HUGE SUM INVOLVED

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20922, 29 September 1939, Page 5

HUGE SUM INVOLVED

NOT CAPITALIST BUDGET GOOD RECEPTION BY PUBLIC FIGHT TILL VICTORY WON (Official Wireless) (Received Sept. 29, 11.0 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 28 Commenting on the Budget, the Manchester Guardian says: “The Chancellor has been modest in the increase in indirect taxes and presses relatively lightly on working class families. No one can complain that it is a capitalist Budget or that it grinds the faces of the workers. “ The prospect revealed by the Budget of revenue of about £995,000,000 to meet expenditure of about £2,000,000,000 involving the borrowing of over £1,000,000,000, does not appeal to the nation,” says the Times. It adds: “ At least it can leave no doubt in any foreigner’s mind about this country’s determination to buckle on its financial armour, however, uncomfortable it may be.” The Daily Telegraph remarks: “ It is evident that the whole scale of the nation’s economy, private as well as public, will have to be re-arranged, and the sooner the necessity is faced and wrestled with the less will the dislocation be apparent of the national war effort.” Evidence of Grim Determination Although the Daily Herald complains that Sir John Simon’s choice of individual taxes is weighted against small and middle incomes, this view is not shared by other newspapers, where the proposals are studied in some quarters with special regard to the preservation of the sources of revenue and the level of the State’s credit. The grim severity of this first War Budget, however, has generally met with a good reception by the public. “ Though it serves notice that hard living is ahead,” says the NewsChronicle, “ the knowledge that Britain is tackling its financial problems in such a way will maintain our credit abroad and confirm general confidence that Britain will shoulder its burdens till victory is achieved.”