30 APRIL 1932, Page 34

THE GOVERN3IENT'S TASK.

If, therefore, there is any direction in which the City is disposed to be critical of Mr. Chamberlain's Budget speech it is as regards the insufficient emphasis laid upon the need for further economies in the Public Expenditure. By and by it may be hoped that we shall achieve sonic moderate reduction in the service on the Debt through a large conversion operation, but that task itself can only be made possible if there is first a reduction in Supply Expenditure, and in that connexion it must not be for- gotten that the economies recommended by the May Committee were of a very far-reaching character, while, to go farther back, the Report of the famous Geddes Committee of some years ago made recommendations with regard to the scrapping or fusion of certain Govern- ment Departments which have never yet been acted upon. but which might have been carried out, I think, with great advantage both to the Exchequer and to the welfare of the community. The Chancellor of the Exchequer probably has a most excellent case—by reason of the difficulties which have yet to be overcome—for calling upon the taxpayers of the country to stand for another year the present high rate of Income Tax, with three- fourths paid in the first three months of 1933, but it follows logically and inevitably that if the case is thus strong'for testing still further the endurance of the taxpayer, it is equally strong for further rethictions in any national out- lays of an unp.roductive character.. Not only is such a course due, in justice, to the long-suffering taxpayer, but it is necessary because the strain on the taxpayer has reached the point when it reacts also upon industrial activity and upon the capital resources of the nation. It reacts disastrously upon industry because both pur- Chasing power and liquid resources of income usually available for the financing of industry are encroached upon, while there-can be no doubt at all that the heavy Estate Duties are eating up the capital resources of the country, and that at the 'very moment when there has been a serious diminution in the amount allotted each