GREAT BRITAIN: We Can Take It

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As Chancellor of the Exchequer, eloquent William Ewart Gladstone made budget speeches famous. Winston Churchill used to gesture a lot. Neville Chamberlain (now Prime Minister) usually had the amiable duty of announcing surpluses. To Sir John Simon, Chancellor of the Exchequer for nearly two years, has come the unenviable task of "opening" the largest peacetime budgets in Britain's history. Last week, before a crowded House of Commons, he again appeared with the little worn red-leather dispatch box carried by Gladstone, opened it and ceremoniously drew out his sheafs of paper and, in an uninspired, low, monotonous tone of voice, proceeded coldly to name astronomical figures the like of which Parliament had never heard.

Carefully timing his remarks so that none of his important disclosures would be made before Europe's stock exchanges were closed for the day, Sir John announced a budget 40% higher than last year's record-breaker, said that the 45,000,000 citizens of the United Kingdom would spend $6,610,000,000 on their Government between April 1, 1939 and April 1, 1940.* Moreover, he warned, the Government might very well find it necessary to up expenditures from time to time as the situation warranted.

"The whole of our contemporary public finance is governed and conditioned by our defense spending," explained Sir John. It is this cruel necessity which transforms our budget and increases our borrowing, and makes it necessary to shoulder grievous burdens and face unprecedented totals, without the pressure of which taxpayers might rejoice over a lightening load." Proof of Sir John's words was found in the fact that nearly half ($3,150,000.000) of the great outlay was to go into Britain's rapidly expanding defenses.

Sir John's latest budget was orthodox if heavy. Only $1,900,000,000 of the amount will be borrowed, the rest will be raised by bigger taxes. Britons will have to pay no new taxes, just more of the same stiff taxes they have had since the World War.

> Present basic individual income tax rate (highest in the world) is 5 ½ shillings on the pound (in the U. S. that would be 371 cents on the dollar) for incomes above $625 a year. That rate will remain, but to make conscription of manpower more palatable to the lower classes, the Government also made a gesture of conscripting wealth. Surtaxes on incomes from $10,000 to $40,000 were raised 5%, on those above $40,000, 10%. Sample taxes: on a childless married man's income of $2,000, a tax of $700; on $10,000, $2,373; on $25,000, $8,259; on $100,000, $52,400; on $500,000, $336,440.

> Biggest sock came to automobile owners. The annual automobile tax was upped 66⅔ % to 25 shillings a horsepower. The owner of a 30-horsepower Ford will pay each year about $185.

> Duty on tobacco was increased 21%, which will mean that a package of popular priced cigarets will now cost about 27¢ instead of 25¢ as at present. Another effect: some 350,000 cigaret-vending machines (used mainly after 7 p. m. when all tobacco shops by law must close) are now obsolete.

> Tea-loving Britons will stir less sugar into their afternoon pick-me-up as a result of a half-cent-a-pound increased tariff on sugar.