NEWS OF THE WEEK
FOR ingenuity and artistry Mr. Churchill's Budget speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday takes a high place in the long succession of Budget Speeches. It gives the nation a great deal to think about and yet gives no one a very obvious excuse. for- attack. Without being thrilling in the unwholesome Spectacular ways that some people expected, it was highly -characteristic of its author ; an obviously fertile and resourceful brain had been at work. There is no single proposal that is humdrum, just as there was no sentence in the speech that was dull. Mr. Churchill must have worked at his speech as though it were a gem or a piece of mosaic. It was beautifully cut, burnished and adapted. Each part seemed to be closely related to the other parts so that you could not have taken one section out without impairing the value and the proportion of all the others. It was plain that the man of letters had been at work as well as the financier.
