BRITISH FINANCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 12, 15 January 1915, Page 4

BRITISH FINANCE.

Healing with finance the London Commercial Record says: The country has now to adjust itself to the record expenditure with which it is faced. If the war brings about a lasting peace, as it must do because the various combatants will all be more or less exhausted by the enormous loss of ( life and treasure, then the expenditure will not have been in vain. It will remove the nightmare which has threatened the peace of Europe for a 1 generation. It is also to he hoped that it will inculcate lessons of com-' mon sense to those people who would do away with armies and navies. Noj one likes them as the misery and de-

vastation of war are too much to ho desirable, hut so long as human na-' ture is what it is, and some nations’ want their own way regardless of the opinions of others, people must have moans of compulsory insurance in the 1 way of defence whatever the cost.j What Belgium and France have suffer? od tin’s country would also have tasted and sampled the beauties of “kulture.” In the levying of the income' tax, the payer of this will again he called upon, and the consumer of beer will also have to respond. The worst phase about the taxation is its narrowness. Tea has to pay freely, hut this will not hit the trade much, asj tea of late years has been very| cheap. The remarks 'that the public are saturated with tea is only true. It is to he regretted that the export tax on coal was ever repealed, or, that it was not reimposed at such a. time as this. This was one of most sensible taxes imposed of the last war. With regard to the na.j tional expenditure this has grown enormously of late vears. No one can grumble at the cost of the .army and "navy, these are life and death to the nation, hut people do complain of the growth of costly legislation witli a horde of officials to provide with snug billets. Taxation has been_ piled up of late years, and people who ( said we were going on dangerous lines were pooh-poohed, hut now that we are faced with war that will cost colossal sums, it shows the necessity of nations living within hounds and not spending money without ing the ultimate cost. I