News of the Week
Tend of the financial year in which the May Com- mittee declared economies of £90,000,000 to be necessary finds the Budget balanced with a small but satisfactory surplus margin on the right side. Next year's budget, according to Sir George May and his colleagues, promised to show a deficit of £120,000,000 on the basis existing when the committee reported. To recall that is to realize what the-national effort has achieved, for the main subject of discussion to-day is how Mr. Chamberlain is to distribute the alleviations he will have it in his power to confer. Optimism as to that had better not range too far, for income-tax and surtax will be assessed on the present year's heavily reduced earnings, and their yield must show a substantial drop on the 1931 figures, whatever improvement business in 1932 may show. The new Customs duties will bring in something, but stern economy and heavy taxation must still be essential. If the Chan- cellor can take sixpence off the income-tax and help other classes by restoring dole or salary cuts, or remitting a little indirect taxation, he will have given the country all it can hope for. Meanwhile demonstration of our resolve to pay our way has raised the national prestige to at least the level it stood at before the financial crisis. The moral value of the effort matters even more than the material results,
