Defence Loan

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 25, 13 February 1937, Page 5

Defence Loan

tBrjtisb Official VVirelesB.)

BRITISH CRITICISMS "Greater Burden Put on Working Man" "SHOULD BE BIGGER"

(Jtecjeivea io, aa.rfu p.m.) RUGBY, Feb. 12. The Bill seeking authorisation for tlie Treasury to raise capital «r use the realised Budget surpius for defence expenditure (seepage 10) will 1>q presented to Farliar ment without' delay. The neceaaary money tesplution will come tefore the Houso of Commons on Wednesday, when' there will be full opportnnity for debate. Newspapers point out that the figure, while it may in part he a guide to probabilities, does not refer to the Tate payabla to investors but to thc iuternal Treasury arrangements. The Daily Herald atrongly opposea the Government proposals. It says that the loan will place a much greater part of the burden on the working man, for it will be inflationary, inereasing the monetary demand for all goods and services. It regrets that the nioney for defence is not to be raised by taxing the rapidly-mounting profits' of industry. The Daily Mail declares that the amount is inadequate and saysf that the Government should have stipulatod for a thonsaud million sterling. Sir Sawiel Hoare, in a speech at Birmingham on rearmament, said: ''The defence programme must inevitably cost scores of millions. We shall find the money as we have found it in past emergencies, and we shall find it wisely and fairly, holding the batance between all classes of the eommunity and between- sums that can rightly be regarded as capital expenditure and sums that must be found by annual taxation. '» In Italy the astrohomical figure of the loan when converted into the lire is taken as final proof that Britain is now at the head of tha armaments raee. Official Berlin clrcles find nothing to criticise in the nerta of the loan. The official spokesman said: i'We take it now that Britain is making use of her rights. As a matter of course we shall remember this when we ara criticised." The news is weicomed in France, but it is regretted such an expenditure is necessary. Britain and France would have preferred a strong League and disarmament.