RECOVERING.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1920, Page 5

RECOVERING.

BRITISH FINANCE OUTLOOK.

.PAYING LOANS; REDUCING DEBT.

By Te!egr«i>h.—Press Assn.—Copyright,

Received June 10, 10.50 p.m.

London, June 8. In the House of Commons, Mr. Austen Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer) explained the Government's decision not to impose a levy on war wealth.

He pointed out that as payment could be made in Government securities, the levy would not materially Reduce the floating debt, He emphasised the fears of business men as regards the effect of the levy, and stated the excess profits duty would produce twice as much as the levy in the same period. He now proposed to maintain the excess profits duty at sixty per cent, this year, and continue the duty, or its equivalent, for a longer period than would otherwise have been necessary. Mr. Chamberlain paid a warm tribute to the manner in which the rich had borne their financial sacrifices, and he gave figures showing that in some cases only about five shillings in the £ was left to recipients of large incomes after taxes had been paid. No other country had attempted a financial effort comparable with Britain's, and there was no other country in which the well-to-do people were so heavily taxed. > Illustrating the iiimncial recovery of Britain, Mr. Chamberlain referred to the rise in the dollar exchange, and stated that we were in a position to buy our half of the Anglo-French loan in America and to meet all the other market obligations of the Treasury in the United States to the end of 1920 with a satisfactory margin. Our debt of a hundred million dollars to Argentina would he i redeemed in a few days, and the loan nf twenty million yon in Japan would be paid off in a month, while provision had been made at Home for a reduction of the debt by £230,000,C00 this year, and £300,000,000 next year without additional taxation—-Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.