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WAR FINANCE.
BRITAIN'S OUTLAY.
£15,000,000 DAILY.
Staggering Budget Figures.
LONDON, April 12.-Beginning a
Budget speech which lasted 21
hours the Chancellor of the Ex
chequer (Sir Hingsley Wood) said
in the House of Commons today that
recently the volume of Britain's ex
ports available for sale abroad had
fallen to about a. quarter of what
it was before the war. Out of the
total of goods and services which
the United States supplied to Britain,
Russia, China and other of the
United Nations 80 per cent were on
lease-lend.
Canada generously proposed this
year to share production of essen
tial war supplies with Britain and
other United Nations on the basis
of strategic needs, he said. Also,
Canada was making an appropria
tion of 1,000,000,060,000 dollars for
the current year for this purpose
and also proposed to take over the
whole cost of the Royal Canadian Air
Force squadrons overseas.
Lease-lend was not one-sided. Br-'
tain did not receive all and gave
nothing in return. The supplies Bri
tain had contributed to the common
task had increased greatly in the
past year. The value of munitions.
in round figures, given to Russia war
about £170,000.000 sterling. Britain
had given much in the same spirit
SIR KINGSLEY WOOD. Help
SIR KINGSLEY WOOD.
and the same way to other Euro
pnallies. Britain also aided China
on lease-lend terms to assist her
stout-hearted resistance to Japan.
Britain was spending about
£150,000,000 -sterling on constructing
aerodromes, barracks, hospitals and
other buildings expressly for Amen
can use.
Expenditme in USA.
Since the outbreak of war Bri
tain had spent about £1,500,000,0001
In the United States for supplies,
munitions and capital equipment;
also In the last 7 months of 1942
she had made available 700,000
deadweight tons of shipping for
American military operations.
The United States help was large
but not greater than Britain was
affording her Allies. Reciprocating
aid was also operating on a con
siderable scale in Australia and New
Zealand in addition to India and
the colonial Empire and this was a
further source of strength to the
Allied cause.
The cost of the war had now
reached the stupendous figure of
£13,000,000,000 sterling. The total of
all expenditure, including debt
charges and normal civil service, for
the whole war period amounted to
about £15,600,000,000. Britain had
not only mnaged to meet the heavy
expenditure of war but had been
able to develop social services
which, excluding unemployment,
cost £160,000,000 in 1938 and
£219,0Q0,000- in 1943, apart from a
considerable sum being spent in con
nection with a stabilisation policy.
Fighting Services' Pay.
Increases in pay and allowances
of the fighting services cast
£159,000,000 for 1943, excluding post
war credits for the forces. War
Damage $ct payments for damaged
buildings and plant exceeded the
sum received in premiums or con
tributions,
War expenditure had steadily in
creased during the year, which was
substantial evidence of Britain s
growing strength and power. She
was now spending £15,000,000 daily.
Waste and 1extravagance were un
pardonable offences in this hour. We
had raised by taxation in the past
financial year the unprecenented fig
ure of £2,483,000,000 to meet the
huge expenditure.
Income tax collected during the
year for the first time in history
exceeded £1,000,000,000. Forty-four
per cent of all expenditure since the
outbreak of war had been met by
current revenue. The percentages
had risen year after year from 35
per cent in 1940 to 46 per cent in
1942.
Indirect Taxation.
Direct taxation was called on to
bear a rather higher additional our
den than indirect taxation. Of the
increased wartime field of Indirect
taxation that of liquor, tobacco and
entertainments yielded £452,000,000,
or 83 per cent. Seven million out of
all wage earners were now paying
about £200,000,000 in income tax
yearly.
Nearly every family In Britain con
tained at least one income tax paver.
Even the great weight of taptlon
imposed left Britain with a most
formidable borrowing problem. Prom
the war's outbreak to the end of
March, Britain had borrowed a'
least £8,667,000.000. Subscribers to
small savings, after allowing for re
payments, amounted to 21 per cent
of Britain', total borrowing. Tae
total raised by the war savings enn
paign to March 31 by small savings;
long market Issue, gifts and loans
free of interest amounted to
£5,320,000,000. The total subscrip
tions to small savings on March 31
was 1,968,000,000. The same arm?
of regular savers now owned in-;
come-tax post-war credits totalling
for 1941-42 at least £300,000,000.
A greater proportion of increased,
personal income in 1942 than in+
1941 was spent on consumption
There was still an apprecIable mar
gin of personal expenditure on non
essentials which could and should
be curtailed. The volume of goods
and services purchased, which had
fallen in 1941, remained stationary
in 1942. We ought not to be con
tent with that.
Personal Incomes.
Gross total personal incomes be
tween 1938-1942 before payment
of any taxation increased by
£2,235,000,000. Provision for direct
taxation took £713,000.030 of the
Increase and £757,000,000 was saved.
Expenditure on consumption thus
increased by £765,000,000. about half
of which was due to higher indirect
taxation, mainly on liquor and
tobacco.
The cost of living index had been
successfully stabilised. It had not
risen at any time above 30 per cent
over the pre-w~r level and mostly
had been below that figure. The
food index for March was 20 per
cent shove the level at the outbreak
of war, compared with 23 per cent
in April, 1941. Control now covered
probably 90 per cent of housewives'
expenditure.
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