to realize two cardinal facts in the situation. The first of these is the fact that through the incidence of income and surtax the Exchequer has still to feel the worst effects of the financial depression through which we have been passing, and hence Mr. Chamberlain's expectation that under the head of Income and Surtax there will be a reduction in receipts during the current fiscal year of just under £40,000,000. Indeed, I fancy that thii estimate may prove to be more accurate than the rather sanguine expectation that in Estate Duties and Stamps there will be a total increase in the current year of nearly 117,000,000.
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