Britain’s Financial Front Stands Firm

Manawatu Times, Volume 67, Issue 208, 1 September 1942, Page 5

Britain’s Financial Front Stands Firm

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Aug. 30. Britain’s financial front stands firm and strong and has made a vital contribution to the war effort, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood) in a speech at Dundee. This front, he emphasised, waß based on the heaviest possible taxation, borrowing at low interest rates, and the utmost saving. Small savings since the beginning of the war amounted to 1500 million sterling. The Budget of 1041 had increased by 4,000,000 the number of persons on smaller incomes liable to direct taxation, and there were to-day some 0,5U0,Q0U wage-earners and others with small incomes who were making a direct con tribution to the war of some 270 million sterling a year through income tax. The weight of taxation to-day, the Chancellor said, was such that if we were to take away every penny of incomes above £2OOO from those whose incomes at present exceeded £2OOO a year the gain to the Exchequer would only be about 30 millions. It was estimated that the number with incomes between £IOOO and £2OOO had fallen since 1938 from 155,000 to 105,000; those between £2OOO and £4OOO from 60,000 to 30,750; those between £4OOO and £6OOO from 12,000 to 1170; and those with £6OOO or more to 80.

The Chancellor also mentioned that during the last war the rate of interest on war loans increased from 5 to 6 per cent., but in this war we had not paid more than 3 per cent, and successive issues had been made on even more favourable terms to the Treasury than their predecessors.