BRITISH BUDGET

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10241, 18 May 1911, Page 5

BRITISH BUDGET

CABLE NEWS

United Press A s&ociation—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright-

THE ESTIMATED INCOME.

INCREASE OF NAVAL EXPENDITURE. (Received Last Night, 10.55 o'clock.) LONDON, May 17. The Right Hon. D. Lloyd-George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, estimated the income for the coming year at £181,716,000, and 'the surplus at £432,000. . ■ There would be an increase in the naval expenditure of £4,000,000, totaling £44,392,000. This was unexpected, but it was anticipated that there would be a substantial reduction in 1913. If half the rhetoric spent at the Peace Conference was as genuine as believed, there would be an enormous reduction in armaments. As an immediate effect, Britain should be able to spend more on education, housing reduction of rates, and in organising rural life and industry. , A contingent of Dreadnoughts would not be a charge in the next Budget. ■There would also be a fall in • the statutory provisions for German shipbuilding. This would involve a necessary reduction in British naval armaments, unless a new menace interposed.

The arrov expenditure would be £28,000.000" The civil expenditure, including education, would be £34,000,000.

The Uganda, loan amounted to £250,000. It was intended to reduce the National Debt by £12,000.000.

During MV Asquith's Chancellorship the debt had been reduced bv £42.250,000, and during Mr LloydGeorgo's; term, notwithstanding the naval increase of 37A per cent and pensions £l3 000.000. the reduction had been £8.700,000. the whole represent ir>g a paving of interest of £2,000,000 annually.

Trade was increasing by leaps r v:i bounds.

Foreign trade had increased it l three years by £213,000,000. The unemployment per centage ::n April, 1909, was 8.2, while to-day it was 2.5.