FIGHT FOR LIBERTY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 131, 4 March 1940, Page 6

FIGHT FOR LIBERTY

ALL MUST SHARE BEARING OF THE COST The view that income tax in Britain must be 8s 6d this year and 10s next is expressed by the City editor of the Daily Mail. "The Ministerial speeches of the past few days which have rightly emphasised the further financial sacrifices that are to come, seem to point to a grim war Budget later on/' he said. "In his War Budget statement in September, Sir John Simon fixed the standard rate of income tax for 1940-41 at 8s 6d. But that was to i establish the rate of deduction beSween the beginning of April and the date of the next Budget. "It by no means follows that the Chancellor will retain the 7s 6d rate. On the contrary, an increase to 8s 6d seems quite possible. For 1941-42 income tax may even be 10s ?n the £. "That would be a programme that would indeed call for great sacrifices. But there is much to be said for knowing the worst, and a statement of likely policy over the next two financial years lias much to com mend it on general grounds. "Sacrifices there must be. and it is right enough that taxation should be as heavy as the nation can bear during the war." Everyone Must Serve In the course of a speech at Gias gov,-, tlie Chancellor of the Exchequer regarded as the most dangerous type of spiral at the moment the succession of wages increases to meet increased costs caused by the previous wage increase. Sir John said: "The medicine may seem drastic and unpleasant, but the disease for the prevention of which it designed would be more unpleasant still. "I conceive my bounden duty to my countrj r mcn at this time to be to tell them fearlessly the truth as I see it. I have not the slightest deubt that if we face this situation

together as Britons are accustomed to do, we shall come through these hard and trying days, and accomplish the purpose which we have, and lay the foundation for a firm neace. But it must be done together. "It must be done with the knowledge that this is a battle in.which everybody has to serve and this is a war in which no one can hope to maintain every comfort and convenience and standard that he has enjoyed as his right in days of peace "The outcome of this war is going to show whether the self-dis-cipline of a free democracy like ours is not a more potent instrument than the mechanical drilling of a totalitarian State. "We have the greatest cause in the world—liberty, and the whole nation is prepared to sustain that cause by all necessary sacrifice."