The Budget

In a crowded House of Commons Mr. Stanley Baldwin, Chancellor of the Exchequer, enunciated his long-expected discourse on the finances of the United Kingdom. The budget he introduced of course had its dissentients. But on the whole Parliament was pleased with the decrease in taxation and the financial outlook for the fiscal year 1923-1924.

The main points in the budget are: a reduction from 5s to 4/6d in the pound on the income tax, a 50 percent reduction on corporation tax, a decrease in taxation on beer by 1d a pint, reduction of postal charges. No new taxation was introduced. The estimated revenue for the coming year is approximately $3,806,025,000 as against approximately $4,235,103,750 for last year's estimated revenue. The expenditure is figured at the approximate figure of $3,797,264,400 against last year's $4,235,103,750. Thus the Treasury has a small margin for contingencies of about $8,760,600.

In his peroration Mr. Baldwin said: " I have gone to the utmost limit of my power to relieve the taxpayer without impairing the credit of the nation; for the future credit of the nation and relief to the taxpayer are in the long run inextricably interwoven. I believe that although we are still in a series of transition years we have already passed the peak load of taxation, and we may hope soon to have left behind us the calamitous years of trade depression. But our hopes may be frustrated by untoward events on the Continent or untoward events at home. Industrial peace and reduced taxation which is the offspring of peace, can do more than anything else for the trade of this country."

Other facts in Mr. Baldwin's speech: Last year's surplus was $471,975,000 and had already been applied to a reduction of debt. The deadweight national debt at March 31,1922, was approximately $35,460,900,000; at March 31, 1923, it stood at the approximate figure of $36,144,450,000; paradoxically the national debt had been decreased by about $695,000,000, the increase being due to interior disturbing factors. The external debt stood at about $5,156,935,560 at the end of the financial year 1921-1922; this year it is about $5,373,781,800 on account of the addition of three years' interest on the United States debt, which now stands at $4,600,000,000. In four years the external debt had been reduced by about $972,770,700.