Finance—Public & Private
The Budget and the City BEFORE endorsing the favourable reception given by the City to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's revised Budget presented to Parliament last week, I feel bound to reed the circumstances of the original Budget introduced in last April. In connexion with the stirring events of the past three weeks it has been repeatedly stated—and quite truly—that the crisis was of a character requiring immediate treatment. Distrust of _the British pound had, so it is affirmed, proceeded to a point which required instant credits abroad to support it, and it has also been affirmed with truth by Members of the present Govern- ment that instant drastic cuts in expenditure, including the Dole itself, were necessary if confidence was to be quickly restored. How came it then that these reforms should have come so late as to require almost panicky measures to "deal with the situation ? In the Spectatoi of May 2nd last, when commenting upon Mr. Snowden's Budget, I said : " I fear its ultimate effects may be very serious." " If," I added at the close of that article : " Mr. Snowden had been really anxious to enforce his warning of last February concerning the magnitude of the National Expenditure he would have endeavoured to bring the fact home by some addition to indirect taxation. He would. then have been, able to contemplate with greater equanimity his Budget for 1932-3."
Previous page