The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1913, COLOSSAL BUDGET FIGURES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1767, 4 June 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1913, COLOSSAL BUDGET FIGURES.

The latest English newspapers contain full particulars of the Budget speech of the British Chancellor lh( \ Exchequer (Mr. LloydUeorge). The figures dealt with are really colossal, tie estimated expenditure for 1913-14 reaching the enormous total of £195,640,000, made up as follows: — Debt Charecs 24.500,000 Load Fund 1,310,000 Local taxation 9,C85,000 Consolidated Fund 1,704 CO3 23,'Kl"i'0C0 „ 46,309,000 Civil Service 5^,955,!)00 Customs, Excise, Inland Revenue '1,533,000 Post Office 24,358,000 The Chancellor admits that £195,000,000 is a "very startling figure," and that it must naturally excite a good deal of oomment and inquiry. He attributes the alarming increase in expenditure to the growth of armaments and the enlarged social and educational activities of the State. In a period of fifty years the expenditure has increased from £70,000,000, or £2 Bs. 3d. per head, to £195,000,000, or £4 Gs. 3d. per head. The cost of armaments during the period mentioned has risen from £28,285,000 to £74,5447000; but as a set-off against this the national debt has been reduced from £821,000,000 to £661,000,000. The year 1912-13 was the most prosperous that British trade has ever seen, notwithstanding such adverse influences as the war in' the East, a serious coal strike, and a bad harvest, the strike alone involving a loss of revenue of £550,000. The expenditure for 1912-13 was estimated at £ISO,885,000, but it was increased to £191,556,000 by' supplementary estimates.

For the year 1913-14, as already stated, an expenditure of £195,040,000 has to be provided for. This sum excecds the receipts of the twelve months ended March 31, 1913, by £6,838,000, yet • Me. LloydGeorge expects the revenue for. the present year to be only £815,000 short of the estimated expenditure, •and by ' appropriating £1,000,000 from the Exchequer balances he arrives at an estimated surplus of £185,000. To secure this result he relies on the unexampled trade boom to • continue unabated, being of opinion that the climax has not yet been reached, and he states that lie feels justified in forecasting a large increase in revenue on the assumption that_ "the most glowing year that British trade has ever seen" has now been entered upon. "There is a general feeling," he says, "that in a very short time peace will bo restored, that the trade boom will be so high, and prosperity will 'bo so great, that it will not take long to repair the devastations of war, and the countries of Europe will enjoy a prosperity such as they have never witnessed before."

As the Budget does not _ involve any new departure in policy, and proposes no new taxation, it has not given rise to much controversy. Everyone, of coarse, hopes that the Chancellor's most optimistic expectations will be fully realised, but, although the trade outlook is quite satisfactory, it is considered very doubtful whether he is justified in looking for an increase of seven and a half millions over last year's revenue. Mr. Austen Chamberlain regards it as a disquietcning fact that' Mr. Lloyd-George in a time of booming trade should just be able to "squeeze through" without increasing taxation, and he naturally thinks it a bad sign that in an era of prosperity and expanding revenue the country is expending every penny it receives, and even mortgaging every penny of future increase without creating any reserve for the bad time that may uc before it. Tho trade boom cannot last for ever. Indeed The Times is of opinion that a turn in the tide is already visible. The Daily Telegraph states that in the opinion of the commercial world British trade has already reachcd the crest of the wave, and goes on to point out that the Government is not only spending all that it has got, but is also mortgaging a future and very doubtful increase. With regard to the special stress which Mn. Lloyd-George lays on tho cost of armaments as the main factor in the huge growth of expenditure, the Mommy Post points out that while this is largely true still the amount spent on armaments 52 years ago was actually a larger proportion of the revenue of the country than the sum which it is now proposed to devote to this purpose. From the business man's point of view, the principal point' of interest in the Budget is the statement that there is to be no new taxation, and the fact that Ministerialists cheered again and again when the Chaneollor made this announcement shows that even the British Radicals recognise that there arc limits to the taxable capacity of the nation.