THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 4 May 1922, Page 3

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

IUSTI'.AI.IAN ANU N.Z. OAI.LK ASsOI lATJ'*** QUESTION OF DEBTS V. TAXES. LONDON, May 2. In the House cf Commons, Sir 55 . McLean resumed the Budget debate. He attacked tlie Ministry for its past haphazard imposition of taxation. He spoke of meat taxation. He declared that the Budget would have been ruined without the receipt of Germany’s contribution- for the maintenance oi the British Army of Occupation on tlie Rhine. He condemned the Government’s discontinuance of the repayments for the National Debt. It was a disastrous policy, and was likely to affect Britain’s favourable foreign exchange position. , .Mr Bonar Law said he approved tlie Budget ns the best one that could he expected. Though he believed that every available penny should go to the r-payment of the debts when trade was g&od and the revenues were expanding 1-e believed that bad trade justified, and demanded, the reducing of the scale of repayment. sVhntevor any Government might have done, lie believed that a crash had to come. He was surprised that the boom had not been shorter-lived. If the proposed income tax reduction only gave a slight impulse to trade it would help the country more than the continuing of the debt reduction on a prodigious scale. Mr Bonar Law declared Britain must bear the huge financial burden for at least two generations. The only way to meet the position was a reduction of

Government expenditure. So far ns human foresight could tell, another world war was unlikely, at least for a century. If a world war came before that, Britain’s real strength must consist in a strong financial position. Mr Thomas (Labour) said tlmt Labour objected to the Government giving a bonus to the farmers and the landlords, which would have the effect of preventing the land being cultivated, and then consoling the masses with a miserable -111 off tlie duty of tea.