London, Apr. 19. JRESENTING his first Budget in the House of Commons today, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, disappointed thousands by failing to afford any relief for income tax payers.
"There will be no reduction," he said. A small measure of relief, however, ig afforded trading firms by the Chancellor's announcement that the Finance Bill will provide extra allowances for wear and tear on machinery.
Great surprise also was caused by the failure to effect any reduction in the beer tax. A cut of at least one penny had been generally expected. believe that beer is overtaxed,'
Mr. Chamberlain admitted, "but a remission of the increased duty would cost me £10,000,000 for the present year.
One of the most important revelations of the budget was that Great Britain will not return to the gold standard in the near future.
The Chancellor said, however, that he had been 4 driven to the conclusion that if Great Britain is to avoid peril-ong fluctuations of the pound sterling, gold reserves must be built, up. i "It is essential for us to bu id up adequate reserves of gold for foreign exchange," Mr. Chamberlain declared.
Therefore, it is proposed to wind up our old exchange account and use its 1 assets in the establishment of a new account to be cal the "Exchange Equalisation Account "Mr, Chamberlain said that would ask the house for authorisation to borrow £150,000,000 to strengthen the proposed new account, Mr, Chamberlain indicated clearly that' Great "Britain is counting strongly upon the Lausanne Coi to bring about a read)
not cancellation, of prepara.
war debts.
'In one respect the budget fulfilled the expectations of the public, and that was in the announcement' of a duty, of four pence a pound foreign tea and two. pence a pound on ten produced within the Empire.
The House of Commons convened, ay usual, at 245 o'clock this after=
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.