The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, MAY 8, 1916. FINANCIAL STRENGTH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 28, 8 May 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, MAY 8, 1916. FINANCIAL STRENGTH.

Britain's financial strength is astonishing the world and some figures recently given by the "Statist" London's great newspaper authority on matters financial are truly staggering. Before the war started the aggregate income of England was set down at £2,400,000, of which some £200,000,000 was paid in taxation. The professional class and one or two industries have been seriously injured by the war and the high income tax is a heavy burden upon persons thus injured. But the great majority of the nation is enjoying a period of very great prosperity. The profits of manufacturers, farmers, colliery owners, ship-owners, and otheis. are quite unprecedented, and the incomes of working-class families have never been greater. The "Statist,"

therefore, calculates that the aggregate money income of all the individuals (comprising the nation, is now over £3,000,000,000, of which about £150,1000,000 may be taken in the coming year on the present basis of taxation. Should the taxation be increased to £600,000,000, or threefold what it was before the war, the money income of I the country after the new taxes have I been taken, it is calculated, will be far | greater than it was in the year before the war. Explaining fully what tre- : mendous burdens Britain is bearing,; i tin; "Statist" further says: "We have, to maintain abroad far and away thei greatest Army this country has ever : raised. We were told the other day by . the Prime Minister that in .France j alone we have at present ten times the j number of men which we sent as an ExI peditionary Force to help France when , hostilities broke out. We are. engaged in Mesopotamia against the Turks. We have a large force at Salonika. We have wrested from the enemy every one of his colonies except that in Fast 'Africa. And we are just undertaking the subjugation of thai. All t i-W ini " mense forces, together with the ;roat,'est Navy the world has ever seen, no have to keep fully provided with food. i

clothing arms, and munitions c.f every kind. Furthermore, we have to keep an immense mercantile man 1 .. . not merely to convey all our forces from point to point, but to keep thorn likewise, adequately and promptly supplied with everything they require, whether food or munitions. In ail this, we have to pay large sums to our Allies and to the Daughter oouniries who are helping us. Lastly, .ve have to support, and keep up the greatest navy the world ever saw, and at the s; me time ; o meet the heavy interest on debt which we are piling up so rapidly/'